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Can the NBA’s stadium networks handle live Google Glass camera views?

April 7, 2014 by

STR coverThe news that NBA teams are now partnering with San Francisco’s CrowdOptic to deliver Google Glass views to stadium big screens is a pretty interesting development to contemplate, on the heels of our Stadium Tech Report for Q1 2014, which looks at wireless network deployments in NBA stadiums. Done in a team-approved, controlled fashion, a few Google Glass streams could be pretty interesting. But CrowdOptic’s capabilities, as I understand them, are much bigger, and could theoretically allow for fans to see what other fans are seeing, if both are wearing Google Glass. The question we have for that latter idea is: Can the stadium networks handle all that traffic?

A good place to start to figure out the answer to that question is by downloading our Stadium Tech Report for Q1 2014, available free right now from our site. The 35-page PDF report delivers a capsule profile of each and every NBA team and whether or not it has Wi-Fi and DAS services in its stadiums. In our research we found Wi-Fi to be almost universal, with 79 percent — or 23 of 29 NBA facilities — all having fan-facing Wi-Fi. There is also a DAS (Distributed Antenna System) for enhanced cellular in almost every arena, and the ones that don’t have it are either installing it now or plan to soon.

But can those networks handle a crowd of Google Glass wearers, all broadcasting video of their court views? A good question for the next report, maybe. But you’ll need to know what the current network deployment situation is first, so… DOWNLOAD THE REPORT!

Filed Under: 4G LTE, DAS, Google, NBA, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Stadium Tech Report: St. Louis’ Edward Jones Dome taps Mobilitie for DAS deployment

April 6, 2014 by

Edward Jones Dome

Edward Jones Dome

You can add the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis to the list of large, public facilities with a common No. 1 complaint from visitors: Why doesn’t my cell phone work?

“People get really anxious when they can’t get a signal,” said Marty Brooks, senior vice president and general manager of the Edward Jones Dome and the adjacent America’s Center convention complex. “It’s been our number one complaint, that people can’t connect.”

To address its connectivity issues, the team in charge of IT at the 66,000-seat stadium that is home to the NFL’s Rams and the adjacent 500,000-square-foot convention center enlisted wireless infrastructure supplier Mobilitie to install a neutral-host distributed antenna system (DAS), which should be operational this summer. At that point, cellular reception for customers of all the major carriers should improve drastically, even in the concrete hallways and closed meeting rooms of the connected facilities.

“Like many facilities that are 10 years old or older, we were not prepared for the [wireless] demands that the public and our clients have brought,” Brooks said in a recent phone interview. “It was a no-brainer for us to upgrade. We knew we had to.”

DAS first, another common theme

Marty Brooks, senior vice president and general manager, Edward Jones Dome

Marty Brooks, senior vice president and general manager, Edward Jones Dome

Aside from the connectivity issues, the deployment schedule Brooks and his team chose – DAS first – is also in line with many other facilities. Though Wi-Fi services often get more public attention due to the perhaps wider understanding of the technology, according to Mobile Sports Report’s 2013 State of the Stadium Technology Survey, most large public facilities that are installing new wireless infrastructure put a priority on DAS, perhaps because it alleivates the most pressing problem, that of having no connection at all.

“Our first priority was to address [basic] cellular, because we felt we could mobilize that deployment faster,” said Brooks. Though the facility, which opened in 1995, also hopes to bring Wi-Fi in, Brooks said the early negotiations confirms his beliefs that installing Wi-Fi is a longer process.

“We hope to get Wi-Fi installed in a couple years,” Brooks said. “But DAS will bring an immediate marked improvement.”

Staying in Neutral

Though the largest wireless carriers in the U.S., especially AT&T and Verizon Wireless, often like to lead or build DAS installations they are a part of, Brooks said that the St. Louis arena and convention center – which is owned by the St. Louis Regional Sports Authority and operated by the St. Louis Convention/Visitors Bureau – knew it wanted a third-party DAS operator.

“We felt the [DAS] backbone should be built like Switzerland,” said Brooks, who said that carrier groups were not even allowed to bid for the system’s construction. In the end the complex went with Mobilitie, a firm whose long track record of putting DAS into large public venues helped Brooks and his team move confidently forward.

Christos Karmis, president, Mobilitie

Christos Karmis, president, Mobilitie

“Mobilitie has good relationships with all the carriers, and they had the experience we were looking for,” Brooks said.

“Our focus has always been to be a good partner with [wireless] carriers,” said Christos Karmis, president of Mobilitie, in a recent phone interview. One of the benefits a facility owner or operator gets when they work with a neutral provider like Mobilitie is the accumulated knowledge gained by doing many large-venue deployments, and the internal resources to have staff who knows the differences in needs between the major carriers.

“We have people who are 100 percent dedicated to each of the different carriers, and how their technology changes from year to year,” Karmis said. “You have to stay up to speed or even ahead of it. If not, you end up in a situation where [the DAS] is not deployed right and the carriers don’t move onto the system.”

Antennas easy, cabling hard

According to Brooks, the easy part of the DAS installation is the deployment of the actual antennas. The hard part, he said, is stringing all the cable necessary to bring signals to the antennas, especially in the “dark” areas like long concrete-walled hallways and the convention center’s many internal meeting rooms.

Edward Jones Dome at night

Edward Jones Dome at night

“Pulling all the wire is very difficult and time consuming,” Brooks said. “We need to make sure that the media members who are working back at the end of dark corridors, or the suite holders in the backs of their suites, all have the ability to connect with their cell phones. Same with the all the attendees in our convention halls. We need to bring [wireless] access to all the inner spaces of a steel and concrete building.”

For its DAS operations, the facility has a 1,700-square foot enclosure with all the necessary HVAC and electricity. Brooks said stadium owners and operators need to “be creative” in finding spaces for DAS gear, which has only grown larger the past few years with the 4G LTE network deployments from all the major carriers.

Planning for crowds beyond the game

Unlike other stadiums that exist by themselves, the combination of arena and convention center makes for some unusual crowd gatherings, Brooks said, including a half-dozen or so times a year when the 66,000-seat stadium is at capacity while another 25,000 to 30,000 people are at the convention center.

But just like they expect their team to win no matter who the opponent is, Brooks said Rams fans also expect their phones to work on game day – and they aren’t shy about letting his team know if their performance isn’t a winning one.

“There’s such a level of expectation for the service we have to provide – and the fans are not shy about letting us know,” Brooks said. “But we told them, we’re committed to making this happen.”

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, MSR Guides, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

AT&T Park gets more Wi-Fi, new DAS backend, and iBeacon… plus seat upgrade app

March 28, 2014 by

Generally recognized as perhaps the best-connected sports stadium anywhere, AT&T Park in San Francisco will greet fans for the 2014 baseball season with upgrades to make the technology experience even better than before, with upgraded Wi-Fi and DAS, as well as Apple’s new iBeacon technology.

In a press release sent out earlier this week the Giants said that they and partner AT&T had been busy this offseason adding upgrades to the Wi-Fi network that has hosted more than 1.85 million visitors since it first went online in 2004. According to the Giants the park now has 1,289 access points for its free Wi-Fi service, second in number only to the Dallas Cowboys’ home, cavernous AT&T Stadium in Dallas.

On the DAS side of things AT&T Park now has a completely new headend system that fully supports both AT&T and Verizon versions of 4G LTE signals. According to the release T-Mobile and Sprint services will join the DAS later this year.

Like many other MLB parks the Giants’ home will now feature Apple’s iBeacon technology, which is basically low-power Bluetooth connections that can communicate with nearby Apple iOS7 devices. Though phones may now run out of juice quicker at the park if you need to leave both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on, it should be interesting to see how fans respond to the iBeacon deployments, whether they find them helpful or annoying. MSR will keep following the iBeacon deployments through the year, and we encourage any and all fans who use the system to tell us how it worked.

This year the Giants will also be working in partnership with the Pogoseat app for instant at-the-game ticket upgrades. The feature will be available in the Giants version of MLB’s At the Ballpark app, where Giants fans will be able to search for better seats to pay for while at the park. Of course you can always try the time-honored method of just sneaking into empty seats in later innings of the game, but there is no app for that.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, Baseball, DAS, iOS 7, Major League Baseball, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

AT&T upgrades DAS for 4G LTE at FedExForum in time for NCAA Sweet Sixteen

March 27, 2014 by

When tonight’s games in the Sweet Sixteen round of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament South regional tip off, fans at FedExForum in Memphis, fans there with AT&T cell phone contracts will benefit from a recent upgrade to the arena’s Distributed Antenna System (DAS) to support AT&T’s new 4G LTE service.

If you read through our latest Stadium Tech Report for Q1 2014, you would know that FedExForum already has public Wi-Fi service as well as a DAS; the new AT&T upgrade specifically targets Ma Bell’s new 4G LTE network, which runs on different frequencies than AT&T’s older cellular channels.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Stadium Tech Report: Is the NBA the stadium Wi-Fi winner?

March 27, 2014 by

STR coverWith fan-facing Wi-Fi available in 23 of its 29 team facilities, it appears on paper that the National Basketball Association — the NBA — is the U.S. leader among pro sports leagues when it comes to stadium Wi-Fi. But if only a few of those same stadiums are actively promoting Wi-Fi or delivering advanced wireless services, is that title valid? For the answer or at least some informed conjecture, we point you to our inaugural Stadium Tech Report long-form issue, our Q1 2014 report which focuses on, you guessed it, Wi-Fi and wireless deployments in NBA stadiums.

Available now for free download, the 35-page PDF report delivers a capsule profile of each and every NBA team and whether or not it has Wi-Fi and DAS services in its stadiums. To spoil the fun a little, I will let you know that we found Wi-Fi to be almost universal, with 79 percent — or 23 of 29 NBA facilities — all having fan-facing Wi-Fi. (To save you time I will list the non-Wi-Fi stadiums here: Miami, Denver, Utah, Atlanta, Minnesota and Milwaukee.) There is also a DAS (Distributed Antenna System) for enhanced cellular in almost every arena, and the ones that don’t have it are either installing it now or plan to soon. But as we noted in the lead, even with all this connectivity, there are just a handful of teams who are really utilizing their wireless services to improve the fan experience. That measured embrace of wireless services makes us wonder why many teams are reluctant to promote the assets already installed.

Profiling the leaders

I could tell you more but — why not download the report? We put a lot of effort into this report, which is designed as a “lean back” type of publication, the kind of thing you can refer to over and over again as a reference, or as a resource to study when you need a break from Twitter and email. In addition to the team-by-team capsules we also have included three in-depth profiles of wireless deployment leaders, including the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the Staples Center in Los Angeles, and Orlando’s Amway Center. There is also report-based analysis of the league’s wireless situation from yours truly, plus an industry thought-leader perspective from our friend Seth Buechley at SOLiD, on why facilities should use wireless technology to improve fan safety, a sometimes overlooked amenity that deserves more attention.

I’ll be talking here more about the report this week and next, but first and foremost I’d like to thank our sponsors, whose contributions make it possible for us to offer this time-consuming research and analysis for free to our readers. Along with SOLiD, who sponsored our State of the Stadium report last year, for our Stadium Tech Report Q1 issue we’d like to welcome Extreme Networks, Crown Castle and AmpThink, whose support of our efforts are deeply appreciated.

We also truly appreciate our readers, who have increased in considerable number the past few months. There’s no magic as to why we’re growing — starting last November, we started telling more of your stories, stories of stadium deployments with lessons learned, failures overcome and enthusiastic steps taken — in a series we started calling Stadium Tech Reports. Those stories have resonated, and we hope that this new long-form report series will too, as the format allows for a bit of leg-stretching and an easier way for our readers to share our stories — your stories — with your professional circles.

One favor to ask — please register!

With growth and change there is always a little bit of pain, and for our readers there is one task that we ask — that you register with us to download the new report, so we can better serve you going forward. (And instead of just forwarding the report, please ask your professional circle to go ahead and register too!)

We realize that many of you may have recently spent a little bit of time filling out a registration form to download our previous report, and we thank you for that effort. But with the new growth in readership we’ve had to step up our game as well and that meant biting the bullet to put in a new registration system that will allow us to provide a robust “gated” content system for our registered readers, meaning that for all the rest of the reports and other exclusive content we have planned for this year and beyond (it’s a growing list!) you won’t need to keep filling out forms.

Even though our report is bound up in a PDF, we realize that any such publication is always a “work in progress,” so please if you have any updates, corrections, suggestions or any other opinions, feel free to leave them here in the comments, or email me directly at kaps at mobilesportsreport.com. We have lots more in store for the stadium technology market this year, so register today so that you don’t miss a thing as the 2014 season rolls on.

Filed Under: DAS, MSR Guides, NBA, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ruckus will provide Wi-Fi for new MLS Earthquakes stadium in San Jose

March 24, 2014 by

Ruckus Wireless has scored a deal to provide a Wi-Fi network for the San Jose Earthquakes, in the team’s new 18,000-seat stadium slated to open in 2015.

The sponsorship agreement will see Ruckus designing and supplying the high-capacity Wi-Fi network in the new stadium, which will be located on Coleman Avenue in San Jose, near the city airport. According to Ruckus the network will use more than 150 of the company’s Ruckus ZoneFlex access points. David Callisch, vice president of corporate marketing for Ruckus, said the deal is a “partnership” with the Earthquakes, with Ruckus providing both some equipment discounts and technical and marketing assistance to make sure the network works well and is readily discovered by the fans coming to the arena.

“This is an exciting project that our fans can look forward to utilizing at our new stadium,” said Earthquakes president Dave Kaval, in a prepared statement. “We want our stadium to reflect our community, and technological innovation is a key component of Silicon Valley. Ruckus Wireless is a great fit because of their local roots and experience working not just with Silicon Valley Wi-Fi network deployments, but with these types of deployments around the world.”

The San Jose deal adds to a growing list of soccer stadium deployment wins for Ruckus, which already provides Wi-Fi at 20,000-seat plus Rio Tinto Stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah (home of the MLS Real Salt Lake club) as well as at several venues in Brazil being readied for the upcoming World Cup. Ruckus also provides the Wi-Fi at Time-Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, N.C., home of the NBA’s Bobcats, and was also behind a new Wi-Fi network at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Calif.

Callisch said the free app at the BNP Open, which allowed fans to watch live video of matches at courts other than the one they were sitting in front of, was the kind of in-stadium use that a cellular DAS just can’t handle.

“A 4G signal is just not suitable for something like high-quality video,” said Callisch. “You really need Wi-Fi for high capacity applications.”

Though Ruckus does sell gear for regular, indoor office-type networks, its line of advanced access points with directional antennas make it a good fit for stadium venues, where being able to fine-tune coverage is a necessity.

Ruckus, which went public on Nov. 16 of 2012, finished its fiscal 2013 year with $263.1 million in revenue, a 22.6 percent increase from the previous year. Its Q4 revenues were $73.0 million. Though Callisch wouldn’t break out what part of that total stadium and other large-venue contracts represent, he did say they all helped the bottom line.

Though large venue deals may involve discounts and other charges for marketing or extra technical help, Callisch did say that any time you deliver equipment in the hundreds, it’s a good business deal.

“We make money on all the [stadium] deals,” Callisch said. “It’s a growing vertical market for us.”

Filed Under: DAS, MLS, Soccer, Tennis, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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