MSR Guides – Page 6

New Report: Super Bowl 50’s super wireless, under-seat Wi-Fi feature and more!

March 2, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The record-setting wireless network consumption at Super Bowl 50 is one of the lead topics in our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, our long-form publication that takes an in-depth look at the most important news of the stadium technology world, alongside some great in-depth profiles of successful stadium technology deployments. Download your free copy today!

With fans consuming 26 terabytes of wireless data — 15.9 TB on the stadium’s distributed antenna system (DAS) and another 10.1 on the Wi-Fi network — the Super Bowl provided the ultimate test for the Levi’s Stadium wireless infrastructure, one that the venue passed with flying colors. One unique factor of the stadium’s wireless deployment, under-seat antennas for both the DAS and the Wi-Fi networks, is covered in-depth in our most recent issue, with a feature story about how under-seat deployments got started, and why they may become the default antenna placement for large public venues going forward.

Also in the issue: A profile of Wi-Fi and associated mobile device strategies at the University of Wisconsin, including geo-fencing for fan marketing at away games; a close-up look at the wireless infrastructure at the Denver Broncos’ Sports Authority Field at Mile High; a profile of the new Wi-Fi network at the Montreal Canadiens’ Bell Centre; and a look at some new social-media strategies deployed by the Miami Dolphins. All this information is available now for FREE DOWNLOAD so get your copy today!

We’d like to thank our Stadium Tech Report sponsors, who make this great content free for readers thanks to their support. For our Q1 issue our sponsors include Mobilitie, Crown Castle, CommScope, Samsung, Corning, JMA Wireless, Aruba, SOLiD, Xirrus and 5 Bars.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, About MSR, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, MSR Guides, NFL, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 50, under seat Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Levi’s Stadium crowd sets single-day Wi-Fi record with 10.1 TB used at Super Bowl 50

February 9, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Broncos fans celebrate during Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: LevisStadium.com

The 71,088 fans at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl 50 helped set a single-day record for Wi-Fi usage, with 10.1 terabytes of traffic on the stadium network, according to the NFL and the San Francisco 49ers network staff.

According to figures provided to us by Roger Hacker, senior manager for corporate communications for the Niners, the Super Bowl 50 crowd broke last year’s previous Wi-Fi record of 6.23 TB by halftime, and ended up with the 10.1 total after recording traffic from 6 a.m. local time until 11 p.m. Of that total, 9.3 TB was used by fans on the free Super Bowl network and another 453 GB was used by media at the game. The remainder of 370 GB was used on dedicated internal operations networks, Hacker said.

When the Wi-Fi number is added to the 15.9 TB of cellular data used at the game, the total of 26.0 TB of wireless traffic is fairly stunning, and perhaps a wake-up call to current network operators at large public venues or those designing new ones, signifying that the usage pattern for mobile data at big events is still growing rapidly, with no top yet in sight.

Levi’s Stadium also set other Super Bowl connectivity records, the first by recording 27,316 unique Wi-Fi users and 20,300 concurrent users (set at 5:55pm PT), topping the previous Super Bowl records from last year of 25,936 uniques and 17,322 concurrent users, respectively. The previous max for concurrent Wi-Fi users at Levi’s Stadium was 18,901 for the stadium’s inaugural regular season game vs. the Chicago Bears on Sept. 14, 2014. At that game, the stadium saw 3.3 TB of Wi-Fi use.

Also new records for sustained connectivity and average use

While we’re still waiting for news about usage of the Super Bowl stadium app, there are some more record-setting stats to note: According to the stadium IT figures, the big-bandwidth day also saw a Levi’s Stadium record for peak Wi-Fi bandwidth used at 3.67 Gbps — this number is the total amount of bandwidth going through the network at a single moment in time, in this case at 3:25 p.m. Pacific Time. The previous record was a mark of 3.55 Gbps set during the Coors Light Stadium Series hockey game on Feb. 21, 2015, a night when not everything went well on the stadium-network side.

Sunday at Super Bowl 50 there were no apparent big glitches, with some Twitter complainers noting that stadium network technicians were quick to respond to any mentions of network downtime. Bandwidth provider Comcast has an interesting infographic of game-day data use, and said the peaks in Wi-Fi network activity happened during the following list of Super Bowl moments:

The 10 moments that generated the most data traffic at the stadium included:

The introduction of the 50 Super Bowl MVPs

Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem and the Blue Angels flyover

The opening kickoff

The first coach’s challenge

Von Miller’s forced fumble and the first touchdown of the game by Malik Jackson

The halftime show with Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars

Von Miller’s second forced fumble and C.J. Anderson’s game-sealing touchdown

Peyton Manning exiting the field and Gary Kubiak’s Gatorade shower

The Lombardi Trophy presentation

Using apps to get back home and to hotels

For those who are interested, here is our updated list of the top five big-venue single-day Wi-Fi records. If anyone has one to add to this list, please let us know!

1) 10.1 TB — Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016
2) 6.23 TB — Super Bowl XLIX, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015
3) 5.7 TB — Alabama vs. Texas A&M, Kyle Field, College Station, Texas, Oct. 17, 2015
4) 4.93 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 12, 2015
5) 4.9 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Jan. 11, 2016

Congrats to the Niners, the NFL, Aruba, Comcast, and Brocade, as well as DAS Group Professionals, DAS gear supplier JMA Wireless and all the major cellular carriers, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, who all made exceptional efforts to ensure great connectivity for fans across the board.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, DAS, Levi's Stadium, MSR Guides, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 50, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Your Levi’s Stadium technology primer: Everything you need to know about wireless technology at the site of Super Bowl 50!

January 24, 2016 by Paul Kapustka 2 Comments

Scoreboard promo for the Levi’s Wi-Fi network, from 2014 season. All photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

With Super Bowl 50 two weeks away there is going to be increased interest about whether or not Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., host site of the event, is “the most technologically advanced” athletic venue. Here at Mobile Sports Report, we have spent the better part of the last two years researching and reporting on Levi’s Stadium and all its technical components, attending multiple events and compiling all the known statistics we can find, to present as complete and as honest an assessment as possible, from a completely objective perspective, about the technology found at Levi’s Stadium.

So what’s our verdict? As we see it, there are three main features that set Levi’s Stadium aside from most others, and qualify it for consideration as one of the most technologically advanced large public venues: The stadium’s Wi-Fi network, its distributed antenna system, or DAS, and the integrated Levi’s Stadium app, which takes advantage of a large network of beacons to provide wayfinding and other location-based features. Though some of the components, like the Wi-Fi network, may not be the fastest or largest around, it’s our opinion that the sum of the parts puts Levi’s Stadium at or near the top of any well-connected stadium list; but the 2-year-old venue’s real test won’t come until Super Sunday, when we’ll all see if the networks, apps and personnel performance can live up to the stress of one of sport’s biggest events.

For anyone who wants to know the exhaustive details behind the technology, we’ve included in this story links to all of our Levi’s Stadium stories we think are pertinent, to help other writers or interested sports-tech types get a grip on what’s really going to be technologically available to the 72,000 or so fans who show up on Feb. 7 to watch the NFL’s 50th annual big game.

For starters, here is the first part of a feature we did at the start of the season about how Levi’s Stadium was getting ready for Super Bowl 50. Though we expect some more news next week about late additions, this article pretty much sums up the first-year performance and the tweaks the San Francisco 49ers made to their home-stadium’s wireless infrastructure. And here is the second part of the feature, which focuses more on the stadium’s excellent app, which we’ll talk more about later.

Fans take pictures at Levi’s Stadium, opening day 2014 season.

Wi-Fi: It’s good, but is it the best?

The Wi-Fi in the stadium is pretty good, among the best out there anywhere, but probably not the biggest or fastest network in all the land. Though the Aruba-gear network was innovative for its heavy use of under-seat Wi-Fi APs and the 1,200 APs it had for its first year, other stadiums are meeting or beating those numbers, and under-seat deployments are now becoming quite trendy for venues that want fast, wide connectivity. With slightly more than 1,200 APs now, the Levi’s Stadium Wi-Fi network has seen some big-traffic days for Wi-Fi, including the stadium’s NFL regular-season opener and a WrestleMania event last year.

Among stadiums we’ve seen, AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, has more Wi-Fi APs and is a bigger place (by about 30,000 in capacity for football) so it had more overall Wi-Fi traffic than Levi’s the past couple years. And Kyle Field’s new network down at Texas A&M is the fastest we’ve seen anywhere, and already has had a bigger Wi-Fi traffic day than Levi’s Stadium. And we haven’t yet visited Miami’s Sun Life Stadium but they get a lot of wireless traffic there too. So while Levi’s Stadium may be among the best, we’re not quite sure it is at the top of the list, at least when it comes to sheer Wi-Fi connectivity.

We might change our tune if the Super Bowl 50 crowd can top last year’s Super Bowl Wi-Fi traffic total of 6.23 terabytes, recorded at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. But so far the biggest total recorded at Levi’s Stadium was 4.5 TB seen at the WrestleMania 31 event last March. From our unofficial observations, the “top 5” list of most single-day Wi-Fi events we know of are:

1) 6.23 TB — Super Bowl XLIX, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015
2) 5.7 TB — Alabama vs. Texas A&M, Kyle Field, College Station, Texas, Oct. 17, 2015
3) 4.93 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 12, 2015
4) 4.9 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Jan. 11, 2016
5) 4.5 TB — WrestleMania 31, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., March 31, 2015

For what it’s worth, Super Bowl XLVIII in MetLife Stadium used only 3.2 TB of Wi-Fi, so it will be interesting to see what happens with the growth curve at SB50. In addition to total data “tonnage” there is also an interesting observation about how much data is used per fan, on average. When we get the stats back from Super Bowl Sunday it will be interesting to see if the smaller crowd at Levi’s Stadium will have used more data per connected person, a good reflection of both the carrying capacity of the network and the ease of connecting and staying connected to the Wi-Fi.

Replacing the entire DAS for better cellular connectivity

What is often confusing to non-tech types who try to write about stadium wireless is realizing that there are often two separate networks, Wi-Fi and cellular, operating in the same venue. While many fans actively seek out Wi-Fi, many game-day attendees either don’t bother or don’t know how to connect to Wi-Fi, and so just use their phones like they do anywhere else. To make sure they still have a strong signal, wireless carriers and venues often team up to deploy a distributed antenna system, or DAS, which is basically a bunch of small antennas located inside the venue that act just like a big cell tower, connecting phones to the nearest antenna.

Close-up of new DAS antennas (from mid-July, before the wires were connected)

At Levi’s Stadium, integrator DAS Group Professionals (DGP) built a “neutral host” DAS for the stadium, which means the team owns the infrastructure and rents out space to carriers so they can connect to customers inside the building. One of the more interesting twists this past offseason was that DGP ripped out and replaced the entire DAS network it built the year before, at the behest of its customers, the major cellular providers. Why? According to DGP, the cell providers — who paid for the upgrade — are expecting as much as 2.5 times more cellular data at this year’s Super Bowl compared to last year, huge numbers that they were afraid might overwhelm the system installed in 2014.

During a stadium tour this summer, MSR saw that the main Levi’s Stadium head end (where the telecom gear that connects the stadium to the outside networks lives) was being doubled in size, so by any stretch cell connectivity should be good if not great during the big game. DGP was also supposed to be increasing cell coverage outside the stadium in the parking lots, but so far we haven’t heard any reports if reception was better this year than last.

At big events like the Super Bowl, the big wireless carriers will spend like crazy to make sure there are no reports of “phones not working,” so the DAS upgrades have become somewhat par for the course. AT&T said that it spent $25 million on wireless infrastructure improvements in the greater Bay area, including expanding its DAS operations inside Levi’s Stadium to allow them to handle 150 percent more traffic. You can expect that Verizon was spending some similar dollars, so rest assured, if you are there your phone will more likely than not find a signal.

What will the app let you do?

The biggest question remaining about the technological underpinnings of Super Bowl 50 — at least as of Sunday night — is whether or not all the features from the regular-season Levi’s Stadium app will make it into the mix for the Super Bowl, especially the one that really sets Levi’s Stadium apart, the ability to order food to be delivered to any seat in the stadium.

Though we’ve been given a “head nod” that the service will be available for Super Sunday, we haven’t yet received any official notice of what’s going to be in the game-day app either from app provider VenueNext or the NFL. This season Niners fans at home games could not only order food and drinks for themselves, they could order and pay for food to be delivered to friends in the stadium, something we noted in our season preview of changes to the groundbreaking Levi’s Stadium app.

App showing ability to buy pricey parking ticket for your RV

If there is some doubt whether the league and the stadium might not make food-delivery available for the Super Bowl, it might have to do with the fact that at one of last year’s “big events” at Levi’s Stadium, the NHL’s Stadium Series outdoor hockey game, the food-delivery service melted down in the face of a massive amount of orders and a too-low level of human staffing. But our guess is that eventually (maybe this week?) we will hear that the Super Bowl app will embrace all the features of the regular Levi’s Stadium game-day app, including in-seat delivery.

What many fans at the game may find even more useful is the app’s ability to provide wayfinding capabilities through a mapping feature that uses the 2,000+ Bluetooth beacons installed throughout the venue to provide live wayfinding, just like how Google Maps shows your car as a blue dot driving down the highway. With many attendees most likely visiting the stadium for the first time, having the ability to find your way around via your device may be the most welcome reason to download the app. Fans should also be able to watch in-stadium replays seconds after plays happen, and may also be able to watch Super Bowl broadcast commercials via their mobile device. Stay tuned for more “official” announcements of app capabilities as we hear them.

In case you haven’t heard enough, here are a few more links from our in-person visits to Levi’s Stadium for Niners home games during the 2014 season.

Niners’ home opener tops Super Bowl for Wi-Fi data traffic with 3.3 Terabytes (Sept. 16, 2014)

Levi’s Stadium ‘NiNerds’ get high-visibility wardrobe upgrade (Nov. 23, 2014)

Stadium Tech Report: Network finishes season strong at Niners’ Levi’s Stadium (Jan. 12, 2015)

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Comcast, DAS, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, MSR Guides, NFL, Sprint, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, VenueNext, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Carolina Panthers, DAS, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 50, Super Bowl app, VenueNext, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

New Report: Is Texas A&M’s $20 million, all-optical DAS and Wi-Fi the fastest stadium network out there?

December 14, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

One of the many maxed-out speed tests we took at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field. All photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

Is there a combined stadium Wi-Fi and DAS deployment that is as fast as the one found at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field? If so we haven’t seen or heard of it.

In fact, after reviewing loads of live network-performance data of Kyle Field’s new Wi-Fi and DAS in action, and after maxing out the top levels on our speed tests time after time during an informal walk-around on a game day, we’ve come to the conclusion that Kyle Field has itself a Spinal Tap of a wireless deployment. Meaning, that if other stadium networks stop at 10, this one goes to 11.

Movie references aside, quite simply, by the numbers Kyle Field’s wireless network performance is unequaled by any other large public venue’s we’ve tested in terms of raw speed and the ability to deliver bandwidth. With DAS and Wi-Fi speed measurements ranging between 40 Mbps and 60+ Mbps pretty much everywhere we roamed inside the 102,512-seat venue, it’s a safe bet to say that the school’s desire to “build the best network” in a stadium hit its goal as best as it could. And since the school spent “north of $20 million” on the network, perhaps it’s no surprise that it’s the fastest anywhere.

Our full profile of our in-depth visit to College Station to see this network in action can be found in our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, our COLLEGE FOOTBALL ISSUE for 2015. You can download the report for free, right now! In addition to the Texas A&M profile you will find in-depth looks at wireless deployments at Kansas State, Ole Miss, Oklahoma and the venerable Rose Bowl — so download your copy today!

See the white dots? Those are under-seat Wi-Fi APs

Audible to optical made the difference

Inside our latest 40+ page report you will get a full breakdown on how the Texas A&M network came to be — in an exclusive interview with Phillip Ray, Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs at The Texas A&M University System, you hear for the first time how much the Kyle Field network cost — “north of $20 million” — as well as how much the top two wireless carriers paid to be a part of it. Want to know? Then download the report!

And while the Kyle Field story is our lead article, that’s not all you’ll find in our latest in-depth exploration of stadium technology deployments. Reporter Terry Sweeney checks out the new DAS deployment blanketing Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, perhaps one of the toughest old-style stadium construction challenges to try to bring in wireless coverage. We also have profiles of Wi-Fi deployments at Kansas State and at Ole Miss, and a feature about covering RV parking lots with Wi-Fi at the University of Oklahoma. To top it all off we have some Wi-Fi cost/benefit analysis from yours truly, and a bonus photo feature by photographer Phil Harvey, who accompanied MSR for a recent visit to AT&T Stadium.

We’d like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors, which for this issue include Mobilitie, Crown Castle, SOLiD, CommScope, Aruba (a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company), JMA Wireless, Corning, 5 Bars, Extreme Networks, and ExteNet Systems. Their generous sponsorship makes it possible for us to offer this content free of charge to our readers. We’d also like to thank you for your interest and continued support. Thanks for reading and enjoy the COLLEGE FOOTBALL ISSUE!

Kyle Field at kickoff.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, MSR Guides, NCAA Football, Rose Bowl, SEC, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Aruba, AT&T, AT&T Stadium, Boingo Wireless, C Spire, Corning, DAS, iBM, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Ole Miss, Paul Kapustka, Rose Bowl, Stadium Wi-Fi, Texas A&M, Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Stadium Tech Report: Kansas State taps Boingo, Aruba for new Wi-Fi and DAS networks

November 19, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Kansas State’s Bill Snyder Family Stadium, now home to a new Wi-Fi and DAS network. All Photos: Kansas State, Boingo Wireless (click on any photo for a larger image)

When Kansas State University took on the self-imposed challenge of delivering “the best fan experience in the Big 12” a couple years ago, it was clear that something had to be done about the lack of wireless connectivity in its largest sports venues.

Before this football season, KSU took a big step forward in living up to its goals by partnering with Boingo Wireless and Aruba Networks to bring stadium-wide Wi-Fi and DAS networks for fans to the Bill Snyder Family Stadium, with plans to follow up with similar connectivity for Bramlage Coliseum, the school’s basketball arena. With 380 Wi-Fi access points and 200-plus DAS antennas in Snyder Stadium, fans there will no longer have to complain about not being able to get a signal, a problem that reached a tipping point last year, according to the K-State network staff.

According to Scott Garrett, the senior associate athletic director for external operations, the idea of fan-facing Wi-Fi or improved cellular via a DAS (distributed antenna system) had been talked about internally since 2008 or 2009, especially so when the stadium underwent significant construction revisions in 2012. Built in 1967, the football stadium had expanded to its current capacity of 50,000 fans, who in the last couple years started letting the school know that “no signal” was no fun.

“Our [yearly] fan survey, especially the last couple years, had a growing feedback about the inability to connect [at the stadium],” Garrett said. Back in 2010 and 2011, there really wasn’t a hue and cry, but “every year since then, the negative feedback [about connectivity] had doubled,” Garrett said. “It was really painful after last season.”

Antennas visible on top of stands

Building two networks at once

What fans didn’t know last year was that a plan was already in place to fix the issue, thanks to an RFP crafted by the athletics department and the campus telecom office. After sorting through several candidates, including carrier-driven DAS-only plans, Kansas State went with Boingo Wireless as the lead deployer for both a DAS and a Wi-Fi network, with rental revenues from the former helping offset the deployment costs of the latter.

“Boingo has a lot of experience in the [stadium] marketplace, and their financial model allows us to install a DAS and get money to build a Wi-Fi network,” Garrett said. Even though the deal was signed in 2014, the complexity of bringing new networks to older buildings was such that the target date for launch became the start of the 2015 football season.

Doug Lodder, vice president of business development at Boingo, said there was a “boatload of synergy” in doing both a DAS and a Wi-Fi network deployment at the same time. “Just knowing where antennas will be placed for either one makes both better,” Lodder said.

The biggest deployment challenges for both networks were in both end zones of the stadium, both of which have only one section of stands with no overhangs, making it tough to locate antennas. Without using under-seat antennas (“we are firm believers that going up from under is a last resort,” said Lodder) Lodder said Boingo was able to make its design work — “we found enough ways to get the APs in,” he said.

More antennas on an overhang

For the Wi-Fi network, Boingo used gear from Aruba Networks, a choice made in part because Aruba gear was already in use in other parts of the Kansas State campus.

For the DAS, Boingo used Teko gear from JMA Wireless. Currently Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile are on the DAS, with Garrett “hoping to add AT&T” sometime soon.

Another classic issue for many deployments in older stadiums, where to locate the head-end room, was solved for this season with a temporary structure since the proximity of the basketball arena — according to Garrett it sits about 30 yards beyond the football stadium’s south end zone — was just one of several factors putting a crimp on available head-end real estate.

“We’re still trying to figure out a permanent place for the head end,” Garrett said. “We just didn’t have room for it on the [existing] site.”

Soft launches and a new app

With construction taking place over the summer, Kansas State knew it couldn’t keep its network a secret. On Aug. 12, athletic director John Currie posted a letter on the K-State website, which in part told fans about the new networks being installed, as well as the availability of a new game day application, built by SportsLabs, a 2-year-old startup based in Boulder, Colo.

Screenshot of map on new K-State app.

Garrett said the “teaser” letter from the AD helped alert fans to the new connectivity options, and some started taking and sharing photos of the antennas during pre-season activities at the stadium. But just to make sure the launch didn’t overset expectations, Garrett said the KSU staff kept mostly silent through the first game of the season on Sept. 5, allowing them to have a bit of a “beta” type soft launch.

The go-slow start helped, he said, because it allowed network administrators to identify and correct a logon issue before the next home game. Garrett said Kansas State also monitors social media in real time, allowing for on-the-spot fixes when fans are having problems.

“We once saw two tweets about a problem in Section 9 [of the stadium] where some fans got kicked off the Wi-Fi,” Garrett said. “We were able to test and monitor and provide immediate feedback.”

Throughout the season, Garrett and his staff stepped up the promotion of the network, and drove fans to download the new game-day app, which includes interactive stadium maps and integrated access to social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram so fans can follow and post directly from the KSU app.

Rebecca Cameron, senior account director for SportsLabs, said that in addition to in-stadium use there is also a lot of app usage for fans who aren’t at the game, with the live game audio being the app’s most popular service. According to Cameron more than 4,000 fans have downloaded the app so far this season.

Garrett said KSU and SportsLabs will continue to add to the app, with a future eye on support of services like mobile concession ordering and instant replays. Garrett said Kansas State is a bit unusual for a big NCAA school in that it controls its own media rights, allowing it to make final decisions on technology providers.

The WIldcats take the field at Bill Snyder Family Stadium.

“We were looking for a more sophisticated digital effort, and we really liked what SportsLabs had to offer,” Garrett said. Though not widely known, SportsLabs is making a name for itself in the sports app and websites field, having already secured the College Football Playoff series as a customer, along with the University of Kentucky and the ACC and West Coast Conference.

The new network and all its trappings, Boingo’s Lodder said, places Kansas State among the leaders in the collegiate connectivity race, ahead of many larger schools in bigger media markets.

“A lot of Pac-12 schools haven’t put in Wi-Fi yet,” Lodder noted. “It’s interesting to see who is taking that first step.”

Kansas State’s Garrett is happy that the initial problem of no signal is solved, and is enjoying seeing what a high-definition network can produce.

“It’s incredible to go from having no ability to text or call at all to having that problem totally solved,” Garrett said. “Now it’s great to see how many people are getting on Facebook and Twitter, sharing with friends. We’re looking forward to expanding and seeing what other new things we can add.”

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Basketball, DAS, Facebook, Instagram, MSR Guides, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, Pac-12, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Aruba Networks, AT&T, Big 12, Bill Snyder Family Stadium, Boingo Wireless, DAS, Kansas State University, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, Sports social media, Stadium Wi-Fi, Twitter, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Stadium Tech Report: Wi-Fi arrives at the Green Bay Packers’ legendary Lambeau Field

November 10, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, now has Wi-Fi for fans. All photos: Green Bay Packers (click on any photo for a larger image)

When most NFL fans think of the Green Bay Packers and Lambeau Field, they think of frozen tundra – of Vince Lombardi roaming the sideline in his thick glasses and peaked hat, with visible breath coming through the face masks of behemoth linemen on the field. In the stands, they see the venerable fans braving the cold of northern Wisconsin in their snowmobile suits, with mittens wrapped around a bratwurst and a beer.

But do they think of those same Packers fans pulling out their iPhones and Samsungs to take selfies, and posting them to Instagram or Facebook? Maybe not so much.

The reality is, however, that in 2015, football fans in Green Bay are pretty much like fans anywhere else when it comes to wanting to use their mobile devices while at the game. So to make sure the Lambeau Field fan experience remains at the top of the league, the Packers teamed up with Extreme Networks and Verizon Wireless to bring a fan-facing Wi-Fi network to Lambeau this season, one that will likely be heavily used even at the risk of frostbitten fingers.

Editor’s note: The following profile is an excerpt from our most recent Stadium Tech Report, THE PRO FOOTBALL ISSUE. To get all the profiles in one place as well as our featured reports, interviews and analysis, download your free copy of the full report today.

Bringing the beast to the bowl

With more than 1,000 Wi-Fi access points installed throughout the stadium, the already-live network in Green Bay is the culmination of a 2-year project that started with an overhaul of the venue’s distributed antenna system (DAS), a task completed last year by Verizon, which acts as the DAS neutral host.

According to Wayne Wichlacz, director of information technology for the Packers, the second step of putting in and turning on a full-stadium Wi-Fi network required a lengthy search and qualification process, to ensure that the partners could deliver in the face of big challenges that exist in bringing wireless technology to a historic and legendary facility like Lambeau Field.

Wi-Fi APs visible on press box structure

Even the most casual of NFL fans probably has some knowledge of Lambeau Field, which has known more than its share of history since opening in 1957. The glory years of the Packers of the 1960s, when coach Lombardi and quarterback Bart Starr won the first two Super Bowls, helped cement the Green Bay “Titletown” lore, and the famous “Ice Bowl” game of Dec. 31, 1967, between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, gave birth to the “Frozen Tundra” nickname for the big concrete circle on Lombardi Avenue.

That big bowl, which has been added to significantly since its opening, now can seat 81,435 fans, making it the third-largest in NFL seating capacity, behind only AT&T Stadium in Dallas and MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Though Lambeau Field previously had Wi-Fi networks for internal business purposes as well as for some suite and premium seating, bringing Wi-Fi to the full stadium was a task of a different magnitude, Wichlacz said.

“It’s a different beast to bring [Wi-Fi] to the bowl,” Wichlacz said.

The two big challenges for Wi-Fi deployment at Lambeau revolved around aesthetics and placements; as a historic and legendary structure, extreme care needed to be taken to make sure Wi-Fi gear placements didn’t detract from the visual experience and old-time charm. And just to make that first task tougher was the challenge of finding enough places for Wi-Fi APs in a facility that is mainly a big open bowl, without much overhang space for mounting.

And don’t forget about the large amount of metal-bench seating, which took away the opportunity to install under-the-seat APs.

“There’s just not a lot of levels [in Lambeau] for us to do things,” Wichlacz said. “It was a real installation challenge.”

After putting out an RFP that took all the necessary considerations into play, Wichlacz said the Packers evaluated proposals from all the major players in the large public venue Wi-Fi gear market before finally settling on Extreme, which has a solid history of NFL stadium deployments. After picking Extreme in the middle of last year, construction got underway in early 2015, Wichlacz said.

On the Extreme side, the company knew it was deploying on the NFL equivalent of hallowed ground, said Norman Rice, executive vice president for marketing at Extreme.

“A lot of additional work went into the design, in part because Lambeau Field is a historical site and such an iconic part of the landscape in the NFL,” Rice said. “We did a lot of unique stuff to get to what a Packers fan expects.”

Yellow paint and handrail enclosures

If most NFL fans are familiar with the Packers’ traditional gold and green colors, so now are the Wi-Fi deployment teams from Extreme and the Packers, who spent a good part of the deployment time painting APs to blend in to the stadium scenery. That meant green for antennas mounted up against certain building sections, and the bright yellow for the handrail antennas that Extreme used to help bring signals down into the rows of the bowl.

“We did a lot of unique stuff,” said Extreme’s Rice. “There are some pretty cool enclosures, where the yellow blends right into the walls.”

“If you’re looking for it, you can probably find it,” said Wichlacz of the painted antennas. “But it blends in pretty good.”

Lambeau bench seating with railing-mounted Wi-Fi APs

To gain some important real estate for wireless components, the Packers and their partners actually relocated the team’s signage listing the names of Packers inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, raising it up one level and using it as a way to mask Wi-Fi and DAS gear.

“You can actually see the [names] better now, and we were able to put Wi-Fi and DAS antennas in there,” Rice said. “It’s a nice piece of work.”

All the aesthetic work had to also be blended with the technical requirements of antenna placement, to ensure good coverage without interference. Jacque Vallier, the Illinois/Wisconsin regional executive director of network for Verizon Wireless, compared Lambeau Field to the older college stadiums, the large concrete bowls that are among the hardest structures to bring services to.

“It definitely was an RF and engineering challenge,” said Vallier of the DAS design. Vallier said that AT&T is currently a client on the Verizon neutral DAS, which uses CommScope gear. The DAS also covers the parking lot areas outside Lambeau Field, where tailgating is a high art.

Separate SSID for Verizon Customers

Like other NFL deployments where Verizon is a major sponsor, the Lambeau Field Wi-Fi network will have two separate SSIDs, one reserved for Verizon Wireless customers, and the other for everyone else. According to Verizon’s Vallier, the Verizon subscribers will have access to about 40 percent of the Wi-Fi bandwidth, with some devices supporting automatic authentication to the service. Verizon and Extreme have a similar deployment at CenturyLink Field in Seattle.

According to Extreme’s Rice, the mix of network usage is tuned to ensure that all fans who are seeking Wi-Fi connectivity will have more than enough bandwidth. Both the Verizon-specific network and the public network (which run off the same Wi-Fi gear) will meet or exceed the NFL’s Wi-Fi requirements, he said.

“It’s done to ensure Verizon customers have a good connection, but not at the expense of other users,” Rice said of the split SSIDs. Verizon, which is a big sponsor of the NFL in general (including its $1 billion payment for live-action rights on smartphones for its NFL Mobile app), is also a sponsor of Wi-Fi networks at NFL stadiums in Detroit and Denver.

As a final Green Bay touch, the Extreme “Wi-Fi coaches” program, which trains people who wander the stands on game days helping fans to get connected to the network, will use area high school students as “coaches,” fitting right in with the family-friendly atmosphere that the Packers are famous for.

“It’s really going to be cool to tie the coaches program to the community through the schools,” Extreme’s Rice said. “It’s great fun to be part of that.”

Can’t test the network until the stadium’s full

When it comes to large public venue deployments, there is the Wi-Fi network you design on paper, the network you build, and then the network that happens when the venue fills up with users. Thanks to the mid-year completion of the Lambeau Field network, Wichlacz and his IT team were able to test the Wi-Fi network in several “beta” situations, which included a Kenny Chesney concert and a Brett Favre celebration that filled the bowl.

Wave the flag, Wi-Fi has come to Lambeau Field! Photos: Green Bay Packers

“Testing network theory versus having people [using the network] is night and day,” Wichlacz said. Live tests, he said, “give the engineering folks the ability to test and tweak. It’s definitely helpful to have those events.”

And if there was any doubt that fans at Lambeau Field want to use their devices, Verizon’s Vallier can help end the debate.

“During the second preseason game we saw more than 500 gigabytes of traffic [on the DAS],” Vallier said, noting that totals so far are pointing to be one-and-a-half times bigger than in 2014.

And though Wichlacz is reticent to provide exact Wi-Fi data usage numbers, Extreme’s Rice said one of the Packers’ preseason games recorded “one of the highest [Wi-Fi usage] numbers we’ve ever seen.”

That figure seems to answer a question Rice said the team had asked itself earlier, about whether or not the Green Bay Packers and their fans needed stadium Wi-Fi. “There was a time when they [the Packers] had a big question, about if it mattered,” Rice said. Now that the Wi-Fi network is in, he said, “it’s amazing to see how much people use it.”

Wichlacz noted that Packers fans may not need to worry about frozen fingers, since the team has more home games earlier in the season this year. But he also remembers Verizon stats from the DAS last season that showed usage didn’t go down that much when the temperature got cold.

So – if you make it to Lambeau Field from now on, make sure you soak in the atmosphere and if you care to, share it with the world via Wi-Fi – something you can do now with ease thanks to the hard work from the Packers and their partners.

“For our whole team here, it’s been a labor of love,” Wichlacz said. “We spent a lot of hours working on this. We’re excited to launch it, and correct it as we go.”

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Extreme Networks, MSR Guides, NFL, NFL Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Extreme Networks, Green Bay Packers, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, NFL Mobile, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi