U.S. Bank Stadium sees 31.2 TB of Wi-Fi data used during Final Four weekend

April 16, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The Final Four generated record Wi-Fi totals this year at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any picture for a larger image)

Fans at this year’s NCAA Men’s Final Four basketball tournament at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis used more than 31 terabytes of data on the Wi-Fi network during the championship weekend, with stadium records set in total single-day Wi-Fi usage and sustained data rates, and overall records set for concurrent connections and unique connections, according to figures from the NCAA.

The semifinal matches on April 6 between Auburn and Virginia and Texas Tech and Michigan State saw fans use the second-highest single-day Wi-Fi total we have seen reported, with 17.8 TB of data used. The Wi-Fi total surpassed the 16.31 TB of Wi-Fi data used in the same stadium during Super Bowl 52 on Feb. 4, 2018; only Super Bowl 53 this year at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, with 24.05 TB of Wi-Fi used, has seen a bigger data day (according to our unofficial list of such data events).

According to the NCAA figures, the network saw 51,227 unique users on Final Four Saturday, out of 72,711 in attendance. The 70 percent take rate just beats the 69 percent take rate seen at Super Bowl 53, an overall sign perhaps that bucket-event fans are increasingly turning to stadium Wi-Fi for connectivity. At Super Bowl 52 in U.S. Bank Stadium, there were 40,033 unique users on the Wi-Fi network (out of 67,612 in attendance), a take rate of 59 percent.

A familiar scene at the FInal Four — a fan recording their experience

The peak concurrent user number from Final Four Saturday of 31,141 was also an overall record, beating Super Bowl 53’s mark of 30,605. (Super Bowl 53 had 70,081 fans in attendance for the Feb. 3 game between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams.) The Wi-Fi network numbers for Monday’s championship game (won by Virginia 85-77 over Texas Tech in overtime) saw big numbers itself, with 13.4 TB of total data used, and 48,449 unique connections and 29,487 peak concurrent users (out of 72,062 in attendance). Monday’s game also produced a peak throughput number of 11.2 Gbps just after the game ended. The total official Wi-Fi data used during the semifinals and final was 31.2 TB.

According to stadium network officials, there were 1,414 active Cisco access points for the Final Four games, with some permanent Wi-Fi APs not being used because they were covered by the temporary seats that extended out to the court built in the middle of where the football field usually is. However, the temporary seating was covered by an additional 250 APs and 50-plus switches in a temporary network built by AmpThink and the stadium network team (look for a deeper profile of the temporary network in our upcoming Summer STADIUM TECH REPORT issue!).

Speed tests taken by Mobile Sports Report showed robust Wi-Fi connectivity all around the venue on both days, with marks like a 48.6 Mbps download and 44.0 Mbps upload in the higher seating section during pregame for Saturday’s events, another mark of 45.3 Mbps / 38.7 Mbps on the third-level main concourse close to Saturday’s tipoff, and a mark of 54.8 Mbps / 38.3 Mbps on the main lower-level concourse just after tipoff of Monday’s championship game.

One of the temporary seating under-seat Wi-Fi APs

“The traffic we experience on Wi-Fi networks at the Final Four is considerable each year, and Minneapolis was no exception,” said David Worlock, director of media coordination and statistics for the NCAA tournament. “We were completely satisfied with the performance of the network throughout the weekend.”

THE MSR TOP 20 FOR WI-FI

1. Super Bowl 53, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga., Feb. 3, 2019: Wi-Fi: 24.05 TB
2. NCAA Men’s 2019 Final Four semifinals, U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn., April 6, 2019: Wi-Fi: 17.8 TB
3. Super Bowl 52, U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn., Feb. 4, 2018: Wi-Fi: 16.31 TB
4. NCAA Men’s 2019 Final Four championship, U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn., April 8, 2019: Wi-Fi: 13.4 TB
5. 2018 College Football Playoff Championship, Alabama vs. Georgia, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga., Jan. 8, 2018: Wi-Fi: 12.0 TB*
6. Super Bowl 51, NRG Stadium, Houston, Feb. 5, 2017: Wi-Fi: 11.8 TB
7. Atlanta Falcons vs. Philadelphia Eagles, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 6, 2018: Wi-Fi: 10.86 TB
8. Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016: Wi-Fi: 10.1 TB
9. Taylor Swift Reputation Tour, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., July 27, 2018: Wi-Fi: 9.76 TB
10. Minnesota Vikings vs. Philadelphia Eagles, NFC Championship Game, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 21, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.76 TB
11. Jacksonville Jaguars vs. New England Patriots, AFC Championship Game, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Jan. 21, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.53 TB
12. Taylor Swift Reputation Tour, Broncos Stadium at Mile High, May 25, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.1 TB
13. Kansas City Chiefs vs. New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Sept. 7, 2017: Wi-Fi: 8.08 TB
14. SEC Championship Game, Alabama vs. Georgia, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga., Dec. 1, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.06 TB*
15. Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys, Divisional Playoffs, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 15, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.25 TB
16. Stanford vs. Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Ind., Sept. 29, 2018: 7.19 TB
17. (tie) Southern California vs. Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Ind., Oct. 21, 2017: 7.0 TB
Arkansas State vs. Nebraska, Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb., Sept 2, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.0 TB
18. WrestleMania 32, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, April 3, 2016: Wi-Fi: 6.77 TB
19. Wisconsin vs. Nebraska, Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb., Oct. 7, 2017: Wi-Fi: 6.3 TB
20. Super Bowl 49, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015: Wi-Fi: 6.23 TB

* = pending official exact data

Filed Under: AmpThink, Basketball, Cisco, NCAA Hoops, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: AmpThink, Cisco, Final Four, Men's Final Four 2019, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, U.S. Bank Stadium, Wi-Fi

Amalie Arena’s MatSing-powered DAS ready for Women’s Final Four

April 4, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

MatSing ball antennas seen behind championship banners at Amalie Arena. Credit all photos: MatSing (click on any photo for a larger image)

The new DAS at Amalie Arena in Tampa, which uses 52 MatSing ball antennas, is fully operational and ready for this weekend’s NCAA Women’s Final Four, which starts on Friday.

According to AT&T, which is running and operating the new DAS, the new network “is officially on-air,” after going through some test runs during Tampa Bay Lightning NHL games. According to one informer, AT&T CEO John Donovan (an old friend of MSR) attended a recent hockey game at Amalie and gave a big thumbs-up to the new DAS, which is the biggest known installation of the unique MatSing antennas, which are basically huge spheres with lots of directional cellular antennas inside.

A press release from AT&T about the new DAS claims that has boosted cellular capacity inside Amalie Arena by 400 percent from last year. The new DAS also uses Corning ONE gear on the back end.

MSR will be in Minneapolis this weekend at the other Final Four, so if you are in Tampa for the women’s tourney take a speedtest or two on cellular and let us know what you see. We are watching the DAS deployment at Amalie Arena carefully since it is our guess that it won’t be the last you hear of MatSing deployments this year. Some more photos from the Amalie Arena MatSing deployment below.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Basketball, DAS, NCAA Hoops, NHL Tagged With: Amalie Arena, AT&T, Corning, Corning ONE, DAS, Luneberg Lens, MatSing, Matsing ball, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, NHL, Paul Kapustka, Women's Final Four

Final Four sees 9.97 TB of data used on Alamodome Wi-Fi

April 23, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Fans at the Alamodome using mobile devices before the big game. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

The final stats are in, and this year’s men’s NCAA basketball tournament Final Four weekend in San Antonio saw a total of 9.97 terabytes of data used on the Wi-Fi network inside the Alamodome, according to official NCAA network reports.

With 4.9 TB of traffic used during the Saturday semifinal games and 5.07 TB used during the Monday night final the Alamodome Wi-Fi mark fell a bit below the 11.2 TB of data use seen during the 2017 Final Four weekend at the University of Pacific Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. With about 10,000 more fans per game (attendance at last year’s two sessions was 77,612 for Saturday’s semifinals and 76,168 for Monday’s championship, which were both second-highest ever numbers) and a more mature network it’s not surprising that there was a dip in Wi-Fi usage; the somewhat smaller Alamodome had 67,831 in attendance for the Monday night championship game.

So far only AT&T has reported DAS stats from this year’s Final Four, with 2 TB used on Saturday and 1.1 TB used Monday. Last year in Glendale AT&T said it saw 6.4 TB of DAS use. We have asked Verizon and Sprint for numbers but so far have not yet gotten any replies. As a stated policy T-Mobile does not report data traffic numbers from big events.

In a slight change from the preliminary reports we got, the official numbers show that the Alamodome Wi-Fi network saw 19,557 unique devices connect to the network on Saturday, with a peak concurrent total that day of 12,387 devices. On Monday night those numbers were 17,963 unique connections and 12,848 peak concurrent connections. Peak throughput for the Wi-Fi network on Saturday was 2.1 Gbps, while on Monday the mark was 1.6 Gbps.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AmpThink, AT&T, Basketball, Cisco, DAS, NCAA Hoops, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Alamodome, AmpThink, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, Final Four, Men's Final Four 2018, Michigan, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Paul Kapustka, San Antonio, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Villanova, Wi-Fi

New Report: Wi-Fi scores at Final Four, Vegas Knights get more Wi-Fi, and more!

April 16, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

A live in-person report of the Wi-Fi network performance at this year’s Final Four is just the beginning of our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, the ONLY in-depth publication created specifically for the stadium technology professional and the stadium technology marketplace.

Mobile Sports Report traveled this spring to San Antonio, Texas, to get a firsthand look at the new networks installed at the venerable Alamodome, including one new permanent Wi-Fi deployment and another specifically tailored for the temporary courtside seats the NCAA brings in for its crown jewel event of the men’s basketball season.

Download our free report to get the details on how this network was able to deliver a superb wireless experience to the almost 70,000 fans in attendance.

The report from San Antonio, however, is just the beginning of our content-rich Spring 2018 issue, which also contains another in-person review, this one of the updated Wi-Fi network at T-Mobile Arena, the home-ice castle for the NHL’s newest sensation, the Vegas Golden Knights. Prompted by the team’s somewhat unexpected on-ice success, the quick network upgrade is a great lesson on how to respond to fan-experience demands. And it’s all explained in the STADIUM TECH REPORT.

More Wi-Fi for Vegas Knights, new construction in LA

There’s also a profile of the new network that was part of the refurbishment of Minneapolis’ Target Center, home of the NBA’s Timberwolves, as well as a look at some innovative marketing programs combining digital signage and Wi-Fi for greater fan engagement. Our Terry Sweeney also provides a look at new venue construction and old venue remodels in Los Angeles, and we also have a full recap of the record-breaking Wi-Fi and DAS traffic at this year’s Super Bowl at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis — all available for free download from our site!

We’d like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors, which for this issue include Mobilitie, JMA Wireless, Corning, Huber+Suhner, Cox Business, Boingo, Oberon and Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. Their generous sponsorship makes it possible for us to offer this content free of charge to our readers.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AmpThink, Apps, AT&T, Basketball, Cisco, DAS, MSR Guides, NBA, NCAA Hoops, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Alamodome, AmpThink, Cisco, Final Four, Men's NCAA Tournament, Michigan, Minnesota Timberwolves, Mobile Sports Report, NBA, NCAA, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, T-Mobile Arena, Target Center, Vegas Golden Knights, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Villanova, Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi scores like Villanova during Final Four at Alamodome

April 3, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Confetti rains down from the scoreboard after Villanova beat Michigan in this year’s Final Four championship game at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (Click on any photo for a larger image)

SAN ANTONIO, Texas — The new and temporary Wi-Fi networks inside the Alamodome were as hot as national champion Villanova Monday night, with many speedtest marks in the 50-60 Mbps range for both download and upload throughout many points in the stadium.

We’ll have more details and perhaps some final tonnage numbers coming soon, but before we crash late night here in the Alamo city, where Mobile Sports Report was live in attendance at Monday night’s championship game of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, we wanted to share some impressive stats we saw while logging numerous steps up and down the sections of the venerable Alamodome before and during Villanova’s 79-62 victory over Michigan.

It was a pretty packed house with 67,831 in attendance Monday night, and for Wi-Fi it really was a tale of two networks: One, for the fixed or permanent seating in the football-sized facility, and another for the temproary network that serviced the wide expanse of floor seating brought in by the NCAA for its crown jewel event of men’s hoops. With about 200-plus Wi-Fi APs serving the closest seating sections, we still saw some super-healthy speedtest readings, like one of 55.9 Mbps download and 58.7 Mbps upload in the north stands in row DD, just past the band section and media sections behind the north hoop.

A good look at the court from the north end on the 300 level concourse

At center court on the side where the network broadcast teams sit, we got a speedtest of 34.3 Mbps down and 34.3 Mbps up in row JJ of section 112. Since we thought we heard Jim Nantz calling our name during pregame activities we scrambled down to row J, but Jim was called away before we could confirm his question. Instead we took a speed test there in the celeb seats and got an official mark of 1.65 Mbps / 7.61 Mbps, but did see a 10 Mbps download mark appear on a second test before the speedtest app encountered an error.

As far as we could tell, whatever designer and deployer AmpThink did for the on-floor seats it seemed to work pretty well. But as we are writing this that network is being dismantled, perhaps not to be used again until next year’s men’s Final Four, scheduled to take place at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.

Handrail enclosures and Gillaroos

Up in the permanent seats, the network AmpThink installed during a permanent renovation of the Alamodome earlier also performed well, even in some of the hardest places to reach. At the top of the lower-bowl seating section, where MSR took a peanut break in the first half (since our media seat was, ironicially, the only place in the stadium where we couldn’t get any kind of a Wi-Fi connection) we got a mark of 65.6 Mbps / 62.5 Mbps.

A handrail Wi-Fi AP enclosure in one of the higher seating sections.

But even when we climbed into serious nosebleed country — and we do mean climb since the Alamodome has no escalators anywhere for fans — we still got good Wi-Fi connectivity, thanks in part to some handrail AP enclosures we saw above the VOMs leading to the top-section seats, and some Gillaroo antennas on the upper back walls pointing down. Above the VOM leading to section 343 in the stadium’s northwest corner we got a mark of 30.5 Mbps / 20.8 Mbps, and up near the roof in row 22 of section 342 we still got a mark of 17.5 Mbps / 9.84.

Other places where coverage really shined was in the stairwells and on the concourses; along the top-level 300 section concourse we got a pregame mark of 57.1 Mbps / 58.2 Mbps even as crowds chanting “Go Blue!” and “Nova Nation!” made traffic an elbow-to-elbow affair. In another stairwell, we stopped to catch our breath and got a speed test of 64.9 Mbps / 68.2 Mbps.

Overall, the permanent and temporary networks seemed to have performed well under the pressure of a bucket-list event, the kind where fans roam the concourses during pregame with phones overhead, taking videos to be shared later. According to Nicholas Langella, general manager for the Alamodome, preliminary reports said there were 12,500 unique connections to the Wi-Fi during Saturday’s semifinal games and another 12,300 connections during Monday’s championship game. On the DAS side of things, AT&T reported 2 terabytes of data used on their network during Saturday’s semifinals, and another 1.1 TB used during Monday’s game. We are still waiting for other carriers to report DAS numbers, as well as for final total Wi-FI usage numbers. For now enjoy some more photos from our visit.

Approaching the Alamodome from the freeway

A good look at how the NCAA floor seats extend out in the end zone area

Another look at the floor seating sections, this time along courtside

Courtside is selfie city

Gillaroos on overhangs in the permanent seating section

Zoomed in for a good look at the court

The human eye view from the same spot

Picture taking is the primary activity pregame

In case you forgot which event you came to see

Filed Under: AmpThink, Basketball, Cisco, MSR Guides, NCAA Hoops, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 2018 FInal Four, Alamodome, AmpThink, Cisco, Final Four, Michigan, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, Paul Kapustka, San Antonio, Stadium Wi-Fi, Villanova, Wi-Fi

Alamodome taps AmpThink for new Wi-Fi ahead of 2018 Final Four

August 30, 2017 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

A new full-stadium Wi-Fi network installed by AmpThink is coming to the Alamodome, scheduled to be finished just ahead of this year’s Alamo Bowl and well in place for next spring’s men’s NCAA basketball tournament’s Final Four, Alamodome executives said.

Scheduled to be announced publicly by the San Antonio, Texas, venue today, the new network is part of a $50-million-plus renovation project that includes updated video boards, sound systems and TV screens throughout the stadium. Nicholas Langella, general manager of the Alamodome, said the new Wi-Fi network was financed in part by donations from Alamodome customers, including the Valero Alamo Bowl, scheduled this year for Dec. 28. The network will use Wi-Fi gear from Cisco, according to Langella.

According to Langella, approximately $6 million out of the roughly $10 million needed for the Wi-Fi upgrade came from the Alamo Bowl. Langella also said that the venue now has an updated DAS as well, built by Verizon, which will also have AT&T and T-Mobile on board. “We’re very happy about that [the DAS],” said Langella in a phone interview.

Going under seat for Wi-Fi

Though Wi-Fi deployment firm AmpThink has lately preferred railing Wi-Fi enclosures for proximate network builds, such as at Notre Dame, Langella said the Alamodome deployment will use more under-seat AP placements than railings, given the designed mobility of the Alamodome seating areas. “We have so much mobility with the stands, it’s hard to do lots of railing [placements],” Langella said.

According to Langella when the Wi-Fi deployment is finished — the network is scheduled to be fully completed by Dec. 1 — there will be approximately 750 APs installed, allowing the Alamodome to increase coverage from being able to serve 3,500 fans to being able to cover 65,000 fans, meaning every seat in the house. The improvements, he said, were part of a plan to attract the Final Four, which succeeded.

“We always thought we would improve the Wi-Fi,” Langella said. With the Final Four looming, he said, “we took the bull by the horns and got it done.”

Now that's one big TV! Behind the scenes: 1st video wall is all done and ready to be lifted! 233 days till #FinalFour pic.twitter.com/4PZpSXmIvK

— Final Four SATX (@FinalFour) August 9, 2017

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AmpThink, AT&T, Basketball, Cisco, DAS, NCAA Hoops, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 2018 FInal Four, 4G LTE, Alamodome, AmpThink, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, Final Four, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Paul Kapustka, San Antonio, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi