Who’s up for a Levi’s Stadium SpeedTest?

Friends and fans of Mobile Sports Report who are planning to attend Sunday’s first football game at Levi’s Stadium — how about helping us out by taking a network speed test to see if the facility’s much-touted wireless network really delivers as planned?

Ookla Speedtest in action

Ookla Speedtest in action

Mobile Sports Report will be in the house Sunday, and we will do our best to walk around as much of the stadium as we can, testing network speeds and app performance along the way. But nothing beats more results, and if you’re not familiar with how to do a network speed test, it’s pretty easy. Just go to Speedtest.net, run by Ookla, and either click “begin test” or even better yet from a mobile device, download the Speedtest app and do the same thing.

When the test is running you’ll get a little meter showing how fast the download and upload speeds are. I think the best method for sharing is to tweet the results — you can do so either by going to the “results” page on Speedtest.net or on the app, and share via Twitter from there, or maybe better yet just post a tweet with the results, along with the time of day and what part of the stadium you’re in. Also note whether you are using the stadium’s Wi-Fi network or just using a cellular connection. Both should work quite well, but it could be interesting to see if one works better than the other during a packed-house event.

If you don’t want to run a Speedtest, even tweeting about general network performance (good, slow, no connection) would be worthwhile, as would be any info about long or short concession lines, problems or smooth ways to get into the park, etc. If everyone uses the hashtag #Levinet I’ll round up as many as possible and put them in a blog post. (My Twitter handle is @PaulKaps if you want to follow my tests Sunday.)

We’ll try to organize group speed tests at as many games as we can get to this fall — again, the more results the better the idea we will have about how the new Levi’s Stadium is or isn’t performing.

UPDATE: Interesting tweet late Friday night from Dan Williams, the man whose job it is to make sure the network works…

Have to say I agree with Dan’s point that measuring pure speed via SpeedTest in a bit of a vacuum may not be an optimal grade. But I do like its ability to show whether things wireless are working or not… anyone with a better idea, we’re all ears… or browsers…

Bonus: KQED reporter Molly Samuel interviewed yours truly for a Marketplace radio segment on Levi’s, embedded below. Enjoy!

Stadium Tech Report: AT&T brings Wi-Fi and IPTV to Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium

Screen Shot 2014-08-12 at 12.36.29 PMThe University of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium, a facility built before those things called telephones were in widespread use, is finally getting the technology it needs to let current-day mobile devices stay connected: A high-speed Wi-Fi network and a stadium-wide IPTV system, which will both be deployed by AT&T before the first kickoff this fall.

While few people probably had any kind of working telephone when Camp Randall was built in Madison, Wisc., in 1917, things are a lot different now, as most people own at least one mobile device. Prior to this season, visitors to the 80,321-seat Camp Randall experienced the frustration familiar to many who visit crowded public spaces: the dreaded “no signal” notice, or calls or texts that went nowhere.

“If you worked in the stadium, on game days it was hard to get online, or even send a text,” said Justin Doherty, Wisconsin’s associate athletic director for external relations, in a recent phone interview. According to Doherty, recent fan surveys showed that improving wireless service was a top request. After issuing an RFP, Wisconsin chose AT&T as its partner in the reported $6.2 million networking project, which will also include the deployment of 700 high-definition TV screens throughout the stadium. On the Wi-Fi side, AT&T will provide a 10 Gigabit backbone connection and will install approximately 750 Wi-Fi access points throughout the facility.

Wi-Fi access point at Camp Randall Stadium. Credit: University of Wisconsin

Wi-Fi access point at Camp Randall Stadium. Credit: University of Wisconsin

Combining Wi-Fi with DAS

Though AT&T executives have stated publicly that DAS can sometimes take care of all the connectivity needs in a stadium, the phone provider giant also said that installing DAS and Wi-Fi together can create “the optimal user experience” by allowing both technologies to do what they are best at. In the stadium network world, that usually means allowing DAS to handle simpler communications like phone calls and texts, while allowing Wi-Fi to handle heavier bandwidth loads, like streaming video.

In a somewhat interesting twist, AT&T — which has deployed numerous DAS systems in stadiums — does not run the DAS at Camp Randall Stadium. According to Doherty, the Camp Randall DAS is run by Crown Castle, with AT&T and Verizon as customers. The AT&T Wi-Fi installation, however, will significantly increase the amount of available wireless bandwidth, taking a lot of congestion away from the cellular network as a critical first task.

Beyond providing pure bandwidth, Wisconsin doesn’t yet have solid plans on how it expects to use the Wi-Fi network. Doherty said that innovative ideas like instant replay and food-ordering apps being installed at some other venues are things Wisconsin will be looking to deploy in the near future.

“There’s a lot on the plate, but we want to walk before we run,” Doherty said. “We’re going to be in a little bit of a learning mode [early on], trying to understand how to run the network. By the seventh game [this season] we should be a lot better.” According to Wisconsin and AT&T, the network is expected to be ready by the time of the first home game this season, Sept. 6 vs. Western Illinois.

AT&T taps Cisco for Wi-Fi and video

IPTV install at Camp Randall Stadium. Credit: University of Wisconsin

IPTV install at Camp Randall Stadium. Credit: University of Wisconsin

Though it wasn’t spelled out in the press release, Doherty said that AT&T will be using Cisco Wi-Fi hardware, along with Cisco’s StadiumVision system to provide the video feeds to the in-house digital displays. One of the features of the StadiumVision system that is of great interest to Doherty is the ability for administrators to split the screen in different ways, such as including an L-shaped advertising border around the edges. Though in the future that might be used to sell advertising, Doherty said Wisconsin will most likely use the displays to promote other sports.

“You might see a game feed on the main part of the screen, and then in the L-wrap area we might promote ticket sales for hockey games,” Doherty said. “We also might use it for social media feeds. We’re going to be heavy on internal messaging this fall.”

According to Doherty, the Wisconsin IT team scouted some other school and pro facilities to get ideas of how to best implement wireless deployments. Among the venues visited were the Rodgers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays, and Sports Authority Field at Mile High in Denver, home of the Denver Broncos.

“All those people we visited were very helpful,” Doherty said. “You have to pull little pieces from what they have done, and make it your own.”

And then, you have to let the fans know that it’s OK to try to use their phones in one of the nation’s oldest sporting facilities.

“We want people to know the network is there, and we’re going to actively promote it,” Doherty said. “We’ll have signage and we have a good greeting services staff who will be armed with the information on how to get on the network. We’re going to do everything we can to get people connected.”

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified Aruba Networks as the Wi-Fi gear provider for the Camp Randall Stadium project. MSR regrets the error.

Wi-Fi APs seen above the seating area. Credit: University of Wisconsin.

Wi-Fi APs seen above the seating area. Credit: University of Wisconsin.

Stadium Tech Report: Niners President Marathe confident that Levi’s Stadium network, apps will deliver as promised

Niners president Paraag Marathe (center) at Intersport Activation Summit panel.

Niners president Paraag Marathe (center) at Intersport Activation Summit panel.

So, Paraag Marathe — will the network at Levi’s Stadium live up to its considerable pre-launch billing and be ready to go when the stadium opens later this year?

“It better work, since we’ve been talking about it,” said Marathe Friday, during a panel discussion at the Intersport Activation Summit presented by SportsBusiness Journal/Daily in San Francisco. “We better be right.”

Even though the short history of in-stadium networks suggests that any new endeavor be launched with words of caution, Marathe and the San Francisco 49ers are instead confident — very confident — that their new stadium will launch with a network second to none, and have game-changing services like food and beverage delivery to seats and on-demand instant replay that will redefine the game-day experience.

Paraag Marathe, president, San Francisco 49ers

Paraag Marathe, president, San Francisco 49ers

In both his panel discussion at the Ritz-Carlton hotel and in an additional interview afterward, Marathe provided some additional details about plans the Niners have talked about previously for the technology features at the new stadium, which is located in Santa Clara, Calif., smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley. Though Marathe said the stadium’s location — quite literally next door to several high-tech company campuses — made technology “part of the DNA,” he stressed Friday that the Niners are seeking to use technology to improve the fan experience, and not just to have cool stuff.

“It’s not technology for technology’s sake,” Marathe said. “It’s to enhance being at the game.”

But he did add that the stadium’s Wi-Fi network will be the base for much of the innovation.

Wi-Fi is ‘the master key’

An under-the-seat access point. Credit: Aruba Networks

An under-the-seat access point. Credit: Aruba Networks

The Wi-Fi network, which Marathe said “will absolutely be working” when the park opens, is “the master key that unlocks everything,” he said. Currently being built with Wi-Fi access point gear from Aruba Networks and back-end network equipment from Brocade Networks, the Levi’s Stadium Wi-Fi network will also have twin 10-Gigabit broadband pipes provided by Comcast to provide what Marathe said will be throughput “30 times more than any other stadium.”

Marathe said the Wi-Fi network is being built with what he calls a “spider web” of access points, though neither the Niners nor Aruba have yet said just how many access points will be used to create the network. There will also be a neutral-host cellular DAS at the stadium, built by DAS Group Professionals (DGP). Already, DGP has signed up the “big four” carriers of AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile, to use the DAS at the stadium.

What will the networks be used for? Marathe outlined four main points of technology innovation during his talk, including high-definition, on-demand replays via the new Niners stadium app; in-seat delivery of food and beverages to every seat; way-finding features to perform tasks like locating friends, finding parking spots, and to tell which bathroom lines are shortest; and paperless tickets, based on RFID and near-field communication to fans’ devices. Of the four, the replay idea and the food-delivery service stand out as massive technical and industrial challenges.

Promised: Better replays than those on TV

If there is one promise that has many in the stadium technology industry shaking their heads, it’s Marathe’s pledge of Levi’s being able to deliver “better replays than what the coaches are seeing,” since team coaches only get to see replays provided by the network broadcasts. The Niners, Marathe said, will have “a massive [internal] production crew” working on the replay feature, since replays not only need to be picked out of the video stream, they also need to be coded to work over the Internet and to be delivered to handsets. Though Marathe admitted that the video quality may dip a bit below true HD if a lot of fans try to watch replays at once, he told the conference crowd that the Niners’ stadium app is going to deliver “HD, slo-mo [replays] within seconds after a big play.”

While other stadiums, like Barclays Center in the NBA, use technologies like Cisco’s StadiumVision Mobile to deliver separate “channels” of live video and replays, Marathe said the Niners’ app will allow fans to choose their own replays and when they want to watch them. “If you have a [replay] channel, you’re subject to whatever is on that channel,” Marathe said.

The food-delivery feature, Marathe said, is more than putting a menu in an app — “it’s an immense industrial engineering exercise,” he said, to figure out things like how many runners are needed and when and how food needs to be prepared. In addition to food delivery — an option he said will be available to every seat in the 68,500-seat stadium — the Niners will also have “express pickup” lanes for digitally placed orders at concession stands, an idea that Marathe said helps eliminate or significantly reduce two of the three things that make concession interactions a time-consuming act.

“There’s decision time, transaction time, and preparation time,” Marathe said. “If you can eliminate two of three variables, that’s a few more minutes fans have to watch the game.” Waiting until fans show up at a stand to prepare the food will help keep the order fresh, he added.

Wayfinding, paperless tickets and the 9-Nerds

If there’s one idea that’s already gotten a lot of press, it’s the plan to have wayfinding technology assist features like the one that will let fans know how long the bathroom lines are. Marathe said the idea was to make it simple — “red light, yellow light, green light” — to let fans know that if they have to go, it might be faster to try the bathroom one section over.

“We’re really just trying to be smart,” said Marathe. Other wayfinding apps might include a parking-spot locator, or a friend-finder feature.

The fourth area where Marathe wants Levi’s to innovate in is paperless ticketing, which he said wouldn’t be 100 percent this year but it will eventually get there. A future scenario described by Marathe might use RFID or near-field communications to let fans simply walk through a gate without having to show a ticket or even a bar code to be scanned. Some ski areas, like Aspen and Vail in Colorado, already use such technology to let skiers get on lifts without having to show anyone their RFID-equipped lift tickets.

“The idea is to have greeters who can actually greet you” when you walk in, and perhaps extend a personal offer for discount goods purchases or seat upgrades, Marathe said. “It’s a more human interaction,” fueled by technology.

Wi-Fi coach in the stands at Gillette Stadium. Credit: Extreme Networks

Wi-Fi coach in the stands at Gillette Stadium. Credit: Extreme Networks

Finally, to help fans figure out how to use the new network and apps, Marathe confirmed plans previously reported by Mobile Sports Report to hire a crew of “network coaches” to roam the stands. According to Marathe the coaches will be called “9 Nerds” (say it quickly) and will likely be college students, dressed in what Marathe called “Poindexter outfits.” The Niners are looking to hire 150 such network helpers, which would be the largest such crew we’ve heard of in the stadium networking marketplace.

“They’ll stand out,” Marathe promised.

Lots of network use — and a team ready for its launch

With all the hype about the network, Marathe expects that Levi’s Stadium wireless usage will far eclipse that at other stadiums, where often far fewer than half of the fans in attendance actually ever use things like Wi-Fi or stadium apps.

“Forget 10 percent [fan network use], we’re going to see something higher,” Marathe said. Even people who don’t have digital devices, he said, will probably borrow one “just to bring it to Levi’s to test it out.”

When asked why his team was so confident — in an industry where under-promising seems to be a sensible way to go — Marathe said that both the Silicon Valley heritage and the greenfield nature of the building gives the Niners and Levi’s a technological edge.

“Five years ago, we put together a kind of think tank with VCs and design people, and thought about what would be useful [at a new stadium], well before we ever put a shovel in the ground,” Marathe said. And even though the Niners’ CTO left the team earlier this year, Marathe is confident that his crew of 25 engineers (which he said also still gets some consulting help from the departed CTO, Kunal Malik) will deliver the network and apps as promised.

Having advanced technology in the new stadium, Marathe said, “was our mandate — the DNA of the building is all these tech companies that are around us. It’s who we are.”

Niners pick Aruba for Wi-Fi network gear at Levi’s Stadium

An under-the-seat access point. Credit: Aruba Networks

An under-the-seat access point. Credit: Aruba Networks

There’s no official press announcement as of yet, but judging by some presentations and social-media posts that are being publicly shared, it looks like Aruba Networks has won a big plum of a contract, as the Wi-Fi access point gear supplier for the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium, the new stadium set to open this year.

(editor’s note: We don’t do April Fools jokes, so this is real news)

At its user conference in Las Vegas last month, Aruba Networks had a keynote presentation (slides embedded below) about Wi-Fi deployment strategies at Levi’s Stadium, and the Niners’ senior IT director Dan Williams was a speaker, so clearly the team is comfortable with its execs talking with and about Aruba products. While it’s entirely possible that other Wi-Fi gear may find its way into what is being billed as the greatest stadium network of all time, it’s clearly a big win for Aruba, which is making headway with major announcements in stadium networking.

An under-the-seat AP install, with construction worker to show... perspective. Credit: Aruba Networks

An under-the-seat AP install, with construction worker to show… perspective. Credit: Aruba Networks

We have an email in to the 49ers CTO office to see if they will say anything official yet, but with pictures of APs being installed under seats it apparently won’t be long before we hear the official news of the deal. Aruba, as you may recall, is also behind the recent Wi-Fi network built for American Airlines Center in Dallas, home of the NBA’s Mavericks and the NHL’s Stars. Aruba gear is also being used for the Wi-Fi network being built at the Portland Trailblazers’ home, the Moda Center. (For more information on NBA stadium Wi-Fi deployments download our recently released Stadium Tech Report for Q1 2014, available for free download from our site)

There is no official press release from Aruba yet either, though the company is probably chomping at the bit as evidenced by their not-very-subtle leaks of the information via Twitter:

More, of course, as we hear more — according to the Aruba page there is video forthcoming from the user conference presentation, which may help explain some of the more cryptic bits of the presentation. We especially like the under-the-seat access point installation, with the requisite hardhat worker providing the human touch for perspective. Can’t wait to see how it works on game day!

Stadium Tech Report: Aruba, AT&T team up to bring Wi-Fi to American Airlines Center

Inside the bowl at American Airlines Center

Inside the bowl at American Airlines Center

After famously voicing his opinion that it just wasn’t needed, Mark Cuban, the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks, at least now grudingly agrees that stadium Wi-Fi is a must-have amenity for NBA arenas.

Last week his team’s home facility, the American Airlines Center in Dallas, formally took the wraps off a powerful new Wi-Fi network. Built by AT&T using 315 access points from wireless gear provider Aruba Networks, the new American Airlines Center network should be at the top of league-arena networks, even if the Mavs’ owner won’t be using it that much. But as he said (in the wake of a SXSW panel last week that was talking about Wi-Fi in stadiums), Cuban isn’t against Wi-Fi anymore. He just thinks you should do more on the floor so that fans aren’t watching their phones.

While Cuban’s points about wanting to keep fans engaged with the game instead of looking down at their phones are well-taken, the reality of an always-connected world is that good connectivity is always in demand, especially at sporting events where fans may seek to use breaks to stay in touch with their digital worlds. And while the 21,000-seat American Airlines Center has had DAS installations for improved cellular, a robust Wi-Fi network allows for greater levels of connectivity, as well as potential future applications that might produce a better fan experience as well as more revenue.

“At some point, you just can’t live without it,” said Lori Glasser-Seinera, vice president of corporate sponsorships at American Airlines Center, in a recent phone interview. Cuban, she agreed, was correct in trying to prioritize the fan experience, but even he now agrees that Wi-Fi needs to be part of the stadium amenities. Joe Heinlein, IT Director for the arena, said that for many fans not having connectivity could be a reason to justify staying home.

“We need to make sure we fill our seats, and not fill the couch,” Heinlein said, in the same phone interview. A good network, he said, is one way of ensuring that fans don’t have a reason to stay home.

Moving from back office to fan-facing

Though the fan-facing Wi-Fi network (which AT&T makes available for free to all attendees) is new, there has been an Aruba-based network in the facility for more than several years. According to Heinlein, the network vendor approached the arena in 2005 “with an incredible offer” to put in a Wi-Fi network for back of the house business operations.

“We’ve used it for internal operations, for the press, and in meeting rooms,” said Heinlein of the 40-AP network that went unseen by fans of the Mavs and the NHL’s Dallas Stars, who also share the building. (American Airlines Center is owned by the city of Dallas, which leases it to the Stars and Mavs.) But 2 years ago, Heinlein said the arena started talking about how to put fan-facing Wi-Fi into the facility, a discussion that involved Dallas-based AT&T, a longtime sponsor for the arena.

“Since Aruba had been a longtime partner of ours we requested that AT&T include them in the deployment,” Glasser-Seinera said. The final result is the new Wi-Fi network announced last week, one where AT&T will use advanced Wi-Fi technology to automatically log in AT&T customers. Other carriers’ customers can also use the network, after logging in through a separate process. Heinlein said the network was a joint project between the arena and partners including AT&T, and as such did not divulge the total costs of building the new network.

Aruba gear helps overcome changing network needs

With more than 200 events during a calendar year, American Airlines Center is a constantly changing venue (think circuses, and concerts), especially when it comes to network coverage. Heinlein said specific challenges to connectivity include the large open space in the center of the arena, as well as the need to extend coverage deeper into the floor for basketball games.

“We have a big hole in the center of the arena, and there’s not a lot of places there to hang [antenna] assets,” Heinlein said. A “good portion” of the APs are located beneath seats, Heinlein said, along with some other ones that are located in vertical risers, which had holes bored into them for that purpose.

“It’s always a challenge to get a signal where you need it,” Heinlein said.

For basketball, the seating plan moves farther out onto the floor than for hockey games, a factor that often has the arena’s IT team being creative in deployment strategies, like putting access points on top of mobile tripods to provide extra coverage.

“The people sitting close to the court are very important customers,” Heinlein noted. “One of the reasons we went with Aruba is that their APs lend themselves to being able to make quick changes, and we use that capability.”

Looking to the future, with a network now in place

Cuban’s opinions about replays not working well on cellphones may keep the Mavs from being on the cutting edge when it comes to stadium apps. But that doesn’t mean the arena will be sitting still when it comes to utilizing its new resource. According to Heinlein and Glasser-Seinera, there are many potential new avenues to explore when it comes to using robust in-building connectivity. One such idea is using Wi-Fi as a GPS type system, to help attendees find resources inside the building more quickly. In the past, such applications could only be dreamed about. Now, they can be tested in the real world.

“Now that the system is in, we can test it and try different things,” Heinlein said. “Now that it’s here, we can explore what’s possible.”

Stadium Tech Report: Aruba’s Wi-Fi smarts at the base of Trail Blazers’ new stadium experience

An Aruba AP inside the Moda Center

An Aruba AP inside the Moda Center

Though it’s not been generally known for stadium deployments, being named as the Wi-Fi supplier for the new network at the Portland Trail Blazers’ 20,000-seat Moda Center should give a boost to the arena business for Aruba Networks, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based network infrastructure supplier.

After learning of Aruba’s win in Portland we caught up via phone with Manav Khurana, vice president for product marketing at Aruba, to learn more about what Aruba is doing differently in the stadium market. Though the company might have had the inside track in Portland (since it had previously sold gear there for an internal Wi-Fi network) Khurana said the Blazers had treated this year’s stadium technology upgrade as a brand-new project. What helps set Aruba apart from other vendors, Khurana said, are some in-house hardware innovations combined with software management techniques that help overcome the obstacles faced by wireless LANs in crowded spaces.

Focused antennas, optimized connections

To help meet the Moda Center’s design criterium of supplying a wireless network “faster than your home,” Aruba brought in the custom antennas it has designed for use in high-density situations. The Aruba access point antennas, Khurana said, can be focused “like a floodlight,” allowing pinpoint coverage of specific seating areas — and also allowing multiple APs to be positioned closely together without fear of interfering with each other.

On the management side, Aruba has an interesting piece of AP firmware it calls ClientMatch, which Khurana said helps combat the problem of mobile devices “locking on” to a specific access point, even if it’s not the best AP the device might see. “ClientMatch actively monitors all APs [in a network] and if there is a better AP available [for a device] it will move the connection in a real-time basis,” Khurana said. Aruba also uses some internal firewall smarts to help prioritize traffic, a necessary evil especially when video streams are part of the equation, as they are with the new Trail Blazers’ team app.

Advertising and infrastructure partners team up in Portland

One aspect that is unique from a business angle in Portland is the branding of the public Wi-Fi network by the local Toyota dealers, a longtime Blazers advertising partner; in fact, the in-stadium SSID reveals the name “Toyota Free Wi-Fi.” Since Wi-Fi users everywhere are accustomed to seeing a splash screen when they sign in to a new network, Khurana said it should get easier to convince advertisers that Wi-Fi connectivity can provide a new kind of billboard, one with the opportunity for one-on-one engagement.

“Three or 4 years ago it used to be tough [to sell Wi-Fi ads],” Khurana said. “Now everyone sees that screen whenever they log in at the airport. It’s a lot easier now to talk about those kinds of [advertising] opportunities.”

The new network infrastructure in Portland — which will eventually include 400 Aruba APs — was deployed by Crown Castle, and a new team app for this NBA season was developed by YinzCam, which has numerous big-league team app deals in all the U.S. major leagues. Thanks to good local coverage by the Oregonian, we should be able to follow the network’s performance over the NBA season (and see if the locals ever get around to calling the stadium by the new sponsor name instead of the Rose Garden handle by which it has been previously known).

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