Dan Williams

Betting the Under (Part 2): Putting Wi-Fi antennas under seats is the hot new trend in stadium wireless networks

March 29, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Under-seat Wi-Fi AP at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

Part 2 of this story picks up with the decision to put Wi-Fi APs under seats at Levi’s Stadium. If you missed it, here is the link to Part 1.

According to Chuck Lukaszewski, now vice president of wireless strategy and standards at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (formerly very high density architect in the CTO Office of Aruba Networks), Aruba had been testing under-seat AP designs since around 2010, “in one form or another.” There were some initial tests of under-seat AP deployments at Turner Field in Atlanta and at American Airlines Arena in Dallas, but nothing on the scale of AT&T Park’s 2013 deployment, or on the scale Aruba planned to have at Levi’s Stadium when it opened in 2014.

Some of the first under-seat Wi-Fi deployments in other arenas were actually deployed completely under the stands, Lukaszewski said, with signals shooting up through the concrete. Though he said “you could get reasonably good throughput through concrete,” especially for 2.4 GHz frequencies, installing antennas above the concrete was “considerably better,” Lukaszewski said.

Curiously, one of the biggest problems in stadium Wi-Fi deployment — especially for those heavy on overhead antenna use — is negotiating interference between antennas; sometimes, clients can “see” antennas and APs that are across the stadium, and will try to connect to those instead of the AP closest to them, a problem that leads to inefficient bandwidth use. Interference also means you can’t place APs too closely together, making it somewhat of an art to find ways to increase coverage without increasing interference.

Dan Williams, former VP of technology for the San Francisco 49ers, talking networking at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR

What Aruba found in its testing, Lukaszewski said, was that under-seat Wi-Fi AP deployments could be far more dense than overhead-centric designs, mainly because the human bodies in the seats would provide beneficial “blocking” of signals, allowing network designers to place APs more closely together, and to be able to re-use the same Wi-Fi channels in more antennas.

“If you can use human bodies to contain signals, you can have much smaller cells,” Lukaszewski said. Under-seat deployments, he said, “allows us to re-use the same channel less than 100 yards away.”

With more channels available for each AP, the difference in the metric Lukaszewski calls “megabytes per fan” can be “profound” for an under-seat design versus an overhead design, he said.

“We do see trends [in stadium network data] of under-seat being able to deliver well over 100 MB per fan per event, while overhead designs [deliver] significantly under 100 MB per fan per event,” said Lukaszewski.

Dan Williams, the former vice president of technology for the San Francisco 49ers, said he and Lukaszewski were in agreement that under-seat was the best method to deploy at Levi’s Stadium.

Kyle Field at Texas A&M. White spots in stands are under-seat AP locations. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR

“I just did not believe in overhead,” said Williams, who said he brainstormed with Aruba’s Lukaszewski on the under-seat idea, which they both brought to the Wi-Fi design at Levi’s. By using under-seat APs, Williams said, the Levi’s Stadium design looked to provide “cones [of bandwidth] around the audience, immersing [fans] in a signal.”

After beating the previous year’s Super Bowl Wi-Fi total at its NFL regular-season opener in 2014, Levi’s Stadium’s Wi-Fi network more than passed its biggest test ever this year, carrying a record 10.1 terabytes of Wi-Fi data during Super Bowl 50. Those numbers are proof of Lukaszewski’s claim: “By far, under seat is better.”

New deployments trending to under-seat

Editor’s note: This excerpt is from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, our long-form PDF publication that combines in-depth stadium tech reports with news and analysis of the hottest topics in the world of stadium and large public venue tech deployments. Enjoy this PART 1 of our lead feature, or DOWNLOAD THE REPORT and read the whole story right now!

Even though under-seat deployments can be considerably more expensive, especially in a retrofit situation where deployment requires coring through concrete, many stadiums are now seeming to agree with another Lukaszewski claim, that “the return absolutely justifies the investment.”

At AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the Cowboys quicked followed their sister park’s lead and installed under-seat APs in force ahead of that venue’s hosting of the inaugural College Football Playoff championship game in January of 2015. John Winborn, chief information officer for the Dallas Cowboys Football Club, said the team worked with AT&T’s “Foundry” innovation centers to produce a smaller, sleeker under-seat AP enclosure that fit well with the stadium’s commitment to aesthetics.

Back on the baseball side, the Giants now have 1,628 Wi-Fi APs in their park, with the vast majority of them under-seat, in all three decks of seating. And the Giants’ main rival to the south, the Los Angeles Dodgers, also used under-seat APs in a recent Wi-Fi upgrade.

Close-up of conduit running to under-seat AP at Kyle Field. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR

And if Levi’s Stadium led the way for under-seat Wi-Fi, the new mainly under-seat network at the refurbished Kyle Field at Texas A&M might be the QED on the debate, with ultra-fast network speeds and big data-consumption numbers (including 5.7 TB of Wi-Fi at a game versus Alabama) adding measureable momentum to the under-seat trend. Bill Anderson, CEO of Wi-Fi deployment strategy firm AmpThink, said he was an early disbeliever in under-seat Wi-Fi — until he saw the numbers.

“At first we mocked it, made fun of it,” said Anderson, whose firm has been called in to produce Wi-Fi network designs for several recent Super Bowls, as well as for the Kyle Field design. But when Aruba showed AmpThink the data from under-seat tests and deployments, “that was the ‘a-ha’ moment for us,” Anderson said.

Working with Aruba at Kyle Field, AmpThink was able to collect its own data, which convinced Anderson that under-seat was the way to go if you wanted dense, high-performing networks.

“The really important thing is to get APs closer to the people,” said Anderson. “That’s the future.”

Anderson said some doubters may remain, especially those who try to mix a small amount of under-seat APs with existing overhead deployments, a recipe for lowered success due to the potential interference issues. At Texas A&M, Anderson said AmpThink was able to build a design with far less interference and much greater density than an overhead solution, producing numbers that people have to pay attention to.

“We only know what we’ve observed, but we’re evangelistic supporters” of under-seat designs, Anderson said. “If someone says to you under-seat is hocus-pocus, they’re not looking at the data.”

Not for everyone, but more are trying under-seat

Though proponents of under-seat Wi-Fi all agree on its ability to deliver denser, faster networks, they all also agree that under-seat can be considerably more costly than overhead Wi-Fi, especially in a retrofit situation.

In addition to having to core through concrete seating areas to get conduit to the under-seat APs, the devices themselves need to be sealed, to guard them from weather, drink spills, and the power-washing equipment employed by most stadiums to clean seating areas.

Aruba’s Lukaszewski also noted that under-seat deployments generally use more linear feet of cabling to connect the APs than overhead, which also drives up the cost. Then since under-seat designs tend to use more APs, that also means a higher budget to cover a higher number of devices.

A row shot of the under-seat APs at AT&T Stadium. Photo: Dallas Cowboys

For some stadiums, the construction materials used prohibit the under-seat option from even being tried. At the Green Bay Packers’ legendary Lambeau Field, a late-1950s construction design that used lots of concrete and rebar — as well as part of the stadium’s bottom sitting directly in the ground — meant that under-seat Wi-Fi wasn’t an option, according to Wayne Wichlacz, director of information technology for the Packers.

Other stadiums, like the University of Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium, don’t have enough space between the stadium’s bleacher seats and the floor for under-seat APs to be safely installed. And many schools or teams simply don’t have big IT budgets like the $20-million-plus available to Texas A&M that allowed the Kyle Field design to seek the best result possible.

But many of the new stadiums under construction, as well as existing venues that are planning for new best-of-breed networks, have already committed to under-seat Wi-Fi designs, including the Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center, where Ruckus Wireless will implement its first under-seat stadium Wi-Fi network.

Steve Martin, senior vice president and general manager at Ruckus, said the Golden 1 Center design, planned to be the most dense anywhere, will “primarily be underseat,” a choice he said “helps in a lot of ways.”

Foremost is the performance, something Martin said Ruckus has been testing at the Kings’ current home, the Sleep Train Arena. “It [under seat] does give you the isolation for frequency re-use,” he said.

The under-seat design also makes sense in Golden 1 Center since the stadium’s overall design is very open, with lots of glass walls and unobstructed views.

And under-seat deployment is even making inroads into the distributed antenna system (DAS) world, with Verizon Wireless implementing more than 50 under-seat DAS antennas at Levi’s Stadium prior to Super Bowl 50. Mainly installed to cover the bottom-of-the-bowl rows, the under-seat APs helped Verizon manage a record day for DAS traffic, with 7 TB reported on its in-stadium cellular network during the game.

“To get a quality signal, we had to go under seat,” said Brian Mecum, vice president, network, for Verizon Wireless, who said that in that area of the stadium, under seat was the only way to get a quality signal close to the subscriber’s phone. Verizon, he said, helped design the under-seat DAS antenna, and is looking to deploy it in other stadiums soon.

“It’s the first of more,” he said.

END PART 2… HERE IS THE LINK TO PART 1… TO READ THE WHOLE STORY NOW, DOWNLOAD OUR REPORT!

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, Dallas Cowboys, DAS, Hewlett-Packard, Levi's Stadium, NCAA Football, NFL, Sprint, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Aruba, Aruba Networks, AT&T, AT&T Stadium, Cisco, Dan Williams, DAS, Extreme Networks, Kyle Field, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 50, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Commentary: Super Bowl 50 and the pursuit of stadium network statistics

February 7, 2016 by Paul Kapustka 2 Comments

Dan Williams talks Wi-Fi while the Levi’s Stadium new turf grows silently behind him in this 2014 photo. All photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR

If there’s one person who didn’t get enough recognition in the run-up to today’s Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium, it’s Dan Williams, the former director of information technology for the Niners and the man who was largely behind the venue’s celebrated network design.

From our standpoint, Williams deserves credit not just for leading the deployment of a stadium network that set the standard for the future of connected venues, but also for being among the first to openly talk about the network’s performance, sharing statistics both good and bad during his short stay at Levi’s Stadium. His honesty helped open the door wider on a potentially rich stream of information that we think could greatly assist stadium network professionals everywhere, especially if more teams followed his lead and shared stats openly and honestly.

But the pursuit of meaningful network statistics remains a challenging process on many levels, and it’s one that is ironically likely to get more confusing today as multiple parties are set to release live network statistics from Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium. Both Verizon Wireless and AT&T are planning to release live game-day performance figures for their cellular networks in and around the venue today, and we also expect to get Wi-Fi network statistics from the San Francisco 49ers, if not during the game then shortly thereafter.

Niners VP of technology Dan Williams attempts to fix my Droid 4 Wi-Fi issues (while trying not to laugh at the fact that I actually have and use a Droid 4) during the first preseason game at Levi’s Stadium, July 2014

While we salute the change of heart (especially from Verizon) to make more information available, we’d also like to make a plea here for more independent access to venues on game day, so there can be an independent, objective voice on hand to counter the “sanitization” or simple non-reporting of less-impressive data that is almost sure to occur when interested parties are talking about themselves. But unless team, league or venue IT representatives band together and craft recognized standard methods of reporting the most-interesting data, we’re going to be left to sift through an ever-increasing mix of figures provided by those with their own agendas on what’s important and what should remain hidden. We’ll do our best on that front, but it’d be better if we had some industry-wide help.

Out of school behavior provides the most interesting info

Like many other stadium network professionals we’ve been fortunate enough to meet and spend time with — a list here that includes folks like the San Francisco Giant’s Bill Schlough, Madison Square Garden’s Katee Panter, the Dallas Cowboys’ John Winborn, and Chip Foley, formerly with the Barclays Center, among many others — Williams from the start showed a passion for making the network better, so it could better serve the fans who used it. Our first face to face meeting came during the first preseason football game at Levi’s Stadium, when I tweeted that I was having problems connecting to the Wi-Fi network. William’s response? An email asking me where I was sitting, followed quickly by an in-person visit. Now that’s customer support.

The outcome of that interaction was a revelation that the Levi’s Stadium Wi-Fi network hadn’t prepared adequately for older devices that were still using the 2.4 GHz unlicensed bands; what was cool to me was not just that I kind-of discovered it by accident, but that Williams and his team admitted it publicly, then went about fixing it. The combination of objective reporting and honest confirmation, I think, worked to the benefit of all. But not everybody sees such things in the same light.

Season opener issues: Picture of app late in the first half.

For instance, during the rest of Levi’s Stadium’s first year of operation, Williams shared with us not just raw “tonnage” numbers of Wi-Fi use but also interesting stats from the app, like exact numbers of replays watched and in-seat food delivery orders. Since those numbers were kind of low — in the low thousands for food deliveries and a decline in replay use after the season opener — they weren’t necessarily flattering to the owners of the system, even if you took into account the fact that some of this (like delivering to any seat in a 68,500-seat stadium) had never been tried before. In the end, even Niners CEO Jed York admitted that some elements of the stadium hadn’t performed as expected, as the stats we’d been seeing had borne out.

After Williams left the team, the Niners took control of the network stats reporting and hugely trimmed down the list of things they were willing to report, though we would also note that Roger Hacker and the Niners communications team are still at the top of the list when it comes to consistent, repeated reporting of the network stats they feel comfortable talking about. When there are big numbers to report, all goes well because everyone loves to talk about systems that deliver for fans as promised. But I can also tell you that when things go south, so does a lot of the honest communication, an unfortunate if understandable situation.

Who will tell you when things don’t work?

For Levi’s Stadium, the darkest night for the network came on Feb. 21, 2015, at the NHL’s Coors Light Stadium Series outdoor hockey game between the San Jose Sharks and the Los Angeles Kings. In what has easily been our highest-traffic post ever, we described in detail some of the big problems that surfaced that evening, which included breakdowns of the delivery service, the Wi-Fi network, the light rail boarding process, and part of Verizon’s cellular network. What’s funny about our reporting is that I hadn’t planned on “working” that night — I had bought full-price tickets for myself and my brother, and as longtime hockey nuts we proudly wore our Blackhawks jerseys to represent our hometown team.

Screen shot of Levi’s Stadium app during hockey game issues

My plan was just to relax, take CalTrain and VTA to the stadium and show off the network by ordering us food and drink to be delivered to our seats, but when some obvious and incomprehensible network breakdowns were evident, I went into reporting mode, and eventually found out mostly what went wrong. My point here is that, without independent, objective reporting live from the scene, it’s doubtful that parties with vested interests — like cellular providers or owners of the stadium network — are going to honestly and quickly talk about breakdowns or failures. Yet it’s always the lessons learned from problem times that help the most; my worry is that with more “sponsored” or in-house statistics flooding the zone, the more valuable objective data will get lost or devalued.

How can this be fixed? For starters, teams and leagues that spend an inordinate amount of time and money promoting technical features of stadiums should at the very least credential some reporters who are interested in following up to see how said deployments perform. While we’re grateful for the few forward-thinking organizations that have given us the same access that sports reporters get, more often than not our requests for media access to events are denied.

Since we can’t be at every stadium, we also rely on teams, venues and network operators to provide stats when possible, and we encourage more participants to join the growing list who do provide us with network performance figures, like the IT teams at Nebraska and Texas A&M, among others. While we have also drawn some industry criticism for our headline focus on such stats, our response is that the more data we get and the more opinions on which data matter, the better we will get over time. We also encourage any and all interested parties to attend the SEAT Conference this summer in Las Vegas, where you can be sure we will have discussions about this topic and how to make stats reporting more useful for those to whom it matters most — the professionals who install and operate these networks so that fans can stay connected at events.

MSR on the scene at Sports Authority Field at Mile High in January

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Dallas Cowboys, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Xfinity Tagged With: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Dan Williams, 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

Niners’ VP of technology, Dan Williams, departs for Dropbox

November 23, 2014 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Dan Williams talks Wi-Fi while the Levi’s Stadium new turf grows silently behind him.

Dan Williams, the human face behind the highly touted wireless network at Levi’s Stadium, has left his position as vice president of technology for the San Francisco 49ers, according to both sources inside the San Francisco 49ers’ stadium network operations and Williams’ own LinkedIn profile.

Williams, who was at his post as of at least last week, is now at online storage concern Dropbox, where his LinkedIn profile has him with the title of “new guy, technical operations.” So far, there is no official statement from the 49ers about Williams’ departure, or about who would take over as head of operations for the Levi’s Stadium network.

Previously a network guru at Facebook, Williams became a the public face for the Niners’ new stadium and its heavily hyped wireless network and app strategy when Kunal Malik, the Niners’ former CTO, left the team earlier this year. The sudden departure is surprising since Williams — a professed avid Niners fan — seemed to enjoy the hands-on work of getting the Levi’s network up and running, even doing “seat calls” during games to help solve connectivity issues. Williams also took great pride in the network’s performance, sending out detailed statistics on bandwidth and app usage.

So far, there has been no public announcement of Williams’ departure. We’ll update this post when we hear more from Dan and/or the 49ers.

Filed Under: NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Dan Williams, Dropbox, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi

Holy Terabyte! First football crowd at Levi’s Stadium uses 2.13 TB of Wi-Fi traffic, with nearly 25K fans on Wi-Fi at once

August 21, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 5 Comments

Levi’s Stadium from Section 244. All photos: Paul Kapustka, Mobile Sports Report

All those predictions about Silicon Valley people using a stadium network more than other fans? It looks like they’re true.

The network numbers are in for the first football game at Levi’s Stadium, and they are pretty amazing: According to Dan Williams, the vice president of technology for the San Francisco 49ers, the Levi’s Stadium Wi-Fi network carried 2.13 terabytes of data during last Sunday’s preseason game, with a peak of 24,775 fans on the Wi-Fi network at the same time. Those numbers are comparable to the latest Super Bowl at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where according to AT&T and Verizon there was approximately 2.5 TB of data used on wireless networks.

The kicker to the Niners’ stats — they do NOT include any traffic figures from the Levi’s Stadium DAS, the distributed antenna system that is meant to provide enhanced cellular coverage in the stadium. What follows is an email Q-and-A with Williams, who kindly answered our extensive list of questions. The real question is, if Niners fans are hitting terabyte levels during preseason games, what’s going to happen when the season starts for real? And the instant replay function in the team app is live? Read on for some great insight from Williams. Additional editor’s note: The companies talked about include Aruba Networks, the provider of Wi-Fi gear; Brocade, provider of back-end networking gear and integration; DAS Group Professionals, the integrator and deployment team behind the DAS (the network of small antennas that improve in-building cellular coverage).

Mobile Sports Report: what was the peak number for simultaneous Wi-Fi connections? The average?
Dan Williams: We peaked at 24,775 (roughly 38% of attendance) concurrent connections with an average of 16,862 (roughly 25% of attendance).

MSR: When did connections spike? When did they start and then tail off?
Williams: We had two spikes, 1:02 p.m. [editor’s note: kickoff was 1 p.m.] with a system wide peak of 2.3Gbps and then again at 1:53 p.m. with 1.7Gbps. We averaged more than 1Gbps for more than two hours.

Niners VP of technology Dan Williams attempts to fix my Droid 4 Wi-Fi issues (while trying not to laugh at the fact that I actually have and use a Droid 4)

MSR: What was the total data tonnage on the Wi-Fi network?
Williams: We offloaded 2.13 Terabytes during the event.

MSR: What were the usage patterns with the app — which feature did people use most?
Williams: We had a great deal of usage throughout Sunday. The food ordering app usage was top of the list with ticketing being a close second while video would take third from a feature standpoint.

MSR: What are the plans with the instant replay feature… when will it be live (and can you explain why it was held back)?
Williams: We felt a lot of folks were happy with the livestream, so we wanted to focus more on a couple of core features with food ordering and ticketing a bit more at this point. Replays will be available to all by the first regular season home game.

MSR: Can you explain exactly how the location feature works… does it require Bluetooth to be on?
Williams: The location service is mainly built around low-energy Bluetooth, BLE. We have a number of beacons placed throughout the open areas and points-of-interest which allow the app to identify your location through proximity. Aruba helped us build this as well. GPS is also used but the primary resource is Bluetooth. The app prompts users to enable Bluetooth to provide improved location awareness.

One of the big screens in Levi’s Stadium.

MSR: Can you provide any stats on the DAS performance?
Williams: The DAS held up really well. Like WiFi, we found some areas that need tuning. Unlike WiFi, the carriers protect a lot of their specific data but they have told us they are very happy with the system DGP helped us with. It is important to note our DAS and WiFi have been built to compliment each other and I think between Aruba and DGP, we did that very well. Most come here looking to connect to WiFi but our story internally has been we are going to have an awesome connectivity play regardless of medium.

MSR: Could you guys see any [more] of the 2.4 GHz issues like the one I had?
Williams: As you know, 2.4GHz is limited with non-overlapping channels so we suspect a number of legacy devices may have some problems. That said, we had a ratio of 2:1 with respects to 5GHz to 2.4GHz [usage] which shows a good deal of 2.4GHz usage. We know we still have some optimizations to do in the upper bowl and upper concourse while we continue to fine-tune the main bowl and concourse as we noticed our cell edge was weaker than expected when the stands were full. Our Aruba team did a great job capturing real-time data during the event as there is really no other way to test this stuff without a full venue. We will make some tweaks and continue to learn more from every event we host. Between Aruba, Brocade, and the 49er tech staff, we are not resting on our laurels. We know there is more to do.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Denver Broncos, MSR Guides, NFL, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Aruba Networks, AT&T, Brocade, Dan Williams, DAS, DAS Group Professionals, Levi's Stadium, MetLife Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Stadium Tech Report: Levi’s Stadium network lives up to hype, but team app still needs work

August 17, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 11 Comments

Levi’s Stadium from Section 244. All photos: Paul Kapustka, Mobile Sports Report

At the very least San Francisco 49ers fans Sunday could take heart in the fact that the wireless network in Levi’s Stadium largely lived up to its advance billing, performing quite well even as the team on the field sputtered and failed to connect. In its first “real” test with an almost-full house on Sunday the Levi’s Wi-Fi and cellular networks seemed to work well throughout the game, delivering solid speed test results from almost every part of the new 68,500-seat facility, even as Colin Kaepernick and the rest of the 49ers were dealt a 34-0 preseason drubbing by Peyton Manning and the visiting Denver Broncos.

And just like the team, the Niners’ stadium technology lineup still has some weak spots that will hopefully be fixed before the regular season home opener on Sept. 14. Among the disappointments Sunday was a no-show by the highly heralded instant replay feature, the crown jewel of the new Levi’s Stadium app. We also experienced some location-connection problems with one of our devices, exposing what we consider a flaw in the Levi’s app, namely an over-reliance on location technologies to enable key parts of the app, like wayfinding and on-site video streaming.

Ticket scanner with Niners visor to block sun

Some other not-so-advanced technology flaws that could use fine-tuning include the volume level on the main stadium public-address and announcing system, which was so loud that it made it a struggle just to talk to the person next to you for long stretches of time. The ticket scanning machines also seemed to have issues working in the bright sunlight, a problem that found a low-tech fix when ticket personnel placed Niners’ visors around the tops of the machines to shade the scanning area. And many concession stands around the stadium were unable to serve guests or could only take cash because the staff operating the stands said they weren’t given access codes to the point-of-sale systems.

Overall, however, the first football game at Levi’s was a success on many levels, including the fantastic sight lines available from most seats and largely incident-free travel and parking operations, with noticed improvements especially on the VTA light rail front that struggled mightily during the stadium’s opening-event soccer game two weekends ago. Most fans also probably got a little weight loss from the no extra-charge sauna situation, thanks to the cloudless day and bright sun that bathed most of the seats in searing heat for long times after the 1 p.m. start.

Smooth start for early VTA riders

What follows here is a somewhat minute-by-minute account of my trip to the game, and my experience with the network and stadium operations on site.

Mtn View lot sign, not in operation at 9:30 a.m.

Since I wasn’t given press access to the game, Mobile Sports Report attended like a regular fan, purchasing a single ticket through the NFL Ticket Exchange service on the 49ers’ web site. My plan to get to Levi’s from San Mateo was to drive to downtown Mountain View, park there and take VTA the rest of the way. (I didn’t take CalTrain mainly because I didn’t want to have to sync my return schedule with the CalTrain options going northbound on Sunday.)

Though I was somewhat incredulous about having to buy tickets online — VTA said that the ticket machines in Mountain View would be shut down Sunday to keep big lines from forming — upon further review the VTA app was slick and easy to operate and understand. After purchasing a ticket for $6.50 Saturday night I activated it Sunday, and showed it at the gate where they checked boarding passes. For people who didn’t have tickets there was a tent set up where they could buy a pre-loaded Clipper card for $10 good for a day’s worth of VTA riding. There was an abundance of VTA workers on hand, as well as a large and very obvious police presence. As a nice touch there was also a large bank of porta-potties, and behind the trains there were express buses waiting, according to one VTA employee, in case of crowd overloads.

“We learned some lessons from two weeks ago,” he said.

If there was a glitch in the VTA operations it was with the city of Mountain View — though a couple city lots were designated as places where fans could buy all-day parking passes, and there were clear signs to those lots, at 9:30 a.m. those lots were not yet staffed with anyone to pay; MSR found one sign leaning up against a post, waiting to be deployed. Fans could also park in the CalTrain lot for $5, payable via the CalTrain track podium ticket machines.

Fans transferring from CalTrain to VTA at Mtn View station

I boarded the first VTA train to leave for the stadium, along with many fans who had just gotten off CalTrain. The pleasant, air-conditioned trip took just 27 minutes, passing many Silicon Valley company headquarters and one neighborhood with “no parking here” patrols before stopping pretty much right at the Levi’s Stadium entrance. A few steps later I was in the parking lot, and took the first of many Wi-Fi speed tests and got a signal of 29 Mbps download and 23 Mbps upload, a good sign for network operations.

Looking for Wi-Fi, finding lots of it

DAS antenna in “Faithful Mile” area

Once inside the gates — and past the shaded scanners — I started speed testing in earnest, with the two devices I brought with me: A Motorola Droid 4 on Verizon, and a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 on AT&T. While waiting for the main stadium gates to open at 11 a.m. I got the weakest Wi-Fi signals of the day along the “Faithful Mile” area where promotional booths from sponsors kept early arrivers entertained. Wi-Fi on both devices out there only hit 2 to 3 Mbps on the download, while cell signals on both devices were in the 6-7 Mbps download range. Since I could see multiple DAS radios in the area but not any Wi-Fi access points I wasn’t too surprised; but it was an unusual area not to be blanketed with Wi-Fi, especially since there was good access a couple hundred yards away in the parking lots.

After finally entering the stadium proper, I ran into Niners president Paraag Marathe — who said he was “nervously excited,” and looked ready to start sweating in his suit and tie. “We’ve just got to make sure everything works today,” Marathe said, shaking my hand. Then I went up the escalator and saw the “Kezar pub,” an open-air bar filling the top area above the Intel gate. There, draft beers like Shock Top and Goose Island IPA were available for $11, and bottled beers available for $10.25.

As I started walking around the outside concourse I took my first speed test in the stadium and it blew the needle off the edge: 57.92 Mbps download, 41.00 Mbps upload.

Pegging the needle: @LevisStadium wifi hits 57 mbps on lower concourse #levinet http://t.co/AXEfODpPin

— paulkaps (@paulkaps) August 17, 2014

A few minutes later on the inside concourse (where most of the concession stands are) I hit 27.85 Mbps/21.34 Mbps, still impressive. Then I tried to launch the app, and — problem. Apparently the device wasn’t connecting because it wouldn’t show my location on the wayfinding app. Luckily, right in front of me was Racquel, one of the “NiNerds,” the team’s new staff of technical experts who are there to help fans make the app work. But Racquel couldn’t solve my problem, even after we both tried turning on all location services, including Bluetooth.

Racquel the NiNerd

“I can try to find another NiNerd who might know more about this device,” offered Racquel, who was visibly dismayed at her failure to help solve my problem. Instead, I moved on, hoping that the problem would solve itself later. But it didn’t.

Failure to locate… and other app problems

After downloading the Levi’s app to both devices over the weekend, I noticed that the first item on the app list of functions — Tickets — required me to “sign in” with my “Stadium Ticket Account,” something I didn’t have and didn’t know how to get. I did figure out how to enter my purchased seat location (which I could have used to order food to my seat, or for the express pick-up option), but I could never get the location feature to work on the Samsung device, which kept me from being able to see the live streaming TV option (I kept getting a message that said, “You must be at the stadium to play this video”). I was able to watch the live TV option on the Motorola device, after turing on location services. But for both devices — and, as it turns out, for everyone in the stadium — the final feature on the app, Game Center, where we were supposed to be able to see all the instant replays we could handle, remained labeled “coming soon.”

Finally sitting in my most excellent seat — section 244, row 3, seat 17 — I noticed that the Motorola device could no longer connect to Wi-Fi, even as the Samsung device was hitting marks in the 15-16 Mbps range. I started tweeting about the problem, and instead of a NiNerd coming to help me I got a personal visit from the Levi’s version of a Jedi Master, namely Dan Williams, the team’s vice president of technology. (Never underestimate the power of a complaining tweet!)

Niners VP of technology Dan Williams attempts to fix my Droid 4 Wi-Fi issues (while trying not to laugh at the fact that I actually have and use a Droid 4)

On my own, I had guessed that the Droid’s inability to connect came from its having only a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi radio. If you’re not familiar with Wi-Fi networks, the 2.4 GHz band of unlicensed airwaves is what most first-generation Wi-Fi networks used; more recent devices are able to also use the 5 GHz band of unlicensed airwaves, which simply offer more channels and more bandwidth. The iPhone 5s, for example, mainly uses 5 GHz for Wi-Fi, as does my Samsung Note.

In scanning the available Wi-Fi networks, I had also noticed something else that I thought could be gumming up the Droid’s connection — a bunch of personal Wi-Fi hotspots in the immediate area, including several labeled as GoPro cameras. After curiously examining my Droid 4 — and its slide-out keyboard — Williams and a technician from Wi-Fi gear provider Aruba Networks concurred that my device was getting bogged down in the 2.4 GHz mess, and also wasn’t refreshing the available networks list, a device-specific problem.

Bottom line? Levi’s is no country for old phones.

Initial verdict: Wi-Fi and cellular is world class… but app needs work

After staying into the third quarter — and visiting another friend in section 109, where I got another hefty Wi-Fi speed test (24.42/25.39 Mbps) — I followed the lead of many fans and took an early leave of Levi’s, which meant no lines at the VTA trains and just a couple short delays due to track congestion that stretched the return train trip to 40 minutes. Overall, my travel to and from the stadium from San Mateo took just over an hour each way, a happy stat to report.

My initial verdict is that the Wi-Fi and DAS (cellular) networks delivered as promised, with solid speeds all around the stadium every time I checked. It’s no small accomplishment just to deliver such world-class service to such a crowded space, especially in the middle of Silicon Valley. True to its roots, the crowd Sunday was device-happy, with many iPads and GoPros being carried around as video cameras, in addition to all the phones that were in constant use. It’s a tribute to Williams and his staff, as well as the technology suppliers like Aruba, Brocade, Comcast (backbone bandwidth supplier) and DAS Group Professionals, who built the distributed antenna system (DAS) which brings advanced cellular connectivity inside the gates, to have built a solid network that worked well on its first big test.

The team app, however, did not even come close to living up to its advanced billing. To equal the network I think the app needs more advance instructions, especially on the ticketing/registration options as well as on the location services needed to make everything work. And until we see the multiple-camera angle live replays in action, to me the app is an incomplete project. The good news is, the Niners and their technology teams have several weeks to make improvements, including another preseason game Aug. 24 against the San Diego Chargers.

It’d also be helpful for the team to reach out a bit more to the VTA and players like the City of Mountain View, since the VTA site maps and Mountain View’s parking maps are far from what you would call “advanced design.” I think it’s up to the Niners to help pay for improvements to the city and transportation entities’ technology offerings, simply because of the burden placed on those operators by the fans going to Niners’ games. At the very least, more links from football to getting-there operations seems in order, instead of trusting that all parts of the operation will work in sync.

VTA lines going home

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, AT&T, Comcast, DAS, Galaxy Note, Intel, iPad, iPhone, MSR Guides, NFL, Samsung, Twitter, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Xfinity Tagged With: Apple, Aruba Networks, AT&T, Comcast, Dan Williams, DAS, DAS Group Professionals, Intel, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, Mountain View, Paraag Marathe, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, VTA

Niners’ new network team loses its CTO

May 16, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 1 Comment

Kunal Malik, once a very public spokesperson for the new network being built at Levi’s Stadium, is no longer the chief technology officer for the San Francisco 49ers, according to team executives and Malik’s own LinkedIn profile.

Once the former director of IT at Facebook, Malik was seen as one of the masterminds behind the wireless network being put in at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, which is scheduled to open later this year. In public speaking appearances as well as in a long article in Ars Technica last year, Malik talked often about the team’s desire to build the best stadium wireless network, and how the team was adamant about providing robust Wi-Fi services to every seat in the 68,500-seat stadium.

Now that job will be finished without Malik, whose LinkedIn profile leads off with the line “Former Chief Technology Officer, 49ers.” Malik did not respond to emails or phone messages inquiring about his departure, which apparently happened sometime last month.

Niners vice president for technology Dan Williams, who followed Malik over to the Niners from Facebook, confirmed via email that Malik was no longer the team’s CTO. When asked if Malik’s departure could threaten the network’s buildout, Williams said that Malik had been primarily concerned with the applications to be used at the stadium, while Williams was in charge of network deployment.

“Kunal leaving has little to no impact on the project,” Williams said in an email.

Filed Under: Apps, DAS, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Aruba, Comcast, Dan Williams, DAS Group Professionals, Kunal Malik, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Santa Clara, Stadium Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi