Sure this is an AT&T ad. But an ad about putting in DAS at a stadium? Who would run a copy of this except us? Enjoy all you antenna geeks out there. And… there’s gotta be work for the fan, maybe conduit work? C’mon DAS dudes, let me in on the fun!
You had me at “Do you know how to optimize a 9-beam multi-beam antenna system?”
Inside the bowl at American Airlines Center
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.
@Liz_Grow have to have wifi. But you should do everything possible to give people no reason to use it
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) March 8, 2014
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.”
We’d heard this project was underway but now it’s official: AT&T and Aruba Networks are the forces behind a new Wi-Fi network at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, a 21,000-seat facility that is home to the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA and the Dallas Stars of the NHL.
According to an AT&T press release put out today the new Wi-Fi network will have 315 access points, bringing more connectivity to the AT&T DAS that has already been in place at the arena since 2012. For AT&T customers the network should be fairly simple since the company is supporting automatic authentication, which means no logins or setup screens. Fans who have phones from competing providers will also be able to use the network for free, after visiting a login page.
We haven’t yet been able to talk to AT&T folks or the IT department at the arena, but look for a Stadium Tech Report in the near future. We do know from reporting on our upcoming quarterly long-form Stadium Tech Report that the people running the arena weren’t making any small plans, so it will be interesting to hear about the breadth and depth of the deployment. From a business perspective it’s a big win for Aruba, especially since pairing with AT&T could lead to more stadium deals down the road.
It’s also always interesting to hear about AT&T getting behind a Wi-Fi deployment, since the company can often seem of two minds about Wi-Fi in stadiums. From the sounds of it, this is one of those “big name” deals where AT&T likes to get involved from the bottom up — and since it’s in AT&T’s home turf it makes sense that AT&T would want a big part in any wireless deployment close to its corporate offices. Here’s a quote from the press release:
“Providing Wi-Fi at premier venues like American Airlines Center is part of our strategy to mobilize everything for our customers,” said Aaron Coleman, AVP, AT&T Wi-Fi Solutions, in the AT&T press release. “By working with stadium venues to strategically design and deploy an in-stadium network we can satisfy the connectivity demands of the business and enhance the way teams and venues engage with their fans.”
As we said, we hope to have more details soon so stay tuned.
Amway Center prior to NBA opening night, 2013-14 season. Credit: Orlando Magic
“When the Amway Center opened it was one of the most technically advanced buildings in the world,” said Jack Elkins, business innovations manager for the Orlando Magic, in a recent phone interview. Though the arena had Wi-Fi connectivity for luxury suites and for media, and a neutral-host DAS, there wasn’t a high-bandwith Wi-Fi network to service the balance of attendees at the 20,000-seat facility.
“At the time, public Wi-Fi for stadiums wasn’t [economically] viable,” Elkins said. But like smartphone design, Wi-Fi infrastructure equipment got cheaper, better and faster, and the arena team started making plans to deploy a network as quickly as possible, with an important caveat: They wanted to own the network themselves, to better take advantage of its ability to collect and share information with the fans who would be using it.
Amway Center outside shot. Credit: Amway Center
“We wanted to be one of the first teams [to put in Wi-Fi],” and by the 2012-13 season, the deployment was “financially palatable” to the building’s owner and operator, the central Florida city of Orlando. According to Elkins the Magic teamed with wireless infrastructure specialist AmpThink to help design and deploy the network, which the team wanted to own and operate instead of merely allowing a cellular carrier or another third party to run it.
“When we went to put in Wi-Fi we saw it as a capital investment — we wanted to own the network,” Elkins said. Jeff Lutes, vice president of technology for the Magic who also participated in the recent phone interview, said the team entered into a “unique relationship” with AmpThink, basically “giving them the arena as a testbed for new technology work.” What was the Magic’s overall goal? “Getting better analytics out of Wi-Fi,” Lutes said.
First came the difficult procedure of ripping into those brand new stadium walls to add technology, which included all the Wi-Fi access points and infrastructure.
“We had just opened this new and gorgeous building, and had to find ways to put up a Wi-Fi network incorporating antennas the size of 17-inch monitors in as an aesthetically pleasing way as possible,” said Elkins, expressing a frustration no doubt felt in many other existing facilities who are adding new stadium technology. “That was a very difficult thing for our venue.”
A strong partner means a deeper technical bench
On the technical side, the Magic’s tech team was able to rely on the bench strength of partners like AmpThink and Cisco, who made sure the deployment was forward-thinking enough to embrace the latest technologies, like the newer 5 GHz channels for Wi-Fi connectivity.
Orlando Magic in action at Amway Center. Credit: Orlando Magic
The fewer walls torn apart, the better.
“We had limited internal staff, many of whom needed to stay focused on day to day issues,” Elkins said. “AmpThink opened the door to keep us forward thinking.”
So far, Lutes said the Magic sees an average of about 2,700 fans using the Wi-Fi network during NBA games. Concerts usually see a higher use rate, something that also happens during “big” games — like when former Magic star Dwight Howard returned to Orlando a year ago while playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. According to Lutes, the network saw 4,000 users on the night Howard returned.
App rollout and future connectivity goes both ways
Part of the future of the team’s extended connectivity with fans is just getting underway, with the rollout of an official in-stadium app. And when fans access the network for the first time, they are presented with a registration page that gives the team the ability to fine tune its marketing and outreach messaging, a key part of its overall strategy going forward.
“Fans have to opt in [to the marketing program] and it’s very valuable for us if they do,” Lutes said.
In addition to Magic games, the Amway Center also has concerts and minor league hockey games, averaging about 150 events during a calendar year. Since the city attracts tourists from all over the world for conventions and its theme parks, Lutes said the arena also attracts an interesting out-of-town crowd who may be taking in an NBA game during their visit to the city. So it’s important for the team and city ownership to know as much as possible about who is coming through the arena doors.
With the team’s analytics implementation, the Magic can tailor marketing messages for specific types of fans. Though people might worry about getting a bunch of spammy email if they opt in, Lutes said the team’s system works in the opposite manner.
“Our business analytics group can quickly tell if a marketing campaign is effective, and if it’s not we shut it down,” Lutes said. “We don’t blast a lot of messages. It’s less intrusive and more effective.”
And it’s all based on data accumulated via the network the Magic made sure it owned.
“We wouldn’t have access to this type of information if we didn’t own the Wi-Fi network,” Lutes said. “It sets the stage for more personalized messages down the road.”
Inside the AT&T head-end building at MetLife. Cables! Credit: AT&T
Part of the gain no doubt came from the fact that MetLife Stadium holds approximately 10,000 more fans during a football game than the Superdome, 82,566 to 72,003. But AT&T’s numerical evidence — including a new peak-time high of 119 GB during the hour before kickoff — shows that the desire to access mobile devices inside stadiums is still growing, especially at big games like the Super Bowl.
Verizon Wireless, which like AT&T spent more than a year getting MetLife’s network ready for Sunday’s game, also said it had experienced record traffic on its networks, claiming a total of 1.9 TB of cellular traffic inside MetLife Stadium. During the game Verizon Twitter accounts said new traffic records were set before halftime; however we still have no figures from Verizon for previous years’ data for comparison.
Total VZW data usage in-stadium Sunday more than 1.9 TB – highest data usage we’ve ever seen at aSuper Bowl @VZWNews http://t.co/DG0HvVTKDz
— Tom Pica (@VZWtom) February 3, 2014
Verizon also claimed its peak hour usage was “800 percent” greater than last year’s, but again, we don’t have exact numbers so can’t confirm the accuracy of such claims. Still unkown is how much traffic was carried by the stadium Wi-Fi network which Verizon manages (and was free to all MetLife fans), since Verizon did not provide Wi-Fi traffic numbers. Our guess is it saw similar traffic leaps as AT&T’s and Verizon’s cellular nets.
Another interesting note from the AT&T data is a trend toward more mobile data use, and fewer voice calls. Fans at the game Sunday made 55,000 voice calls on AT&T networks, down from 73,000 calls in 2012. Some of that might have to do with the fact that last year’s game had a lengthy power outage, which no doubt prompted many “I’m OK” calls to loved ones. But still — a 20,000 call dropoff in the face of more than doubling data traffic seems to show that people are using their phones more, even if they are talking less.
Verizon branded gate at MetLife Stadium. Credit: Verizon Wireless
We might be one of the only news outlets who care more about the wireless networking at Super Bowls than the game itself, but for many in the stadium tech industry the biggest single game in America’s most popular sport is always somewhat of a wireless watershed. Perhaps at no other event do attendees spend so much time shooting selfies and posting them as they do from the site of Super Bowl Sunday. Even in the expected cold, it should be no different this week at Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where game time is scheduled for around 6:30 p.m. Eastern.
But well before that, fans will be testing the Verizon-built Wi-Fi network and both of the big carriers’ DAS deployments inside MetLife. According to reps from both companies that we spoke with last week, the carriers are ready.
Verizon spokesman David Samberg told us via email last week that an upgrade of the Verizon DAS in MetLife this past season means there are now more than 500 DAS antennas inside the facility. See some of the photos provided by Verizon that show the clever hiding spots Verizon engineers have found over the last 18 months as they’ve added capacity to a network built just a few years ago.
AT&T has also put in a brand-new DAS over the past year, with another 500-plus antennas of its own. “For the last year or so we’ve been working on our pre-game and game day network playbook in an effort to provide the best possible wireless experience for our customers,” said Michael Maus, assistant vice president of network services at AT&T, via email. “In anticipation of the huge volume of data and voice usage expected [for the Super Bowl], we’ve built a new state of the art antenna system inside the stadium, we’re rolling in portable cell sites both at the stadium, and to support the tailgate areas, and we’ve augmented coverage in New York City to support the activities there.”
Rooftop DAS equipment. Credit: Verizon Wireless
More traffic than last year’s Super Bowl already
While yours truly opined earlier this year that this year’s Super Bowl might not set a wireless traffic record, we didn’t take into account some simple numbers — mainly, that MetLife Stadium’s official capacity of 82,566 is bigger than the Superdome’s 72,003. So, even if it’s cold, having 10,000 more people on hand probably means more bandwidth consumed, even if this year’s game doesn’t have a power blackout in the second half. (And even if it does, Samberg said the network shouldn’t go down since Verizon has backup power supplies on hand.)
Find the DAS antenna! Credit: Verizon Wireless
Aside from the stadium improvements, Verizon will be showing a demonstration of a technology this week that could make DAS more of a competitor to Wi-Fi on the high bandwidth side of things. Called LTE multicast, the technology basically establishes set channels for LTE devices that will “broadcast” video, like a TV channel. (This idea is similar to the StadiumVision Mobile technology Cisco uses at stadiums like Barclays Center.) Theoretically, LTE multicast could let fans use a cellular connection to view multiple video streams, something you would need to use Wi-Fi for it to have any chance of working. But the multicast demo won’t take place at MetLife, but instead at Bryant Park in Manhattan this week. If you are in the city, check out the demo and let us know what you think.
No NFL Mobile at MetLife
And here’s something else you won’t be able to use at MetLife during the Super Bowl: Verizon’s own NFL Mobile app, which outside the stadium will be the only smartphone platform you’ll be able to watch the game on. (The Fox streaming site and app will only work with tablets and desktops or laptops, per the league’s rights agreement with Verizon.) Next year, the rights for NFL Mobile will change and if the local game (like, say, the Super Bowl) is on TV, you’ll be able to use NFL Mobile to watch it even if you’re at the stadium. But not this year! (To give one answer as to why, if you are at the game, you might want to watch it on your cell phone, we say: Bathroom or beer lines!)
More stadium infrastructure photos below:
AT&T DAS antennas at MetLife. Credit: AT&T
AT&T’s new head-end building at MetLife, where its DAS gear is housed. Credit: AT&T
Inside the AT&T head-end building at MetLife. Cables! Credit: AT&T
Our latest report provides an in-depth look at the new Wi-Fi 6 network deployed at Coors Field, ahead of the All-Star Game. READ THE ISSUE NOW
