DGP – Page 2

Wrigley Field gets new DAS in time for Cubs’ home opener

April 8, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The Chicago Cubs’ Wrigley Field will have a new DAS working for opening day. Credit for these 2017 season pictures: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

After some construction delays that no Chicago Cubs fans minded, the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field will have a new high-performance distributed antenna system (DAS) operational for Monday’s scheduled Cubs home opener for the 2018 season.

Designed and deployed by DAS Group Professionals, the new in-stadium cellular network was originally scheduled to be ready by last year; but when the Cubs took their historic march to the World Series title in 2016, many of the in-progress construction plans for Wrigley Field got delayed or rearranged, to the objection of nobody at all who cheers for the north siders.

And even though some of the most ambitious parts of the Wrigley renovation took place this winter — including removing most of the seats and concrete in the lower seating bowl to clear the way for some lower-level club spaces — the DGP crew along with the Cubs’ IT organization delivered the new cell network in time for the first pitches scheduled Monday afternoon.

Wi-Fi coming in as season goes on

“We definitely put scheduling and timing to the test, but we got it done,” said Andrew McIntyre, vice president of technology for the Chicago Cubs, in a phone interview. First announced back in 2015, the networking plan for the Wrigley renovations — which includes coverage for the plaza outside the stadium, the new team office building as well as the across-the-street Hotel Zachary that also just opened for business — also includes a new Wi-Fi network using gear from Extreme Networks. Since the Wi-Fi network is more construction-conflicted than the DAS deployment, it will be introduced gradually over the next few months, McIntyre said.

“By the All-Star break, we should have both systems online,” McIntyre said.

The DAS system deployed by DGP uses JMA equipment, just like DGP’s other big-stadium DAS deployments at the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s Stadium and the Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center. Steve Dutto, president of DGP, acknowledged the challenge of the Wrigley buildout, including one instance where DGP technicians needed to set up scaffolding to mount antennas but couldn’t because instead of a concrete floor there was a 60-foot hole in the ground.

Hey hey!

“We worked around all that and got it done,” said Dutto. According to Dutto DGP has signed up all four major U.S. wireless carriers for the DAS, with all except Sprint operational for opening day. The head-end building for the DAS, he said, is located in what he thinks is a former hot-dog stand a half a block from the park. (If you’re looking for a snack in the head end room, just remember, in Chicago there’s no ketchup on hot dogs.)

Dutto said the DAS antennas are all overhead mounts, not a problem in Wrigley since the overhangs offer plenty of mounting spaces. However, given the historic look and feel of the park, Dutto did say that “we definitely had to tuck things away better and make sure we had good paint matches.” Not a Chicago native, Dutto said that the charm of the stadium hit him on first view.

“When we pulled up for the first time,” he said, “it was… wow. There’s nothing like it.”

Under seat for Wi-Fi will take time to deploy

The Cubs’ McIntyre, who admits to guzzling coffee by the quart these days, said the field-level renovations — which included removing all lower seats and the foundational concrete to clear out room for field-level club spaces — made finishing the Wi-Fi deployment something that couldn’t be pushed. With no overhangs covering the premium box seat areas, Wi-Fi APs there will need to be mounted under seats, something that just couldn’t get finished by Monday.

“It’s less of a technical challenge and more of a structural engineering challenge,” said McIntyre of the under-seat deployment method, which usually involves a lot of work with drilling through concrete and mounting APs in weather-sealed enclosures. McIntyre said the Cubs and Extreme also plan to use under-seat deployments in Wrigley’s famous outfield bleachers, which also lack any overhead infrastructure. In what he termed a “slow roll,” McIntyre said parts of the Wi-Fi network will come online gradually as the season progresses, starting first with the spaces outside the stadium.

Bringing backbone power to the new network is partner Comcast Business, which just announced a sponsorship deal with the Cubs that will see a “XfinityWiFi@Wrigley” label on the Wrigley Wi-Fi SSID. According to McIntyre Comcast will bring in twin 10-Gbps pipes to power the Wrigley Wi-Fi network.

This panoramic view shows why the lower level seats will need under-seat APs for Wi-fi

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Comcast, DAS, Extreme Networks, Levi's Stadium, Major League Baseball, SEAT Conference, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Xfinity Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, Chicago Cubs, DAS, DAS Group Professionals, DGP, Extreme Networks, JMA Wireless, Levi's Stadium, MLB, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Wrigley Field

DGP upgrades Levi’s Stadium DAS in preparation for Super Bowl 50

September 14, 2015 by Paul Kapustka 5 Comments

New ‘chiclet’ DAS antennas visible on the concourse overhangs at Levi’s Stadium. All photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

After deploying one of the biggest and most robust stadium DAS networks at Levi’s Stadium last year, what did DAS Group Professionals do for an encore?

How about completely re-deploying a new DAS at Levi’s Stadium during the football offseason, just about doubling the capacity in a construction project that took place at a “live” venue instead of one under construction?

The ambitious renovation of the not-quite-1-year-old Levi’s Stadium DAS was all done in the name of Super Bowl 50, the NFL’s big game that is coming to Levi’s Stadium in February 2016. According to DGP president Steve Dutto, the huge jump in wireless traffic statistics at Super Bowl XLIX last February got the major wireless carriers working early to assure that the NFL’s 50th Super Bowl would have enough cellular capacity.

In addition to new antennas from DAS gear supplier JMA Wireless that can be more finely tuned, and more antennas and remote units to beef up coverage and support more cell sectors inside Levi’s Stadium, DGP and stadium owner the San Francisco 49ers also increased the DAS footprint outside the stadium in the adjacent parking lots, addressing what Niners COO Al Guido told MSR was a “primary concern” heard from fans during the inaugural Levi’s Stadium season.

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

Though work on the DAS will likely continue throughout the season, most of the construction and deployments were expected to be in place for the Niners’ regular season opener tonight versus the Minnesota Vikings.

Ready for another ‘Super’ cellular day

Though the unofficial totals for DAS traffic at the last Super Bowl that were in excess of 6 terabytes were the highest we’ve ever seen reported, DGP’s Dutto said that the top wireless carriers are expecting as much as 2.5 times that amount of traffic at Super Bowl 50, a load that might have swamped even the previously robust Levi’s Stadium DAS.

“The [cellular] traffic at the Super Bowl this past year was greater than anything anybody had seen,” Dutto said in a recent interview at Levi’s Stadium. All the carriers, he said, were “amazed” at the traffic jump from the year before, when AT&T and Verizon Wireless reported a combined total of about 2.5 TB of cellular data at Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. (For what it’s worth the Wi-Fi traffic also just about doubled, from 3.3 TB to 6.23 TB.)

The DGP team at Levi’s for our interview included, L to R, Derek Cotton, director of engineering; Steve Dutto, president; and Vince Gamick, VP and COO.

So even though the Levi’s Stadium DAS performed exceedingly well — according to Dutto “we turned it on and from day one it exceeded expectations” — and that there wasn’t any capacity problems during the Niners’ 2014 season, the expected impending crush coming in February spurred what Dutto called “carrier-driven upgrades” that included the need to take over some previous storage-room space to house the increased amount of head-end gear.

Under seat DAS antennas part of the upgrade

Inside the stadium itself, Dutto said that Verizon will expand its coverage from 60 to 80 sectors, while AT&T will increase from 45 to 54 or more sectors. DGP will increase its “zones” of coverage in the main seating bowl from 23 to 40, and will go from 250 antennas to 400, and from 330 remote units to 450. There will also be plenty of new antennas from JMA that Dutto said have “greater gain and sharper patterns” to enhance coverage.

“It’s almost like deploying twice the network in the same amount of time,” Dutto said. The other big difference from last year, however, was that Levi’s Stadium was open for events this past football offseason, from WrestleMania 31 to a NHL Stadium Series game to concerts with the Grateful Dead and Taylor Swift.

Another view of the antennas on the concourse overhangs

Though there was more than enough cabling areas and pathways to make the retrofit easier, Dutto said working around the live events increased the deployment degree of difficulty. But even with new head end rooms and extras like under-seat DAS antennas (a new deployment method at Levi’s Stadium for DAS), 20-plus new antenna placements in the parking lot and the accomodation of new 2.5-GHz spectrum for Sprint, Dutto said that the new network was expected to be at least “90 percent complete” before the season’s start.

As is regular with lead-ups to Super Bowls, there will likely be even more network tweaking and adjustment up until the last minute before kickoff on Feb. 7, 2016.

A ‘heart-attack” moment and hot dog machines

With any luck, the new network will work as well as the old one, and will hopefully light up without the “heart attack moment” that happened just before opening day last fall. Dutto and his team of Derek Cotton, director of engineering, and Vince Gamick, DGP’s vice president and COO, told of coming to Levi’s Stadium for the regular season opener last September and almost keeling over when they couldn’t detect the DAS network anywhere inside the building.

As it turns out, Dutto said that the major wireless carriers had forgot to turn down the power on their macro towers at the cell sites that surround Levi’s Stadium, which basically overwhelmed the internal network since Dutto said the outdoor cell sites operate at 80 watts, compared to the 2-watt in-stadium DAS network.

“There are six cell sites within hundreds of feet [of Levi’s Stadium] and since they hadn’t turned them down, we couldn’t see the network in the stadium,” said Dutto, whose pulse was revived when the situation was quickly rectified.

Close-up of the back of one of the new antennas

At least the Levi’s Stadium DAS couldn’t be turned off by stadium workers or blacked out by hot dog machines, problems that DGP encountered at the Niners’ old home, Candlestick Park, where DGP deployed a test DAS in the 49ers’ final season there in 2013. According to Dutto, for some reason the DGP network was connected by utility PG&E to the same electrical routes as the cookers for stadium hot dogs — and when those were turned on one Sunday the system was overloaded, bringing the DAS down with sausages.

The Candlestick DAS also suffered an outage when the park rangers who lived at the stadium thought the equipment air conditioners were too loud, so they turned them off — setting off multiple alarms for Dutto and his network administration team.

Safe to say, similar problems aren’t expected to arise as DGP and the Niners prepare Levi’s Stadium’s cellular network for Super Bowl 50, a tough task but one with rewards on both a personal and business level.

“This has been fun, and the Niners have been great to work with,” said Dutto.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, DAS Group Professionals, DGP, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless

Extreme, DGP part of Wi-Fi and DAS upgrade coming to Florida State’s Doak Campbell Stadium

September 3, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Extreme Networks and DAS Group Professionals have been selected by IMG to build a new Wi-Fi and DAS network respectively at Florida State University’s Doak Campbell Stadium, the 82,300-seat home of the Seminoles football team, according to the school’s website.

Extreme, which has mainly made its stadium name in pro football venues, has one other college deployment that we know of but nothing on the scale of regular national-championship caliber FSU. DGP, which was relatively unknown until its Levi’s Stadium deployment last year, is now racking up big deals in a hurry, following its selection (also alongside Extreme) by the Chicago Cubs for new communications infrastructure at Wrigley Field.

Since the press release said the deals are only so far at the “evaluation” stage that means that Wi-Fi and DAS aren’t available yet. More details on this deal as we hear them, in what is shaping up to be a very busy season of new stadium deployments. This also appears to be the first fruit of the Extreme/IMG relationship announced last winter.

Filed Under: DAS, Extreme Networks, NCAA Football, Wi-Fi Tagged With: ACC, DAS, DAS Group Professionals, DGP, Doak Campbell Stadium, Extreme Networks, Florida State University, FSU, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi, Wrigley Field

Chicago Cubs tap NFL deployment expertise of Extreme, DGP for new Wi-Fi, DAS at Wrigley Field

August 3, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Artist rendering of the proposed fan plaza outside Wrigley Field. Renderings courtesy of the 1060 Project.

The video boards above the historic ivy-covered outfield walls are only the first clue that this isn’t your grandpa’s Wrigley Field anymore.

And though you won’t be able to see it, new Wi-Fi and DAS networks are coming soon to the Friendly Confines, as part of the Ricketts Family’s ambitious remake of Wrigley Field and its surrounding area. And according to Cubs IT executives, the team is tapping firms with NFL stadium expertise to bring not just fast and thorough wireless coverage to fans, but also back-end ownership and analytics so that the team can more effectively track online activity to improve the fan experience as well as improve the team’s return on infrastructure investment.

Though Wrigley Field has had full fan-facing Wi-Fi for longer than most Major League Baseball stadiums — the AT&T-built network arrived in 2012 — with the major overhaul of not just the park itself but the surrounding areas outside beginning this offseason, it was time to rethink the team’s overall approach to wireless connectivity, said Andrew McIntyre, senior director of information technology for the Chicago Cubs.

As part of the team’s ongoing 1060 Project the Ricketts family (which owns the Cubs) is not only adding more concessions and other fan amenities to Wrigley, they are also building a fan plaza outside the main gate as well as building a retail/office building and eventually a boutique hotel on the edge of the famed ballpark property at Chicago’s somewhat slanted corner of Clark and Addison. (If you don’t get the “1060” label, we suggest you ask Elwood Blues what the address of Wrigley Field is.)

“As it all starts looking more like a campus, it changes the dynamics” of how you provide wireless coverage to all areas, said McIntyre. As a regular attendee, speaker and steering council member of the SEAT Conference — the premier gathering of stadium technology professionals — McIntyre was well aware of all the new trends for large-venue Wi-Fi and DAS deployments, some of which were taking place in football stadiums across the country.

“We understood what was happening with other leagues in regards to Wi-Fi and DAS from what we saw at SEAT,” said McIntyre, in an interview at this summer’s SEAT Conference in San Francisco. “We started to evaluate those deployments and ideas as we were getting ready for our restoration.”

The Winners: Wi-Fi with a heavy side of analytics, and team-owned DAS

Cubs fans know how to enjoy a day at the park. Photo: Lisa Farrell, MSR

As major construction took place this past offseason, the Cubs de-activated the AT&T Wi-Fi network that had previously served fans inside the ballpark. Even though it doesn’t sound very old, McIntyre notes that many other stadiums around the country have had to completely overhaul Wi-Fi networks built just several years ago, due to the ever-increasing demand for more bandwidth and the rapid introduction of new phones and devices that fans are bringing to games.

“AT&T had previously controlled both the DAS and the Wi-Fi, and [to them] the Wi-Fi was kind of a ‘check the box thing,’ ” McIntyre said. “The scope [of the network] was just for Wrigley Field only. When we took down the Wi-Fi while we replaced the bleachers, we looked more toward the future.”

What McIntyre and the Cubs IT team saw was a future where Wi-Fi was used not only to provide connectivity, but to also provide a deep link between venue owners and operators and the digital activities of their visitors, through advanced analytics of Wi-Fi traffic. In the end the Cubs selected Wi-Fi provider Extreme Networks for the Wrigley project, in no small part due to Extreme’s experience in deploying Wi-Fi networks and Wi-Fi analytics inside numerous NFL stadiums.

“We saw patterns emerging in other leagues, and especially in the NFL, where the league and teams called out analytics,” said McIntyre. Extreme, which has a partnership deal with the NFL as its preferred provider of Wi-Fi analytics for its Purview software, has provided analytics help at recent Super Bowls in addition to being part of stadium Wi-Fi deployments for the New England Patriots, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Seattle Seahawks, among others.

“A lot of times talk about Wi-Fi is simply about coverage and capacity, and more, more, more,” McIntyre said. “The question of ‘what are you doing with the service’ becomes an afterthought.” McIntyre noted that in some cases, the NFL has deployed Extreme analytics on top of Wi-Fi infrastructure with gear from another manufacturer. “What they [Extreme] are able to provide [with analytics] is night and day compared to the competition,” McIntyre said.

Back of the iconic Wrigley bleachers, circa 2014. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR

John Brams, director of Sports and Entertainment at Extreme Networks, called the coming Wrigley Field network “a signature deployment.” Wrigley Field itself is expected to have Wi-Fi service in time for the 2016 season, McIntyre said.

DAS: Neutral host instead of carrier-led

On the DAS side of the wireless equation, McIntyre and the Cubs team were impressed with the cellular network deployment at the San Francisco 49ers’ new venue, Levi’s Stadium, a deployment done by the lesser-known firm DAS Group Professionals, or DGP. While many may have first heard of DGP for its Levi’s Stadium deployment, DGP does have other large-venue experience, having built previous cellular networks for airports and the San Francisco Bay area’s BART light-rail service.

At Levi’s Stadium, DGP worked with the Niners to build a neutral-host DAS deployment that is owned and controlled by the team, an emerging trend for stadium owners and operators who don’t want to simply concede control to wireless carriers. Under a neutral-host deployment the owner or operator of the DAS typically builds a non-carrier-specific antenna infrastructure, and then charges wireless carriers to connect their systems to the back end of that network.

At a prior SEAT event McIntyre said the Cubs team talked to the Niners about why they went with DGP, and liked what they heard.

“The venue-owned DAS solution was a business model we liked,” McIntyre said, “It perfectly aligns with our strategy of being closer to the fan base and not one step removed.”

Steve Dutto, president of DGP, said the Cubs contract “validates our work at Levi’s Stadium.” The new DAS, McIntyre said, should be fully functional by 2017.

Artist rendering of the home plate view after all construction done.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Baseball, Chicago Cubs, DAS, Levi's Stadium, Major League Baseball, SEAT Conference, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Andrew McIntyre, AT&T, bleachers, Chicago Cubs, DAS, DGP, Extreme Networks, Levi's Stadium, MLB, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, Ricketts, Stadium Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi, Wrigley Field

DGP gets deal to extend DAS outside Levi’s Stadium

February 11, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Franks and DAS: DGP DAS antennas above food station at Levi’s Stadium. Photo credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

DAS Group Professionals, the company that installed the neutral-host DAS inside Levi’s Stadium, now has a deal to extend the DAS outside the Levi’s walls, covering parts of the city of Santa Clara, Calif., that surround the stadium.

With next year’s Super Bowl set to take place at Levi’s Stadium, it makes sense that city officials would want to make sure the parking lots and other pre-game gathering areas outside the venue had good cellular connectivity. At the most recent Super Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., neutral host provider Crown Castle did an extensive job of building the “oDAS” or outside DAS in the spaces surrounding the University of Phoenix Stadium.

According to DGP, it will design, build and maintain an oDAS for the City of Santa Clara, initially targeting the area around the Great America theme park and the Santa Clara Convention Center, which sit on the other side of the main Levi’s Stadium parking lots. Like the DAS inside the stadium, access to the network outside the stadium will be offered to all major wireless carriers, who must pay DGP and the city for access to the network.

While the network will definitely come in handy for pre- and post-game connectivity following Levi’s Stadium events, it will also improve overall cellular performance in the area, which is also the home to several large corporate office buildings as well as the busy convention center.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Super Bowl Tagged With: AT&T, Calif., DAS, DGP, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Santa Clara, Super Bowl 50, Verizon Wireless

Stadium Tech Report: DAS Group Professionals makes a name for itself with Levi’s Stadium DAS

September 11, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 3 Comments

DAS antennas hanging from a Levi’s Stadium overhang. Credit, all Levi’s photos: Paul Kapsutka, MSR

If you look around at the walls, ceilings and overhangs at Levi’s Stadium, it’s hard to miss the small square boxes with the off-white color and a “DGP” logo in one corner. While the wires hanging out the back of each box make it an easy guess that the equipment has something to do with wireless networks, even many industry insiders may not know the company behind the boxes and the three-letter acronym.

Meet DAS Group Professionals, the Bay Area firm in charge of deploying a distributed antenna system (DAS) to make sure your cell phone gets a good signal at San Francisco 49ers games and any other event inside the 68,500-seat Levi’s Stadium. And while you might not be familiar with DGP, rest assured the company is extremely familiar with cellular deployments for large public venues, having installed similar DAS networks for airports, casinos and hotels, and even for San Francisco’s BART train system. Of course, most of that work was done when the company was called Forza Telecom, before changing its name to DGP earlier this year, another reason why “DGP” may not have rung any bells.

“It may appear like we just fell out of the sky, but we’ve actually built quite a few [DAS] systems,” said Steve Dutto, president of DGP, in a recent phone interview. “We’ve got years of experience.”

DAS antennas above a food stand

DAS: The Rodney Dangerfield of stadium connectivity

One thing that keeps firms like DGP in the shadows is the relative obscurity of DAS itself. While most people generally understand how cell phones work — you turn on your phone, and it connects to an antenna somewhere on a tower or rooftop — in crowded public facilities like stadiums, traditional cellular networks with towers several miles apart can’t handle the concentrated capacity. To provide connectivity for areas with large crowds, the latest tactic is to deploy a DAS, a network of lots of smaller antennas. Originally deployed in places like office buildings, hotels and convention centers, DAS is rapidly gaining favor in stadiums and arenas, helping to alleviate the “no signal” problem that has cropped up in many venues the past few years.

And while stadium Wi-Fi gets lots of headlines whenever it gets deployed — probably thanks again to the widespread understanding of how Wi-Fi works — there are already far more DAS deployments in stadiums than Wi-Fi, mainly because cellular carriers will pay almost all the associated costs of a DAS buildout to make sure their customers get a signal. According to our most recent 2014 State of the Stadium survey, 71.4 percent of our respondents said they had a full DAS at their facility, while only 35.7 percent had fan-facing Wi-Fi.

Steve Dutto, president, DGP

How does a DAS work? Usually, either a major cellular carrier or a third-party “neutral” host like DGP will build out the antenna infrastructure, which includes many small antennas and then cables to bring the connections back to a wiring room or data center. There, cellular carriers install their own cell-tower back-end gear to authenticate customers and to provide a connection to the company networks and the Internet. Since it’s in the cellular carriers’ interest to keep their customers connected (and using billable minutes and data), carriers will often pay the full cost of a DAS infrastructure by building and running it themselves. In the case like Levi’s, where DGP is the “neutral host,” DGP builds the infrastructure and then charges cellular carriers to use it.

Such deals are rarely publicized, and Dutto would not comment on how much each carrier was being charged to use the Levi’s DAS — though industry gossip has the figure somewhere around $5 million per carrier per year. And just like fight club, for many deployments the first rule of DAS is that you don’t talk about DAS, because no cellular carrier ever wants to admit that its network might need help. So just like Rodney Dangerfield, DAS often doesn’t get a lot of public respect. But at Levi’s Stadium and many other sports and entertainment venues, DAS is a booming business that would be sorely missed if it wasn’t there.

The ‘dream and the nightmare’ of building the Levi’s DAS

Now that DGP’s 700-plus antenna DAS deployment is up and running at Levi’s, Dutto can breathe a small bit easier. While the network is good business for the company and an obvious prominent calling card for the future, the aggressive deployment timeframe probably isn’t something Dutto is eager to repeat.

“Levi’s Stadium was both a dream and a nightmare [for DGP],” Dutto said, due in part both to the Niners’ aggressive performance expectations and the rapid buildout schedule. Of course, DGP was somewhat used to working quickly with the Niners — when the company put a DAS in Candlestick Park back in 2012 to solve that stadium’s legendary lack of connectivity, Dutto said it was deployed “in about 90 days.”

The success of the Candlestick deployment, Dutto said, led to the Niners offering the Levi’s DAS gig to DGP. With it, however, came the need to match the team’s out-front statements about how the stadium was going to be the best ever in terms of wireless connectivity. And with many people not knowing or not bothering to switch their phones to Wi-Fi, the Levi’s DAS, like most stadium DAS deployments, would probably handle most of the wireless connections.

Door sign for head end equipment room at Levi’s Stadium (there are many of these)

“We knew that it needed to be significantly better than anywhere else, right at the launch,” Dutto said. While the late addition of an early August soccer game at Levi’s pushed deployment schedules ahead even faster, Dutto said in the end it helped DGP overall.

“I wasn’t a big fan of getting ready for that date [the Aug. 2 soccer game was Levi’s first event] but it was a blessing in disguise,” Dutto said. “The trouble with a network is that you can’t really test it until everyone shows up. We got some good data from that event.”

After the “daily and nightly” discussions with the Niners’ tech team about antenna placements and other matters, the DAS network performed well when it mattered, during the Niners’ two preseason games on Aug. 17 and 24. According to a traffic report from the stadium tech team, the DAS network carried a combined 1.02 terabytes of wireless traffic for the two preseason games, which is on par with activity seen at big events in the past, like Super Bowls. According to Dutto DGP’s internal tests showed that few, if any, calls were dropped or didn’t connect.

“We’re at 98 percent [network performance] already, without [the network] being fully optimized,” Dutto said.

RF challenges and too many iPhone 4 customers

While many of the stadium’s Wi-Fi antennas are well hidden — including the ones in boxes under seats — the DAS antennas are a bit more prominent, especially if you are near where the first overhang comes close to the seats.

“Unfortunately, with Levi’s exposed steel-beam construction, if you want the DAS to work, you’re going to see it,” Dutto said. “It’s hard to be stealthy in there.”

And in many cases there isn’t just one but instead two DGP antennas side by side, which reflects the company’s decision to actually build two parallel DAS systems to better accomodate more wireless carriers. According to Dutto, AT&T and T-Mobile are based on one system, while Verizon Wireless, Sprint and public safety communications are handled by the other one. Currently, all the carriers are live on the DAS except for Sprint, which is still in the process of installing its back-end equipment.

DAS antenna in “Faithful Mile” area

One of the biggest challenges for DGP, Dutto said, comes from outside the stadium, and not inside. Like other open-air stadiums located in city cores, Levi’s Stadium faces significant interference from cellular antennas on nearby office building rooftops, as well as from the Santa Clara Convention Center right across the street.

“Less than a half mile from Levi’s you can see seven different rooftop cell sites,” said Dutto, who said the flat, open terrain around the stadium increases the ability for those signals to interfere with the stadium DAS deployment. Target Field in Minneapolis had some similar problems with cell antennas on nearby office buildings.

“We’ve done a lot of work with the carriers to adjust their macro networks around the stadium,” Dutto said. “We’ll do more of that as we go, and expect it to get better.”

And while Levi’s Wi-Fi network has shown itself to be incredibly robust, Dutto said that cellular connectivity over the DAS might be even faster than Wi-Fi in many instances, especially if fans have later-model phones with 4G LTE.

Even though Dutto said DGP’s testing recorded download speeds of up to 200 Mbps — and 65 Mbps sustained — he acknowledged that many Levi’s patrons might never see those kinds of numbers unless they snap up some of the new iPhone 6 models introduced by Apple this week. According to network stats collected by DGP during the preseason games, a lot of fans may be ready for an upgrade.

“There’s a lot more iPhone 4 users out there than we thought,” Dutto said.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, DAS, iPhone, MSR Guides, NFL, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: AT&T, BART, Candlestick Park, DAS, DAS Group Professionals, DGP, Forza Telecom, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Sprint, stadium Wi-Fii, Steve Dutto, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi