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DAS Pig Soooey! AT&T brings DAS upgrade to Razorback Stadium

October 3, 2013 by

The loyal fans of the University of Arkansas Razorbacks can now be assured of a better level of cellular connectivity at football games, thanks to a new DAS install at Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium, courtesy of AT&T.

Unlike its recent Pac-12 infrastructure deal, the contract to put better cell coverage in Razorback land is being pitched as part of AT&T’s overall network small-cell upgrade, something AT&T calls Project Velocity IP. For us, the part of the budget it comes from doesn’t matter as much as it is another DAS win for AT&T, and this time in the biggest of college football conferences, the SEC.

AT&T even has a press release out on the news, linked here. We’re working on getting a list of all the recent AT&T DAS wins, since it seems like we’re writing about a new one every week. Anyone else out there putting in more DAS deployments? Let us know.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS Tagged With: , , , , , ,

AT&T turns on Wi-Fi at Miami Dolphins’ Sun Life Stadium

October 1, 2013 by

We knew that AT&T had put in a new DAS at Miami’s Sun Life Stadium earlier this year, so we were a bit surprised when we saw the Dolphins announce a new Wi-Fi network for their season opener a couple Sundays ago. A quick phone chat with Chad Townes, VP of AT&T’s antenna solutions group, set us straight: Turns out that AT&T had installed a Wi-Fi network alongside the DAS, but hadn’t planned to turn it up until the NFL season started.

For those of us who were lucky enough to be at the SEAT Conference in August, however, the questions couldn’t stop there. At SEAT, Townes made one of the bolder statements of the gathering, proclaiming that AT&T wasn’t going to fund stadium Wi-Fi developments anymore. So why was AT&T building Wi-Fi at Sun Life?

The Wi-Fi at Sun Life, Townes said, was built via a model AT&T was comfortable with — mainly, it was a financial model where the team and venue participated in the deployment costs. “Our position on Wi-Fi remains clear,” Townes said — mainly, that AT&T isn’t going to fully fund a network that it doesn’t reap benefits from. Since stadium Wi-Fi is or will be mainly used for high-bandwidth apps like video replays, it will generate wireless traffic that “doesn’t leave the stadium,” Townes said. AT&T is more interested in building and paying for DAS, or distributed antenna systems, which bring better cellular connectivity for fans at stadiums.

Traffic that leaves the stadium, to connect fans to the outside Internet, is of interest to AT&T since it is something the company can make money on, by providing the service to customers. OK, but then what about the recent deal AT&T signed with the Pac-12, which called for DAS builds in all conference stadiums, but may also call for AT&T to build… stadium Wi-Fi networks?

Again, it’s all about the economics, which in the Pac-12 case involved a big content carriage deal between the conference and AT&T’s home Internet and video service, U-verse. From what we’ve heard and read the deal involves a lot of stadium-intensive content agreements, so to make it all run right, AT&T wants to build the networks itself. In the case of that deal, Townes said networks would be built to “support the value of our brand” in those stadiums. So the bottom line is — AT&T isn’t going to simply pay for a Wi-Fi network in your stadium. Unless there’s more to the deal than that.

Filed Under: AT&T, DAS, NFL, Pac-12, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

NBC’s Sunday Night Football Fails Continue for Mac Users; UPDATE: Problem Diagnosed

September 29, 2013 by

UPDATE, 9/30: After a quick call with NBC’s tech folks Monday the problem was discovered: Due to new HTML5 code NBC is using that is specific to its Sunday Night Football broadcasts, Mac users need to have MacOS version 10.7 or higher installed to see the player. Like many users who haven’t been able to see the Sunday Night online broadcasts, my machine is running Mac OS 10.6.8. There is no workaround, so to watch Sunday Night Football on a Mac you will need to upgrade your OS, which costs $19.99. Here is a link to Apple support spelling out the details, if anyone has done this recently and wants to share the steps, send me an email and I will print it in a separate blog post.

Until someone explains to us why this is happening, we’re going to keep reporting that it appears that online streaming of NBC’s Sunday Night Football isn’t working for a lot of people with Apple Macintosh computers.

Just teasing! The program never really begins.

Just teasing! The program never really begins.

An NBC spokesperson this week had promised to put us in touch with someone from their technical team, but we never got another message back, so another Sunday night we are stuck without football on our computer. What’s even more ironic tonight is that for the first time some video did appear — but it was just an ad for Google Chrome, which of course, NBC doesn’t support this football season if you are a Mac user. You need to use Safari. But for us and several folks commenting to our site, it still isn’t working. For me, the Google ad played and then the screen went back to black.

Instead of Sunday night football, this is what I see. Anyone else having these problems? Add a comment, maybe we can get NBC to realize something ain't right.

Instead of Sunday night football, this is what I see. Anyone else having these problems? Add a comment, maybe we can get NBC to realize something ain’t right.

At first I thought there might be some error on my end but I checked my configurations with the FAQs on the NBC site and my machine is up to speed. Plus, I am able to watch plenty of non-NFL coverage, including the excellent coverage of the final race of the America’s Cup. Great stuff, live on my computer. But for some reason the NFL broadcasts aren’t working.

I’m going to lay the blame here at the feet of Microsoft, since it is apparently the Microsoft-NFL deal that is responsible for the disabling of Macintosh computers. Didn’t Microsoft once lose an antitrust suit designed in part to keep it from using its economic might to squash competing technologies? Someone get me Google’s legal team on the line.

Arrgh, now we're back to the super fail screen.

Arrgh, now we’re back to the super fail screen.

Filed Under: Apple, Microsoft, NBC Sports, NFL Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

ExteNet Signs Wireless Deal with Minor Hockey League, Adds App Integration

September 27, 2013 by

Screenshot of Go Beyond Live app.

Screenshot of Go Beyond Live app.

Wireless infrastructure provider ExteNet Systems this week announced that it has been named the “Official Arena Wireless Network Provider” for the American Hockey League, a minor-league circuit with teams in 30 cities across the country. Though no specific deals have yet been inked for specific arenas, the Lisle, Ill.-based ExteNet said it will start announcing plans later this year or early next, after it evaluates facilities to see what technology is needed.

Known best for its deployments of Distributed Antenna Systems in sporting venues, ExteNet can also design and deploy stadium Wi-Fi, which it may need to do for some of the AHL arenas. “There are some things that can’t be done just by cellular alone,” said Jon Davis, vice president of business development at ExteNet, in a phone interview earlier this week.

While we’re always skeptical of such open-ended deals like ExteNet’s AHL agreement as well as the one it recently signed with AEG — we have seen too many such announcements in the tech world that end up being a lot of nothing — ExteNet’s track record of building networks for large institutions like the University of Michigan and the Miami Marlins seems to suggest that the company is capable of handling large-scale operations. If nothing else, maybe ExteNet will be hiring more engineers soon, so forward those resumes.

An interesting sideline to the AHL deal is ExteNet’s announcement that it will make available to AHL teams an in-stadium app, developed by the Wireless Fan Network. Called Go Beyond Live, the app has various features designed for use in sports arenas, like concession ordering and replay video services. According to ExteNet the Go Beyond Live app is not exclusive, meaning that teams can add their own apps to whatever infrastructure is built. But the partnership highlights what we here at MSR see as a big potential future for app developers, namely building apps for the thousands of teams and leagues that aren’t in the top pro tiers.

Filed Under: Apps, DAS, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Ruckus Scores Wi-Fi Deal for Soccer Stadiums in Brazil — But Will Wi-Fi be Missing in Action at Brazil’s 2014 World Cup?

September 24, 2013 by

The curious wording of a press release out today is making us wonder: Will in-stadium Wi-Fi be missing in action during the soccer World Cup next year in Brazil?

The thing that got us asking this question is the release today of news from Wi-Fi gear vendor Ruckus Wireless, which trumpets a deal for more than 360 Ruckus wireless access points, to be deployed in two of Brazil’s biggest soccer stadiums. But the release doesn’t mention the World Cup at all, and there is no date given for when the equipment may be installed.

While our guess (we are waiting for word back from Ruckus) is that there is some World Cup wireless rights deal that precludes supplying vendors like Ruckus from using the term “World Cup” in any announcements, the press release got us looking to see if any of the other stadiums that will be used in the month-long tourney already have or have plans to get Wi-Fi before the soccer starts. So far, we haven’t been able to find anything concrete that spells out whether or not Wi-Fi will be available at any of the 12 venues across Brazil. Our short history in covering this market tells us that if there isn’t a press release saying that Wi-Fi will be available, you can bet that it probably won’t be.

For the sake of the thousands of futbol fans who will no doubt be traveling to Brazil for the matches, we hope we’re wrong. But the best info we have found in a limited bit of Internet searching are a few articles from ZDNet’s Brazil Contributing Editor Angelica Mari. For the most part, the information seems to come from hopeful press releases, like this one about a plan for Sao Paulo to invest $22 million in a free Wi-Fi project, something Mari notes has been promised and not delivered many times before. In July Mari reported that the World Cup said it would have free Wi-Fi at all matches, but again, there were no specifics about deployments and her cautionary line, “But the actual ability of mobile providers to deliver is questionable,” should probably be taken as a pretty good warning that not all is well when it comes to Wi-Fi at the games.

For Ruckus, the deal to put wireless access points into two of Brazil’s biggest stadiums — the 71,000-seat National Stadium, also known as Estádio Nacional de Brasília, and Arena Octávio Mangabeira (also known as Arena Fonte Nova, depending on who you ask), a 50,433-seat facility in the city of Salvador — is another international win, and proof that Ruckus gear is passing the test when it comes to dense public facilities. But whether the gear be active in time for World Cup action is still unknown. UPDATE: Ruckus has confirmed that the gear is scheduled to be working by next June. Apparently we were also correct in assuming there is a rights deal that precludes the use of the term “World Cup” in any such announcements.

Unlike the London Olympics, which were amazingly the most un-wired games in history, the 2014 World Cup is looking like it might be a bit of a communications nightmare, given that local citizens like Mari routinely note that the country’s cellular infrastructure and services leave much to be desired.

Another possible scenario is that the Ruckus deal is just part of a bigger deal, where Ruckus would be one of several providers to the consortium of Latin America telecom providers (Claro, Oi, Telefónica, and TIM) who are in charge of World Cup communications. That might explain why a Ruckus release didn’t say World Cup, or mention other stadiums. Word on the street is that press announcements for World Cup infrastructure are being kept tight to the vest, so maybe we’ll hear more soon.

Filed Under: FIFA, Soccer, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Big DAS Deals: AT&T Bringing DAS to Pac-12, Extenet Scores with AEG

September 18, 2013 by

Though no specific stadium installation plans have yet been made public, two big DAS deals were announced in the past week, with AT&T on track to bring DAS deployments to the Pac-12 conference, while ExteNet scored an exclusive DAS deal with entertainment giant AEG.

I don’t have confirmation but I do believe that AT&T’s agreement to be the exclusive wireless sponsor for the Pac-12 is the first such deal signed with one of the top collegiate conferences. Though agreements and details will have to be worked out on a stadium-by-stadium basis, the opportunity to be the exclusive provider of DAS infrastructure for all big facilities at the 12 major universities is a big win for AT&T. Jon Wilner over at the Mercury News has a good explanation of the full deal, which also includes content agreements for carrying Pac-12 broadcasts on AT&T U-Verse.

After deploying DAS (Distributed Antenna System) networks to all stadiums by next year, it will be interesting to see if AT&T helps the schools financially with any corresponding Wi-Fi network buildouts. AT&T has gone on the record publicly to say that it doesn’t want to help fund Wi-Fi, but that stance might be different if AT&T has exclusive deals like this one. In other DAS news AT&T also was announced as the supplier of new DAS deployments at CenturyLink Field in Seattle; you have to believe that when it comes to stadium DAS AT&T is the market leader, all part of a big push toward the small cellular antenna systems started a few years ago by CTO John Donovan.

ExteNet and AEG

But even with AT&T’s big wins, that doesn’t mean there isn’t DAS opportunity for multiple players. Infrastructure experts ExteNet proved that with the announcement of its exclusive-rights deal to build DAS and other wireless infrastructure for AEG facilities. In terms of venues, AEG owns or is affiliated with a long list of big facilites, like the Staples Center in LA, the Sprint Center in Kansas City, O2 in London, and more.

With no announced specific plans yet a deal like this is what we call “a work in progress.” And some of the AEG facilities already have networks, so it’s unclear what the total opportunity is. Still, not a bad win for ExteNet, which has put networks in places for customers like the University of Michigan and the Miami Marlins and the Barclays Center.

“We are working with individual [AEG] venues to understand the level of coverage, if any, in their venues,” said ExteNet VP Jon Davis in an email reply to our questions. “The specific venues we are engaged with have limited, if any, in-building coverage. There is a mix of sports and music concerts in these venues and the demand is for high bandwidth mobile connectivity to cater to the coverage and, increasingly more important, capacity needs for these venues.”

Filed Under: AT&T, DAS, Pac-12, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , ,
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