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PGA bans fan mobile-device videos, audio recordings at all events

February 29, 2016 by

Screen Shot 2015-04-30 at 12.40.33 PMThe PGA Tour has issued some new rules governing fan use of mobile devices during tournaments, including a new ban on any fan video or audio recording during any PGA tournament.

In a press release titled “PGA TOUR expands use of mobile devices by spectators at PGA TOUR tournaments,” the Tour claimed it was expanding the days and times fans could use their mobile devices to take photographs, but the accompanying restrictions seemed aimed more at reducing fans’ ability to obtain images, not expanding them. Though the new rules allow pictures to be taken during competition days, it also states that photos may not be taken “within any areas of competition,” including greens, tee boxes and landing areas — maybe leaving putting greens and clubhouses the only “new” areas where competition-day photos can be legally taken.

The new specific rules on audio and video — “Devices may not be used to capture audio/video at any time during tournament week” — may be an attempt to correct a seeming disparity that gained notice last year when a reporter’s PGA Tour credentials were pulled in part for her use of the live-streaming video Periscope app. At that time, fans were still permitted to shoot video and use Periscope at certain times, a strange double standard that the PGA Tour never fully explained. Now, it appears that nobody other than the PGA’s approved media partners will be able to show or record videos from golf tournaments.

Of course, rules are one thing and enforcement is another, and the idea that the PGA Tour could police every instance of fan mobile-device usage is somewhat absurd. Even if Tour officials were watching a fan, it’s hard to tell how the official could determine if a fan was taking a picture or a video, so our guess is the new “rules” are meant mainly as a self-policing measure. It’s possible that the Tour could work with app providers like Periscope, YouTube or Instagram to try to get golf videos removed from those sites, but so far we haven’t heard of any such instances.

We will update this post if and when we can talk to PGA folks. In the meantime, the new rules are below.

Screen Shot 2016-02-29 at 10.26.14 AM

Filed Under: Golf, Golf Channel, PGA, Twitter, YouTube Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Wi-Fi for concourses, suites makes its debut at Daytona 500

February 20, 2016 by

The famed banked track at Daytona International Speedway. Photo: Daytona International Speedway

The famed banked track at Daytona International Speedway. Photo: Daytona International Speedway

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines! Then connect to Wi-Fi!

Fans at Sunday’s Daytona 500 NASCAR season opener will be able to connect to free Wi-Fi services in the new, wide concourses, suites, and midway area of the newly refurbished Daytona International Speedway, thanks to a new deployment led by Arris International, using Wi-Fi gear from Ruckus Wireless, management software from Aptilo and a new wiring infrastructure from CommScope.

According to Pete Wagener, senior vice president of sales operations at Arris, the already operational “phase 1” of the Wi-Fi network serves the new concourses, the VIP suites and the front-stretch “midway” area behind the seating structure. As part of the $400 million refurbishing of the historical racetrack, the first permanent deployment of Wi-Fi at Daytona was targeted at areas where the 101,500 fans who fill Daytona can congregate, Wagener said. A “phase 2” deployment will bring Wi-Fi to campgrounds and parking areas next year, but a “phase 3” plan to bring Wi-Fi directly to seating areas is still not yet a confirmed deal, Wagener said.

New concourse area at the track. Photo: DIS

New concourse area at the track. Photo: DIS

Under the “Daytona Rising” refurbishing of the speedway, the addition of wide concourse areas behind the main seating area and a newly designed “midway” area on the ground level gives fans more areas to congregate, and with video monitors and Wi-Fi, they can stay connected to the action on the track. A new mobile app is also ready for its Daytona 500 debut, with features like live wayfinding inside the stadium and a parking locator, no small thing in the huge lots that are filled on race days.

Wagener said the Wi-Fi network has already been tested a couple times, at the Rolex 24 hours at Daytona on Jan. 30 and Jan. 31, and at the Daytona qualifying events earlier in the month. He added that the network management system has already allowed the IT team to make adjustments, adding more Wi-Fi access points (there are now 250 in the current phase) to get ready for the expected traffic on race day.

Wi-Fi antenna on light pole at Daytona. Photo: Arris

Wi-Fi antenna on light pole at Daytona. Photo: Arris

Planning for future needs now

Putting fan-facing networks into huge race tracks like Daytona has always been something owners were reluctant to do, since it was hard to justify the costs of covering hundreds of thousands of seats that only might be filled with fans a few days a year. Daytona itself had seen some mobile Wi-Fi deployments, mainly to cover areas like campgrounds or parking, but had never brought Wi-Fi into the actual stadium itself.

But now with more events scheduled for the Daytona facility — and a plan to use the Daytona network operations center as the central control unit for Wi-Fi deployments at other International Speedway Corporation tracks — Wagener said that with the highly granular analytics its system will produce, NASCAR will be able to more easily justify the cost of the network through targeted marketing and maybe even charging for higher tiers of service in the future, especially at the campgrounds and parking areas, where fans may want to consume more bandwidth during their overnight stays.

Wagener also said that Arris, which deployed Wi-Fi networks at the Charlotte Arena and at World Cup soccer sites in Brazil, is looking toward more stadium deployments in the future, calling it “the next frontier for our industry.” Best known perhaps for its work providing gear and infrastructure for Comcast’s consumer network, Wagener said Arris brings “carrier class expertise” that is necessary for deployments on the scale of a Daytona Speedway.

In a separate announcement, CommScope said that it was also a partner in the communications infrastructure for “Daytona Rising,” deploying miles of copper cabling and fiber optic lines to support the new Wi-Fi system as well as TV displays and other stadium infrastructure needs.

Cabling run inside speedway. Photo: CommScope

Cabling run inside speedway. Photo: CommScope

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, Comcast, Daytona 500, NASCAR, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Super Bowl 50 app use sets Levi’s Stadium records, led by video watching and drink orders

February 17, 2016 by

Screenshot of home page of Super Bowl 50 stadium app. (Click on any photo for a larger image)

Screenshot of home page of Super Bowl 50 stadium app. (Click on any photo for a larger image)

As part of the Wi-Fi and cellular usage records set at Super Bowl 50, fans at Levi’s Stadium also set new records for usage of the main stadium app features, including overall app adoption, viewing of action replays and Super Bowl commercials, and food and drink ordering.

According to the San Francisco 49ers networking staff, 46 percent of the 71,088 fans at the game downloaded the Super Bowl 50 stadium app, an NFL-specific app built by VenueNext, designers of the regular Levi’s Stadium app. That total is 16 percentage points higher than any recorded at a San Francisco 49ers regular-season game, according to the Niners.

One of the more unique features of the Super Bowl app was the ability for fans to use the app to order food and drinks, either for express window pickup, or for drinks only, the option for in-seat delivery. According to the Niners there were 3,284 food and beverage orders, 67 percent higher than the previous top order number ever recorded at a Levi’s Stadium game.

The Niners did not provide separate statistics for how many orders were for express pickup and how many were for in-seat delivery out of the larger total. Unlike the regular-season Levi’s Stadium app, which supports food and beverage delivery service to every seat, the Super Bowl app only offered drink delivery, per the wishes of the NFL.

Drink delivery order page on Super Bowl stadium app, including the $13 Bud Light.

Drink delivery order page on Super Bowl stadium app, including the $13 Bud Light.

According to VenueNext and the team, the average in-seat delivery time for drinks was 10 minutes. The top drink item ordered was Bud Light beer, while the top food item ordered via the app was chicken tenders, VenueNext said.

The Super Bowl 50 crowd also set Levi’s Stadium app records for video viewing, a stat helped perhaps by the availability of Super Bowl broadcast commercials, which fans at the game could watch via the app after they aired on TV. A full 55 percent of all app users either watched a video replay or Super Bowl commercials, the Niners said, 36 percent higher than the previous Levi’s Stadium record for video app views.

The app’s unique wayfinding feature, which uses the 2,000 beacons inside Levi’s Stadium to provide interactive maps, was used by 33 percent of the app users, according to the Niners. Fans could also use the app to purchase Super Bowl merchandise (which could be picked up at a concession stand or delivered to a suite), and according to the Niners all the mobile inventory was sold out before the game actually started, with an average order price of $212. Previously, the high-water average mark for app-ordered merchandise was $77 at a concert.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

AT&T brings DAS to Winter Park ski area

February 16, 2016 by

New AT&T DAS headend building at Winter Park ski area. No problem keeping equipment cool here! All photos: AT&T

New AT&T DAS headend building at Winter Park ski area. No problem keeping equipment cool here! All photos: AT&T

AT&T customers visiting the Winter Park and Mary Jane ski areas in Colorado this winter will have a better chance at getting those vacation selfies sent from the hill, thanks to a distributed antenna system (DAS) upgrade installed by AT&T.

Prior to the snow flying, AT&T deployed 28 new antennas across six sectors as part of a DAS designed to bring better coverage to places where skiers congregate at the two mountains, which sit side-by-side roughly an hour’s drive west and north from Denver. J.J. Henrikson, senior real estate construction manager for AT&T, said in a phone interview that the DAS was put in to “help enhance coverage in the gaps that the macro towers [in the area] can’t reach.”

Like fans at stadium events, skiers are now more active on their mobile devices, sending photos and videos and making friends jealous with real-time updates on their vacations. Prior to the DAS install, there were only two macro towers in the Winter Park resort area, which sometimes got overloaded by customers trying to connect.

“On the Martin Luther King holiday there were more than 16,000 skier visitors, as well as workers at the resort,” Henrikson said. Big crowds and coverage-challenging terrain means traditional macro towers “can get overwhelmed,” Henrikson said.

Super Gauge lift, Mary Jane

Super Gauge lift, Mary Jane

DAS relieves the coverage pressure

But with a new fiber-optic network “spier-webbing” up the hills, AT&T was able to carry 200 gigabytes of wireless data on the DAS between Christmas Day 2015 and New Year’s Day of 2016, Henrikson said. For those who know the ski area, new DAS antennas are in place at the Mary Jane lodge, the Vintage Hotel (located between the two resort bases), up the path of the Super Gauge lift, the main express lift at Mary Jane, at the Lunch Rock restaurant at the top of Mary Jane, and at the Snoasis mid-mountain restaurant on the Winter Park side.

AT&T also built a new head-end building for gear at the Mary Jane base, and Henrikson said there is also battery backup that can run the system for two to four hours if the power goes out, as it sometimes does in extreme storms. While Henrikson said AT&T “definitely” has more ski-area deployments on its radar, he noted the short building season makes it an extra challenge to bring better connectivity to the slopes.

“Usually you can’t start digging until July, and then you could be surprised by snow in September,” said Henrikson of the high-mountain DAS deployment challenges. “You really have a small window of time to get it done.”

DAS antenna visible at top inside Lunch Rock building

DAS antenna visible at top inside Lunch Rock building

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

Levi’s Stadium crowd sets single-day Wi-Fi record with 10.1 TB used at Super Bowl 50

February 9, 2016 by

Broncos fans celebrate during Super Bowl 50 at Levi's Stadium. Photo: LevisStadium.com

Broncos fans celebrate during Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: LevisStadium.com

The 71,088 fans at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl 50 helped set a single-day record for Wi-Fi usage, with 10.1 terabytes of traffic on the stadium network, according to the NFL and the San Francisco 49ers network staff.

According to figures provided to us by Roger Hacker, senior manager for corporate communications for the Niners, the Super Bowl 50 crowd broke last year’s previous Wi-Fi record of 6.23 TB by halftime, and ended up with the 10.1 total after recording traffic from 6 a.m. local time until 11 p.m. Of that total, 9.3 TB was used by fans on the free Super Bowl network and another 453 GB was used by media at the game. The remainder of 370 GB was used on dedicated internal operations networks, Hacker said.

When the Wi-Fi number is added to the 15.9 TB of cellular data used at the game, the total of 26.0 TB of wireless traffic is fairly stunning, and perhaps a wake-up call to current network operators at large public venues or those designing new ones, signifying that the usage pattern for mobile data at big events is still growing rapidly, with no top yet in sight.

Levi’s Stadium also set other Super Bowl connectivity records, the first by recording 27,316 unique Wi-Fi users and 20,300 concurrent users (set at 5:55pm PT), topping the previous Super Bowl records from last year of 25,936 uniques and 17,322 concurrent users, respectively. The previous max for concurrent Wi-Fi users at Levi’s Stadium was 18,901 for the stadium’s inaugural regular season game vs. the Chicago Bears on Sept. 14, 2014. At that game, the stadium saw 3.3 TB of Wi-Fi use.

Also new records for sustained connectivity and average use

While we’re still waiting for news about usage of the Super Bowl stadium app, there are some more record-setting stats to note: According to the stadium IT figures, the big-bandwidth day also saw a Levi’s Stadium record for peak Wi-Fi bandwidth used at 3.67 Gbps — this number is the total amount of bandwidth going through the network at a single moment in time, in this case at 3:25 p.m. Pacific Time. The previous record was a mark of 3.55 Gbps set during the Coors Light Stadium Series hockey game on Feb. 21, 2015, a night when not everything went well on the stadium-network side.

Sunday at Super Bowl 50 there were no apparent big glitches, with some Twitter complainers noting that stadium network technicians were quick to respond to any mentions of network downtime. Bandwidth provider Comcast has an interesting infographic of game-day data use, and said the peaks in Wi-Fi network activity happened during the following list of Super Bowl moments:

The 10 moments that generated the most data traffic at the stadium included:

The introduction of the 50 Super Bowl MVPs

Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem and the Blue Angels flyover

The opening kickoff

The first coach’s challenge

Von Miller’s forced fumble and the first touchdown of the game by Malik Jackson

The halftime show with Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars

Von Miller’s second forced fumble and C.J. Anderson’s game-sealing touchdown

Peyton Manning exiting the field and Gary Kubiak’s Gatorade shower

The Lombardi Trophy presentation

Using apps to get back home and to hotels

For those who are interested, here is our updated list of the top five big-venue single-day Wi-Fi records. If anyone has one to add to this list, please let us know!

1) 10.1 TB — Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016
2) 6.23 TB — Super Bowl XLIX, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015
3) 5.7 TB — Alabama vs. Texas A&M, Kyle Field, College Station, Texas, Oct. 17, 2015
4) 4.93 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 12, 2015
5) 4.9 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Jan. 11, 2016

Congrats to the Niners, the NFL, Aruba, Comcast, and Brocade, as well as DAS Group Professionals, DAS gear supplier JMA Wireless and all the major cellular carriers, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, who all made exceptional efforts to ensure great connectivity for fans across the board.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, DAS, Levi's Stadium, MSR Guides, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

UPDATE: Top 4 carriers combine for 15.9 TB of cellular data use at Super Bowl 50

February 7, 2016 by

New Verizon Wireless under-seat DAS antenna placement at Levi's Stadium. Photo: Verizon Wireless

New Verizon Wireless under-seat DAS antenna placement at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: Verizon Wireless

UPDATE, 2/8/16, 1:50 p.m. — We now have data totals in from all four of the major U.S. cellular carriers, and at Sunday’s Super Bowl 50, fans combined to use 15.9 terabytes of data on the networks in and directly around Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

Leading the way in usage was Verizon Wireless with a claim of 7 TB used by its customers; AT&T was next with 5.2 TB of claimed usage, followed by T-Mobile with a report of 2.1 TB, and Sprint with 1.6 TB. All the carriers’ numbers are well above figures from last year’s Super Bowl, where by our reporting Sprint, AT&T and Verizon had a combined 6.56 TB of cellular data consumed during the big game. (We did not have any T-Mobile reports from last year.)

For all the carriers, the data apparently includes both traffic on the in-stadium distributed antenna system (DAS) network was well as any macro deployments outside the stadium in parking lot areas. The final total was well over double the 6.56 TB of cellular traffic seen at last year’s big game in Glendale, Ariz. We are still waiting for Wi-Fi numbers from the Levi’s Stadium networking crew but it’s a good bet the 6.23 TB number from last year’s game will be eclipsed and we will have a new single-game Wi-Fi record as well so stay tuned.

Though we did hear and see some scattered reports of network connectivity issues during the Denver Broncos’ 24-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers it appears the upgrade of the DAS Group Professionals DAS install at Levi’s Stadium with its gear mainly provided by JMA Wireless stood up to the biggest-ever test of traffic. Congrats to all involved.

Thanks also to the Verizon and AT&T crews who supplied us with tweet reports and emails Sunday night, it made for some entertaining in-game stats. Some tweets embedded below.

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