Seattle Seahawks

Stadium Tech Report — NFL stadium technology reports — NFC West

November 17, 2014 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Editor’s note: The following team-by-team capsule reports of NFL stadium technology deployments are an excerpt from our most recent Stadium Tech Report, THE FOOTBALL ISSUE. To get all the capsules in one place as well as our featured reports, interviews and analysis, download your free copy of the full report today.

NFC WEST

Reporting by Chris Gallo

Arizona Cardinals
University of Phoenix Stadium
Seating Capacity: 65,000
Wi-Fi – Yes
DAS-Yes
Beaconing – No

As the site of the Super Bowl XLIX, University of Phoenix Stadium is in the midst of massive upgrades. This includes an $8 million dollar improvement for faster wireless and larger video boards. The stadium turned eight this summer and already has one Super Bowl under its belt. Look for more information about upgrades throughout the year before the big game on Feb. 1, 2015.

San Francisco 49ers
Levi’s Stadium
Seating Capacity: 68,500
Wi-Fi – Yes, 1,200 access points
DAS – Yes, 700 antennas
Beaconing – Yes

View from the Pepsi seating porch at the north end of Levi’s Stadium

There is a buzz around Levi’s Stadium entering this season. And for good reason. The brand-new venue boasts more than 1,200 Wi-Fi access points and 700 DAS antennas. Aruba Networks (Wi-Fi) and DAS Group Professionals are hoping to fulfill the 49ers’ desires to own the most-connected stadium in all of sports. An ambitious new team app, with replays and food ordering and delivery to all seats is also part of the technology offerings.

Early tests of the stadium network during the preseason and regular season opener were promising, with Wi-Fi performance at Super Bowl-surpassing levels. On the DAS side, strong cellular signals were reached, with a nearly full house of fans. The question for the network, like the team itself – can it keep performing at a high level during the full season?

Seattle Seahawks
CenturyLink Field
Seating Capacity: 72,000
Wi-Fi-Yes
DAS-Yes
Beaconing – No

Fans of the reigning Super Bowl Champions will have more to cheer for in coming years at CenturyLink Field. The question is, will the loudest stadium in the NFL stay that way if Seahawks fans are using their phones more often, now that Verizon has installed stadium-wide Wi-Fi using Extreme Networks equipment?

St. Louis Rams
Edward Jones Dome
Seating Capacity: 66,000
Wi-Fi – No
DAS-Yes
Beaconing – No

After a proposed $700 million dollar upgrade was rejected, the St. Louis Rams are still seeking to improve the Edward Jones Dome. The good news for fans is that for this season a Mobilitie neutral-host DAS should significantly improve cellular communications not just in the stadium itself, but also in the adjacent convention center.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, NFL, Seattle Seahwaks, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Arizona Cardinals, Aruba Networks, AT&T, CenturyLink Field, DAS, Extreme Networks, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, Mobilitie, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, St. Louis Rams, Stadium Wi-Fi, University of Phoenix Stadium, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Seahawks, Verizon tap Extreme for CenturyLink Field Wi-Fi

October 29, 2014 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Wi-Fi access point antennas visible on poles. All photos, credit: Extreme Networks/Seattle Seahawks.

Ending one of the bigger stadium Wi-Fi mysteries of 2014, the Seattle Seahawks and Verizon announced today that they are using Extreme Networks Wi-Fi gear and analytics software to power the new Wi-Fi network at CenturyLink field in Seattle, home of the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.

While the network has (reportedly) been live since the start of the NFL regular season, today’s press release is the first official confirmation that the network exists from Verizon or the Seahawks. Previously, Mobile Sports Report had confirmed the network’s existence in an exclusive interview with the NFL’s CIO, Michelle McKenna-Doyle, where McKenna-Doyle said she had helped set up the connection between Verizon and CenturyLink. But no specifics on gear suppliers or breadth and depth of network were available until today.

According to Norman Rice, senior vice president of corporate development at Extreme Networks, CenturyLink Field is the sixth NFL stadium to use Extreme’s IndentFi high-density Wi-Fi gear for its Wi-Fi network, joining deployments by the New England Patriots, the Philadelphia Eagles, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Tennessee Titans and the Cincinnati Bengals. All six franchises including Seattle will also use Extreme’s Purview analytics software, which helps provide Wi-Fi usage patterns and connectivity information that allows network administrators to fine tune the network.

We are scheduled to speak with some of the CenturyLink Field IT folks today so we will update this post with more info, including (we hope) a Wi-Fi access point count and some more details about the Seahawks app, which apparently has some nifty live video and replay features. Verizon has also said it has installed a DAS at CenturyLink, but there is no information on whether or not it is a neutral DAS and if so whether or not other carriers are on it.

Below are some more photos of the Wi-Fi install, including a railing antenna… more info soon.

Railing AP

More pole-mounted Wi-Fi gear.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, DAS, NFL, Seattle Seahwaks, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Extreme Networks, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Seattle Seahawks, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Stadium Tech Report: Verizon, AT&T DAS upgrades at MetLife Stadium await Super Bowl Sunday

January 27, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 7 Comments

Verizon branded gate at MetLife Stadium. Credit: Verizon Wireless

Super Bowl foes the Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos have only had two weeks to prepare for each other. But Verizon Wireless and AT&T have been preparing for the roman-numeral date at MetLife Stadium for more than a year. Will the Verizon Wi-Fi and DAS, and AT&T’s separate DAS be able to handle the wireless needs of the fans at the NFL’s biggest game? Tune in Sunday to see!

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

For Verizon’s own customers, 4G LTE capacity at MetLife has been quadrupled since last year, according to Samberg, who said that all stadium upgrades were completed by October, giving Verizon multiple chances to test its system against crowds at New York Giants and New York Jets home games. So far, Samberg said, so good.

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

Our only problem with record wireless numbers from Sunday’s game is that we probably won’t ever see an actual number, since Verizon historically shies away from providing a score. Instead it just issues press releases saying things like “way more traffic this year than last!” and then expects us all to believe that without numbers. The good news for fans at the game is that the in-stadium Wi-Fi network, also built by Verizon, is free and open to customers of all carriers, or basically anyone with a device that has a Wi-Fi chip. But Verizon, like big competitor AT&T, has been beefing up its DAS installations significantly because most people try cellular first, even at stadiums, before instructing their phones to find a Wi-Fi network. AT&T, to its credit, usually does deliver a wireless scorecard quickly after big events. So at least from AT&T’s perspective we should find out if this year’s game sets another record.

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

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, Denver Broncos, Fox Sports, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, MSR Guides, NFL, NFL Mobile, Seattle Seahwaks, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: AT&T, DAS, Denver Broncos, Lucas Oil Stadium, MetLife Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, New Orleans Superdome, NFL Mobile, Paul Kapustka, Seattle Seahawks, stadium cellular, stadium DAS, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl wireless traffic, Super Bowl XLVIII, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless

Fox: We’re ready for big Super Bowl streaming audience

January 24, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 2 Comments

While nobody can predict how things like a stadium blackout or a polar vortex might affect the broadcast of an event like the Super Bowl, executives at Fox are doing all they can to prepare to make sure this year’s online coverage of the NFL’s championship game goes off as well as possible.

With viewership expected to exceed last year’s total of 3 million unique online viewers, the live stream of Super Bowl XLVIII will be available on iPads in the Fox Sports Go app and via a browser at FoxSportsGo.com. The online feed will be available free to anyone with an Internet connection starting at 12 a.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 2, and will also include access to a Spanish-language broadcast.

But remember: The live streaming from Fox is only available for desktops or laptops, or via an iPad using the FoxSportsGo app. Because of NFL rights contracts, to watch the game live on a smartphone you need to be a Verizon customer and have the $5 per month premium version of the NFL Mobile app installed.

No matter which platform you choose to use, as always the Super Bowl should be a compelling story, even if that tale is something other than the game between the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks. Super Bowl XLVIII is scheduled to start around 6:30 p.m. ET from MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where snow and cold may be part of the equation.

“It should be interesting, with [possible] weather in New Jersey,” said Clark Pierce, senior vice president of mobile and advanced platforms for Fox Sports, in a phone interview earlier this week. “We’re ready for traffic to spike at some moment when something happens, and we get a lot of concurrent users. We’ll see how we do.”

Tablet audience keeps fueling growth

Granted, the online viewer numbers for the Super Bowl are completely dwarfed by the regular TV viewers, which for last year’s game totaled 164 million. But having 4 million unique viewers online is a huge digital audience, and it’s one that Pierce said Fox has been planning for over the past few years.

“We know what CBS did [for streaming] and we know what NBC did,” Pierce said of the networks which had the Super Bowl broadcast the past 2 years. “And we’re working with [content delivery network provider] Akamai, and it’s not their first rodeo. So I think we’re ready for whatever can happen.”

Perhaps the biggest number of online viewers for this year’s Super Bowl will come via Apple iPads, the market leader in the tablet form factor. While Fox has not yet released viewer numbers by device or platform for its restricted streaming of the NFC playoff games, it did say it had a record 2.4 million visitors to its FoxSports.com website on championship Sunday, a 53 percent increase over the previous year. Pierce said increases in digital viewers are partially due to the expanding tablet market, and tablet owners getting more comfortable watching sports on a smaller screen.

“The concept of watching TV on a smaller screen is another year down the road and people are just that much more used to it,” said Pierce, who also said that online viewers may choose tablets over laptops or desktops due to clearer pictures.

“People are getting spoiled by Apple and Android devices with really high screen resolution,” Pierce said.

Streaming delay inevitable

What doesn’t work so well with any live streaming option is trying to use it as a “second screen” alongside a live TV broadcast. Because of the technical necessities of putting a live signal online — which includes mainly taking the TV feed and encoding it to the Internet — delays between “live” TV and the show online can be from 20 seconds to a minute or more, Pierce said.

“It does take time to take a big HD picture and encode it into IP,” Pierce said. “There’s just no way around it.”

In the future, Pierce hopes to help Fox add more features to its online offerings, maybe making them something like what broadcast engineers see in the event production studios, with multiple monitors offering different feeds and live stats. Still, just having a free online broadcast is a huge leap forward from the recent past.

“It’s been exciting to build it, and in the future our team hopes to add more content and features,” Pierce said. “The horizon is pretty exciting.”

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, CBS Sports, Denver Broncos, Fox Sports, iPad, NFL, NFL Mobile, Seattle Seahwaks, Smartphone, Super Bowl, Tablets, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: Denver Broncos, Fox, Fox Sports Go, iPad, iPhone, MetLife Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL Mobile, Paul Kapustka, Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl, Super Bowl live streaming, Super Bowl online, Verizon Wireless, watching Super Bowl online

NFL Championship games live streams: Fox for Niners-Seahawks, CBS for Broncos-Patriots, Verizon NFL Mobile for both

January 17, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 1 Comment

Are you ready for some streaming football? In case you won’t be near a TV for either of Sunday’s championship games, you still may have a chance to watch the games live on a PC, a tablet or a smartphone. Here are the details:

If you’re a customer of a participating provider for Fox Sports Go, you can watch Sunday’s NFC championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks on the Web or on an Apple iPad using the Fox Sports Go website or mobile app. The Fox Sports Go website address is foxsportsgo.com, and the list of participating providers includes AT&T U-Verse, Comcast Xfinity, Suddenlink, Optimum, Midcontinent Communications, and Wow!. Coverage starts with the FOX NFL Sunday pregame show at 6 p.m. ET. Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Pam Oliver, and Erin Andrews will call the game at 6:30 p.m. If you’re like me, the mute button on Buck/Aikman comes into play at about 6:35.

CBS will also live-stream its coverage of the AFC championship game from Denver, starting at 3 p.m. ET on Sunday. The games can be watched online at CBSSports.com’s NFL page, or via the CBSSports app, which shows the games via a web page. I did see a little disclaimer that says live streaming is only available via iOS mobile devices.

If you are a Verizon Wireless customer and want to watch the games on your 4G LTE smartphone, you can sign up for Verizon’s NFL Mobile app and its live NFL service, which costs $5 a month extra to whatever cell plan you have. NFL Mobile customers will be able to see live streaming action from both championship games as well as the Super Bowl. Though it suffered glitches earlier this season, Verizon’s NFL Mobile app has been rock-solid for me, with lots of air time during my daughter’s Sunday afternoon music lessons. Don’t get caught without football this weekend, these games are possible classics you don’t want to miss.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, CBS Sports, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Fox Sports, NFL, NFL Mobile, Seattle Seahwaks, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: Denver Broncos, Football on my phone, live streaming NFC championship, live streaming NFL, Mobile Sports Report, New England Patriots, NFL games on the web, NFL Mobile, NFL streaming, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Verizon Wireless

Fox Sports Go will live-stream Seahawks-Saints and Niners-Panthers this weekend; CBS will live-stream Patriots-Colts, Broncos-Chargers

January 11, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 6 Comments

If you’re a customer of a participating provider for Fox Sports Go, you can watch this weekend’s NFC playoff games either on the Web or on an Apple iPad using the Fox Sports Go website or mobile app. Here at Mobile Sports Report we love this kind of flexibility, since it lets us watch games on the big desktop PC screen if and when other family members want to use the main TV to watch Harry Potter movies. The Fox Sports Go website address is foxsportsgo.com, and the list of participating providers includes AT&T U-Verse, Comcast Xfinity, Suddenlink, Optimum, Midcontinent Communications, and Wow!.

CBS will also live-stream its coverage of the AFC divisional games this weekend, starting with the Colts-Patriots game at 8:15 p.m. ET on Saturday followed by the Broncos-Chargers game Sunday at about 4:40 p.m. Sunday. The games can be watched online at CBSSports.com’s NFL page, or via the CBSSports app, which I believe gets around the Verizon phone-ban by just showing the games via a web page. I did see a little disclaimer that says live streaming is only available via iOS devices. Someone out there give it a shot (I have an Android phone) and let us know if it works on an iPhone. You do not need to subscribe to any TV service to see the CBS live streams.

For Fox, Saturday’s Seattle Seahawks vs. New Orleans Saints game (4:30 p.m. ET start) and Sunday’s San Francisco 49ers vs. Carolina Panthers tilt (1 p.m. ET start) will both be live streamed, according to a Fox news release. To see the stream you need to validate your pay-TV subscription, and once that’s done you can watch all the other Fox games. The Super Bowl, which Fox is broadcasting this year, will not require a cable subscription.

Though the Fox Sports Go app is available for both the iPad and the iPhone, the Fox news release very specifically notes that the game is available only for the tablet version of the app. We are guessing here but we suspect that Verizon’s deal with the league for its NFL Mobile app — the only app for smartphone live NFL action — precludes Fox’s ability to offer live streaming to a phone-type device. All playoff games this weekend, including the AFC games on CBS (according to my phone), will also be available to NFL Mobile subscribers. NFL Mobile requires a Verizon 4G LTE phone and a $5 per month NFL Mobile subscription.

Someday, the league will get all these rights simplified. But not this weekend.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Fox Sports, iOS, NFL, NFL Mobile, Seattle Seahwaks, Tablets, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: broncos game online, Carolina Panthers, Fox Sports, Fox Sports Go, live NFL streaming, Mobile Sports Report, New Orleans Saints, NFL Mobile, NFL on the Web, niners game online, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, stream broncos game, stream niners game, stream panthers game, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless