CBRS demos, 5G talk highlight venue news at Mobile World Congress

October 28, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

A legendary telecom building in downtown Los Angeles, the city that was the home of last week’s Mobile World Congress Americas show. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any picture for a larger image)

Some live demonstrations of wireless devices using spectrum in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) topped the venue-specific news at last week’s Mobile World Congress Americas trade show in Los Angeles.

At Angel Stadium in nearby Anaheim, a group of companies led by Connectivity Wireless and JMA teamed up to do some live demonstrations of use cases for the CBRS spectrum, a swath of 150 MHz in the 3.5 GHz range that uses the cellular LTE standard for device communications. One demo we heard about reportedly used a Motorola push-to-talk (PTT) handset to carry on a conversation from a suite behind home plate to centerfield, a “home run” distance of at least 400 feet.

Mobile Sports Report, which doesn’t often attend trade shows, found lots for venue technology professionals to be interested in at the show, including the live demonstrations of CBRS-connected devices in the JMA booth that included handsets, headsets and standalone digital displays using CBRS for back-end connectivity. MSR also sat down with Heidi Hemmer, Verizon’s vice president of technology, to talk about 5G for stadiums and why the push for the new cellular standard doesn’t mean the end of Wi-Fi. Read on for highlights of our visit to LA, which also included an interview with Boingo’s new CEO Mike Finley and with Paul Challoner, a CBRS expert at Ericsson.

Look at me, I can hear… centerfield

MSR wasn’t able to make it to the press event held at Angel Stadium, but we heard from multiple sources that the trial CBRS network installed there for a short stint in October by Connectivity Wireless and JMA performed as advertised, especially with the aforementioned full-field PTT talk between two devices, with one of those more than 400 feet away from the CBRS radio.

Thanks to @ConnectivityWS and @JMAwireless for an awesome event at Angel Stadium last night! Exciting things happening with #CBRS. pic.twitter.com/SoVab7fudU

— Inside Towers (@InsideTowers) October 22, 2019

The worth of the ability for a device to communicate to a access-point radio at such a distance should be clearly apparent to venue wireless professionals, who may want to tap into CBRS networks to increase connectivity inside their venues. With more powerful radios than Wi-Fi and connectivity that utilizes the mobility and security of the LTE standard, teams and venues may look to CBRS for back-of-house communications that would benefit from being separated from the shared Wi-Fi infrastructures. While we are still waiting for the first publicly announced contract win for CBRS in venues — even the Angels are still weighing the decision to go forward with a CBRS deal — being able to show networks working live is a big step forward in the “is it real” phase.

Connecting digital displays, and more PTT

If there was a true “hot spot” for CBRS activity on the MWC show floor, it was at the JMA booth, where the wireless infrastructure company was running a live CBRS network with all kinds of devices running off it. JMA, which was showing its own CBRS radio cell (a kind of access point-on-steroids radio that will provide connectivity to client devices in a CBRS network) as well as a version of its XRAN virtual network core software, had a working prototype of one of the first commercially announced CBRS networks, a wireless deployment of digital displays for the parking lots at the American Dream shopping mall in New Jersey.

A prototype of the CBRS-connected displays JMA is installing at the American Dream mall. (Don’t miss the Jimmy Hoffa joke at the bottom)

According to JMA director of markets and solutions Kurt Jacobs, the 600-acre parking lot at the huge new mall near the Meadowlands (it will have an amusement park and an indoor skiing slope, among other attractions and stores) was a perfect place to harness the ability of CBRS networks. The displays, large LED signs that can change dynamically to assist with parking instructions and directions, needed wireless connectivity to provide the back-end information.

But after considering a traditional deployment with fiber backhaul and Wi-Fi — which Jacobs said would have cost the mall at least $3 million to deploy with construction taking 6 months or more — the mall turned to JMA and a CBRS network deployment, which Jacobs said will use nine radios and 13 antennas to cover the signs, which will be spread out at key traffic junctions. Total cost? About a half-million dollars. Total deployment time? About eight weeks, according to Jacobs. Jacobs said the system will also eventually be able to support mobile CBRS radios inside security vehicles for real time updates from the lots.

Verizon to cover all NFL stadiums with 5G… and lots of Wi-Fi

Heidi Hemmer, Verizon

MSR was fortunate enough to get on the appointment schedule of Heidi Hemmer, Verizon’s vice president of technology. A few days after Verizon had publicly announced a spate of 5G deployments in NBA arenas, Hemmer doubled down on the carrier’s 5G commitment to NFL stadiums, saying the current list of 13 stadiums with some kind of Verizon 5G coverage would soon expand to the entire league.

While hype is heavy around 5G — if you’re a football fan you’ve no doubt seen the Verizon TV commercial where Verizon’s technology development director Eric Nagy walks around various stadiums touting the service — Hemmer was clear that 5G is just part of a full-spectrum stadium wireless solution, one that will likely include 4G LTE as well as Wi-Fi well into the future.

While Verizon is clearly proud of its cutting-edge 5G deployments, the company is also probably the biggest provider of Wi-Fi networks in large stadiums, with many NFL and even some large colleges having Verizon-specific SSIDs for Verizon customers, usually as part of a sponsorship deal from Verizon. Verizon is also a big bankroller of distributed antenna system (DAS) deployments inside stadiums, sometimes acting as the neutral host and other times participating as a tenant on the in-venue cellular networks.

A fuzzy shot of a 5G antenna in the wild at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver

According to Hemmer, having as much connectivity as possible allows Verizon to provide the best possible experience for its customers. The eventual end goal, she said, would be a world where fans’ phones “dynamically” connect to whatever network is best suited for their needs, from Wi-Fi to 4G to 5G. Currently, many of the Verizon Wi-Fi deployments will automatically connect Verizon customers to Wi-Fi in a venue where they have previously logged on to the network.

And while the millimeter-wave 5G deployments inside stadiums right now don’t come close to covering the full space of any venue (at the Denver Broncos’ Empower Field at Mile High, for instance, there are only 16 5G antennas in the building), they do provide a different level of connectivity, with much faster download speeds and less latency. Hemmer said those characteristics could spawn an entirely new class of services for fans like better instant-replay video or advanced statistics. While MSR hasn’t personally tested any 5G networks, the early word is that in some situations download speeds can be in the gigabit-per-second range.

“Speeds are important to our customers and 5G can really push up the fan experience,” Hemmer said.

New Boingo CEO bullish on venues business

Mobile World Congress was also MSR’s first chance to meet Mike Finley, who became Boingo’s CEO back in February. A former Qualcomm executive, Finley said that Boingo’s history of being a neutral-host provider for venues should continue to drive more business in that realm, especially as newer complex possibilities like CBRS and Wi-Fi 6 networks emerge.

“We are satisfying a need” that venues have for connectivity expertise, Finley said, especially when it comes to relationships with wireless carriers.

At MWC, Boingo was part of the CBRS Alliance’s multi-partner booth space promoting the OnGo brand for CBRS gear and services. In its space Boingo was showing its new converged virtualized core offering (which was using JMA’s XRAN product) with a live combined CBRS and Wi-Fi 6 network running side by side. A booth representative with an iPhone 11 device was able to quickly switch between the two networks, offering a glimpse at the potential future networking choices venues may be able to offer.

Ericsson Dots target stadiums, CBRS

In its large MWC booth, connectivity gear provider Ericsson had a special display for venue equipment, including a weather-hardened version of its Radio Dot System that Ericsson booth reps said should be appearing soon in some U.S. sporting venues. Ericsson was also showing some Dots that it said would support CBRS, a service Ericsson sees great promise for in venues.

Paul Challoner, Ericsson’s vice president for network product solutions, said it will be interesting to see whether or not venues will need to pursue licenses for CBRS spectrum when those are auctioned off next year, or whether venues will choose to use the unlicensed parts of the CBRS spectrum. Like others at the show, Challoner was excited about Apple’s decision to include support for CBRS bands in the iPhone 11 line — “it’s a fantastic boost for the CBRS ecosystem,” he said.

More MWC photos below!

Some of the Ericsson Dot radios designed for inside venue use

A prototype digital display kiosk from JMA, Intel and LG MRI, with space up top for CBRS gear

Another wireless-enabled display kiosk, this one in the Ericsson booth. Looks like wireless and digital displays are the next hot product.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, 5G, Apple, Baseball, CBRS, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Ericsson, Intel, iPhone, Major League Baseball, NBA, NFL, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, 5G, Angel Stadium, Apple, Boingo, CBRS, Connectivity Wireless, DAS, Ericsson, Heidi Hemmer, JMA, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Angels, Mike Finley, MLB, Mobile Sports Report, Mobile World Congress, NFL, Paul Challoner, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Ohio State breaks Wi-Fi records with 25.6 TB of data during Michigan State game

October 8, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Wi-Fi enclosures in the handrails at Ohio Stadium’s upper deck. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any picture for a larger image)

In front of a packed house Saturday night at Ohio Stadium, the Ohio State University not only gained an important Big 10 conference victory, it also broke the all-time record for most Wi-Fi data used during a single-day event, with 25.6 terabytes used by fans on the new stadium Wi-Fi network.

The new Wi-Fi network, installed this past offseason by AmpThink using Wi-Fi gear from Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, had already posted the highest Wi-Fi marks for a college football event, with 13.3 TB used at the home opener on Aug. 31 and another 12.7 TB used on Sept. 7. And on Sept. 21 in a blowout of Miami of Ohio, the Ohio Stadium network saw an even higher mark of 13.7 TB used, a mark previously unreported.

It turns out those were all warm-ups to the biggest Wi-Fi day so far, which came during a prime-time TV contest against Big 10 foe Michigan State. With 104,797 fans in attendance for homecoming, the approximately 2,000 Wi-Fi access points were humming from the time the gates opened. According to statistics provided to MSR by Ohio State, the network saw an astonishing 74,940 unique connections during the 34-10 Ohio State victory, many of those on a separate SSID for Verizon Wireless customers. According to Ohio State, the peak concurrent connectivity number of 45,200 users (also a record) was seen five minutes before kickoff.

Ohio State also claims top ‘take rate’

Want the inside story on how Wi-Fi came to the Horseshoe? Read our in-depth, in-person profile of the Ohio State network deployment in the most recent issue of our STADIUM TECH REPORT, available now for free reading — no registration required!

While the numbers from Ohio Stadium Saturday top the most recent Super Bowl figures (24.05 TB seen at Mercedes-Benz Stadium) it’s worthwhile to note that there were only 70,081 fans at Super Bowl 53 compared to the 104,797 at Saturday’s game. But it’s as worthwhile to note the difficulty in design and deployment to connect an extra 30,000 fans, especially in an open-bowl venue like Ohio Stadium where the balance of seating has no overhangs above.

It’s also interesting to compare the “take rates” from the top events, since Ohio State’s topped the Super Bowl’s, with 71.5 percent of fans attending Saturday connecting to the network, compared to the previous high of 69 percent at Super Bowl 53. The most recent Super Bowl, however, still claims the title for most average data used per connected fan, with its 492.3 megabytes per user mark far ahead of Ohio State’s mark of 341.6 megabytes per connected user from Saturday.

Still to come this year for Ohio State are home games against Wisconsin on Oct. 26 and Maryland on Nov. 9, as well as a possible playoff-important matchup with Penn State on Nov. 23. A home game against top rival Michigan, however, will have to wait for 2020.

Want more info? READ OUR REPORT online right now!

THE MSR TOP 27 FOR WI-FI

1. Michigan State vs. Ohio State, Ohio Stadium, Columbus, Ohio, Oct. 5, 2019: Wi-Fi: 25.6 TB
2. Super Bowl 53, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga., Feb. 3, 2019: Wi-Fi: 24.05 TB
3. NCAA Men’s 2019 Final Four semifinals, U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn., April 6, 2019: Wi-Fi: 17.8 TB
4. Super Bowl 52, U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn., Feb. 4, 2018: Wi-Fi: 16.31 TB
5. Miami (Ohio) vs. Ohio State, Ohio Stadium, Columbus, Ohio, Sept. 21, 2019: Wi-Fi: 13.7 TB
6. NCAA Men’s 2019 Final Four championship, U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn., April 8, 2019: Wi-Fi: 13.4 TB
7. Florida Atlantic vs. Ohio State, Ohio Stadium, Columbus, Ohio, Aug. 31, 2019: Wi-Fi: 13.3 TB
8. Cincinnati vs. Ohio State, Ohio Stadium, Columbus, Ohio, Sept. 7, 2019: Wi-Fi: 12.7 TB
9. 2018 College Football Playoff Championship, Alabama vs. Georgia, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga., Jan. 8, 2018: Wi-Fi: 12.0 TB*
10. Auburn vs. Florida, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, Gainesville, Fla., Oct. 5, 2019: Wi-Fi: 11.82 TB
11. Super Bowl 51, NRG Stadium, Houston, Feb. 5, 2017: Wi-Fi: 11.8 TB
12. Pittsburgh Steelers vs. New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Sept. 8, 2019: Wi-Fi: 11.58 TB
13. Atlanta Falcons vs. Philadelphia Eagles, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 6, 2018: Wi-Fi: 10.86 TB
14. Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016: Wi-Fi: 10.1 TB
15. Taylor Swift Reputation Tour, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., July 27, 2018: Wi-Fi: 9.76 TB
16. Minnesota Vikings vs. Philadelphia Eagles, NFC Championship Game, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 21, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.76 TB
17. Jacksonville Jaguars vs. New England Patriots, AFC Championship Game, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Jan. 21, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.53 TB
18. Taylor Swift Reputation Tour, Broncos Stadium at Mile High, May 25, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.1 TB
19. Kansas City Chiefs vs. New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Sept. 7, 2017: Wi-Fi: 8.08 TB
20. SEC Championship Game, Alabama vs. Georgia, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga., Dec. 1, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.06 TB*
21. Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys, Divisional Playoffs, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 15, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.25 TB
22. Stanford vs. Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Ind., Sept. 29, 2018: 7.19 TB
23. (tie) Southern California vs. Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Ind., Oct. 21, 2017: 7.0 TB
Arkansas State vs. Nebraska, Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb., Sept 2, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.0 TB
24. Tennessee vs. Florida, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, Gainesville, Fla., Sept. 21, 2019: Wi-Fi: 6.94 TB
25. WrestleMania 32, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, April 3, 2016: Wi-Fi: 6.77 TB
26. Wisconsin vs. Nebraska, Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb., Oct. 7, 2017: Wi-Fi: 6.3 TB
27. Super Bowl 49, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015: Wi-Fi: 6.23 TB

Fans at the home opener on Aug. 31 next to one of the handrail AP enclosures

Ohio Stadium video boards helped fans find the Wi-Fi network

Filed Under: AmpThink, Aruba, Hewlett-Packard, NCAA Football, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: AmpThink, Aruba, Hewlett-Packard, Michigan State, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Ohio Stadium, Ohio State University, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, The Ohio State University, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Stadium Tech Report: Las Vegas Ballpark gets Major League Wi-Fi

October 8, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The Las Vegas Ballpark has been a hit since its opening this year. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any picture for a larger image)

Maybe for some late-night behavior, the old “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” rule still applies.

But when it comes to minor-league baseball, the tale of what’s happening at Las Vegas Ballpark is being spread far and wide, as the high-end finishes, fan-friendly amenities and high-definition Wi-Fi network at the new venue
are the talk not only of many Triple-A teams, but of other sports and possibly even Major League Baseball as well.

The $150 million ballpark, which opened this past season in the Vegas suburb of Summerlin, is the new shining jewel in minor-league baseball, with features like a huge video screen, party porches and club-level suites that feel more major-league than minor. So far the facility has been a smash hit with Vegas baseball fans, setting a new season-attendance record halfway through the summer and leading the minor leagues in attendance, despite the fact that the 10,000-seat venue is the seventh-smallest park in the PCL.

During a quick summer visit for a game at the park, Mobile Sports Report found that the fan-facing Wi-Fi network was at the same quality level as all the other amenities, with speed tests in the 60 Mbps range for both download and upload at most locations around the stadium. Built by Cox Business/Hospitality Network using Cisco gear, the network uses both under-seat and overhead AP deployments, as well as some on poles, to make sure all visitors have solid connectivity no matter where they roam inside the venue. With that kind of bandwidth, it’s no wonder that selfies, videos and other social-media reports are helping make Las Vegas Ballpark one of the worst-kept secrets in Vegas.

Major amenities for minor league park

Editor’s note: This report is from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, an in-depth look at successful deployments of stadium technology. Included with this report is a profile of the new Wi-Fi 6 network at Ohio Stadium, and an in-depth research report on the converged fiber network at Dickies Arena. DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY now!

An under-seat AP enclosure

“What’s happening here isn’t staying in Las Vegas,” said Branch Rickey, president of the Pacific Coast League, during an August press conference to announce that the 2020 Triple-A National Championship Game will be played at Las Vegas Ballpark on Sept. 22, 2020. Rickey, the grandson of the famous baseball executive with the same name, noted that the new facility is “resonating with players, coaches and executives” throughout the league.

While Las Vegas may have an outsized reputation for what happens with visitors to the legendary strip of casinos, the reality of the larger Las Vegas is that it’s like many other U.S. cities of a similar size, with families and residents who have been hungering for quality sports entertainment. The instant success of the NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights – who sold a ton of season tickets to locals – is reflected in the embrace of the Las Vegas Aviators’ new home, which is about as anti-Vegas as you can get.

Free parking, in a location far away from the Vegas Strip (Summerlin is about a 20-minute drive from the casinos at rush hour), and family-friendly features like a grassy hill beyond the right-field fence where kids can roll around – or ping-pong tables on an outfield patio for kids who can’t stay focused on baseball – make Las Vegas Ballpark a perfect place for families. And the more adult-focused sections, like the suites – or the party porches along each side of the stadium and the outfield swimming pool area, provide easy entertainment options for companies or other large groups looking to have a “team” event with baseball as a backdrop.

But in this day and age, no public sports place would seem complete without good wireless connectivity, and with its major-league Wi-Fi network, Las Vegas Ballpark covers that base completely. With 380 APs covering the entire park, MSR couldn’t find a single spot without consistent coverage, including even outside the entry gates.

According to Cox, approximately 130 of the APs are installed under seats, a trickier than usual deployment since the ballpark uses mesh seats in all seating areas – a construction that could dip fans’ bottoms closer to the APs than a regular hard plastic seat.

A QR code makes logging in a simple procedure

Mike Fredericks, vice president for IT development for stadium owners the Howard Hughes Corporation, said
the network was built to “major league standards,” and our unofficial speed tests seemed to confirm that quality. According to Cox, a 10 Gbps backbone powers the network. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is the naming sponsor of the park, under an $80 million, 20-year deal.

As the technology sponsor, Cox Business/Hospitality Network is the exclusive solutions provider for the Las Vegas Ballpark, supporting both back-of-house networking as well as the fan-facing technology.

Solid Wi-Fi everywhere in the park

If there is one place that venues seem to consistently overlook when building out wireless, it’s the space just outside the ticketing gates toward the parking lot, an omission that can cause severe fan headaches in these days of increasing use of digital ticketing. There was no such problem at Las Vegas Ballpark, where outside the outfield (east) entryway we got a speed test of 51.5 Mbps on the download and 46.9 Mbps for upload. If there is one hitch to the free Wi-Fi it is the need to provide a name and a valid email address to log in, a registration process that seems to be generally falling out of favor in other stadiums.

Once inside the park MSR started a circumnavigation beginning with a path behind the centerfield wall, where we got a speed test of 57.1 Mbps / 58.6 Mbps. We walked directly underneath the 31-foot-high by 126-foot wide Daktronics video board, the largest in minor league baseball. We also walked directly underneath a MatSing ball cellular antenna, which Verizon is currently using to provide cellular coverage for its customers.

A MatSing ball antenna provides cellular coverage from centerfield

Until the DAS gets fully built out inside the stadium, AT&T, according to the stadium IT crew, plans to cover the stands using a macro tower on a nearby building; T-Mobile was providing service to the stadium using a COW (cell on wheels) unit in the main parking lot.

In both the left- and right-field corners of the stands, Las Vegas Ballpark has some “loge” type seating, with a fixed tabletop in front of several rows of seats. Under-seat Wi-Fi deployments on both sides seemed to work well, with speed tests of 65.6 Mbps / 68.9 Mbps in the left-field loge seats and 66.4 Mbps / 55.5 Mbps in right field. On the upper deck seating areas along both base lines are party decks, both of which were hosting private events on the night we attended; MSR was able to sneak in and get a speed test of 66.5 Mbps / 67.5 Mbps on the left-field deck; where Wi-Fi coverage was in part provided by a couple of APs mounted on a low pole.

We didn’t get a speed test at the centerfield pool area – another private party had the space reserved – but we did get a solid 43.8 Mbps / 57.3 Mbps mark at “The Hangar,” the centerfield bar. And even though the connectivity, architecture and trappings at the stadium had a major-league feel, the between-inning promotions – like kids racing on the field on bouncy blow-up horses – and local sponsors (like a land-surveying company for home-run distance measures) made sure the game kept the charm that only a minor-league game can provide.

At the press conference (held earlier in the day of our visit) executives from minor league baseball waxed eloquently about the park’s attributes. “This ballpark exceeded expectations, if that was possible,” said Pat O’Conner, president of Minor League Baseball. And while he stressed that he was no wireless expert, PCL’s Rickey did say that having major-league connectivity was an essential part of the minor league experience.

“If we are looking to find avenues to younger fans, we realize that they are very more connected,” said Rickey in a separate interview with MSR. “Our fans are reliant on their mobile devices, and they can be used to provide so much information about our game. Having great wireless is where we have to be. It’s essential to where we are headed.”

At Las Vegas Ballpark, that base is covered. Feel free to spread the word.

A good look at the stadium, which has suites and party decks on the upper level

Sunsets can be spectacular at Las Vegas Ballpark

An under-seat AP deployment in the loge seating area

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Baseball, Cisco, DAS, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AAA, AT&T, Branch Rickey, Cisco, Cox Business, Cox Business/Hospitality Network, Cox Communications, DAS, Howard Hughes, Las Vegas, Las Vegas Aviators, Las Vegas Ballpark, MatSing, minor league baseball, Mobile Sports Report, Pacific Coast League, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

AT&T launching 5G-powered ‘fan experiences’ at AT&T Stadium for Cowboys opener

September 5, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Dallas fan in mobile action at AT&T Stadium (not using 5G). Photo: Phil Harvey, MSR

AT&T is launching what it calls ‘5G experiences’ for fans at AT&T Stadium on Sunday during the Dallas Cowboys’ NFL home opener, including some augmented-reality experiences that will let fans take selfies with huge-sized virtual NFL players or dodge virtual tacklers in an AR-type game.

While the 5G network powering the experiences inside the stadium won’t be open or available for general use, AT&T said it will have Samsung Galaxy S10 5G phones on hand in several places around the venue for fans to test out the applications that AT&T claims “couldn’t be done wirelessly at this level before 5G.” And even though 5G networks are still a long ways away from being a mainstream reality for most wireless customers, you can expect the largest U.S. carriers to fight a 5G marketing battle all fall around football stadiums, especially at NFL venues where NFL partner Verizon is already at work installing 5G test networks for use this season. In fact, Verizon also has a press announcement out today about having installed 5G services in 13 NFL stadiums. So get ready, wireless types, it’s 5G season.

Here at MSR we will try to keep our heads above any claims of stadiums being the “first” 5G-enabled or 5G-ready until such networks are prevalent and available for any and all visitors. That being said, the activations planned by AT&T for Sunday’s Cowboys home opener against the New York Giants sound kind of cool, so if any MSR readers are on hand for the game please do try them out and send us a field report or at least a selfie or two.

According to an AT&T press release, the 5G-powered experiences available at the game Sunday will include a thing called “Hype Up Chants,” where fans will be able to see a 36-foot tall version of Cowboys players Dak Prescott and Ezekial Elliott among others by viewing them through the camera of a provided Samsung phone. Fans will also be able to record their own end zone dance next to virtual teammates, over a provided 3-D video again powered by the 5G network and a Samsung phone.

On the stadium’s east side fans will be able to “pose with the pros,” again recording a virtual video with players like Elliott in what AT&T is calling an “immersive column,” a setup connected to the 5G network via a Netgear Nighthawk 5G mobile hotspot. And at the stadium’s club level, another set of Samsung phones will be available to show off live player and team stats in a broadcast-like AR format, while other fans will get to play a virtual football game where they will dodge “virtual defensive robots,” who may or may not be more effective than the real humans on the football field.

We have an email in to AT&T to find out more details if possible, including any other vendors involved in AT&T’s millimeter-wave 5G setup inside its namesake arena. Stay tuned for updates as they become available. Below are some renderings of how the experiences are supposed to look.

The ‘Pose with the Pros’ column

The ‘Hype Up Chants’ look

Filed Under: 4G LTE, 5G, AT&T, Dallas Cowboys, DAS, NFL, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: 4G LTE, 5G, AT&T, AT&T Stadium, Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys, DAS, Ezekial Elliott, millimeter wave, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Samsung, Samsung Galaxy Note, Verizon Wireless

Colorado brings Wi-Fi and DAS to Folsom Field

April 26, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Folsom Field at night. Credit: University of Colorado (click on any picture for a larger image)

There will be a change in the air at Folsom Field this fall, and not just from the team that new head coach Mel Tucker will lead onto the gridiron. For the first time, the mile-high atmosphere inside the University of Colorado’s historic venue will be filled with fan-facing Wi-Fi and cellular signals, thanks to new networks being installed this offseason by third-party host Neutral Connect Networks (NCN).

In a deal that will also bring Wi-Fi and a cellular DAS to the school’s basketball arena, NCN will use Cisco gear for the Wi-Fi network and JMA Wireless gear for the cellular networks. A centrally located head-end will serve both venues via fiber connections, some run through existing tunnels from the campus’ old steam-heating infrastructure.

Due to be live (UPDATE: Now CU says the networks will not be operational until later this fall) ~~before the 2019 football season begins on Sept. 7 when CU hosts Nebraska~~, later this fall, the Wi-Fi network will use 550 APs in a mostly under-seat deployment at Folsom Field, where there are no overhangs over any of the seating areas. DAS deployment in Colorado’s historic football stadium — which first hosted games in 1924 — will use antennas pointing down from the stadium’s top edges, with some new flagpoles scheduled to help provide antenna-mounting locations.

While its incredibly picturesque location at the edge of the Rocky Mountains has historically made Folsom Field a fan-favorite place to visit (at least for photos), the lack of any comprehensive wireless coverage of any sort has produced some grumbling from Buffs fans in recent years. According to Matt Biggers, CU’s chief marketing officer and associate athletic director for external affairs, wireless coverage inside the sports venues has been a topic of internal research for more than 6 years.

“It was all about finding a partner and a financial model that works for us,” said Biggers. “It finally got to a point where it made sense to pull the trigger.”

Neutral host model appealing to schools

Editor’s note: This report is from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, an in-depth look at successful deployments of stadium technology. Included with this report is a profile of the Wi-Fi records set at Super Bowl 53, as well as a profile of Wi-Fi at Vivint Smart Home Arena in Salt Lake City! DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE COPY now!

The CU Events Center, home of Colorado hoops teams. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

The model brought to CU is a classic neutral-host operation, where a provider like NCN (which bought the former sports-stadium practice from 5 Bars) will build a school’s Wi-Fi and DAS networks under a revenue-sharing deal with the school where the carriers help some with upfront payments and then provide payments over a long-term lease to operate on the DAS.

The neutral-host option is one good way for schools or teams with smaller budgets or lightly used facilities to bring connectivity to arenas. CU’s Folsom Field, for example, doesn’t see much use other than the six home games per football season. This year, the stadium will see big crowds beyond football only at a few events, including the Memorial Day Bolder Boulder 10K footrace (which ends inside the stadium), a Fourth of July fireworks celebration, and a couple of July concerts featuring the Dead & Company tour.

According to James Smith, vice president of carrier services for NCN, AT&T will be the anchor tenant on the DAS, and will be first to be operational. Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile, Smith said, are still negotiating long-term agreements but are expected to be on the DAS by 2020.

NCN [then under its old name of 5 Bars] negotiated a similar neutral-host deal with CU’s neighbor to the north, Colorado State University, for CSU’s new football stadium which opened in 2017. Now known as Canvas Stadium, the 41,000-seat venue had 419 total Wi-Fi access points when it opened, with approximately 250 of those used in the bowl seating area. Like CSU’s deployment, the Wi-Fi network at Folsom Field will use primarily under-seat AP deployments, mainly because the stadium’s horseshoe layout has no overhangs.

DAS gear already installed in the CU Events Center

According to NCN’s Smith, the current plan sees a deployment of 550 APs in Folsom Field, with another 70 APs in the basketball arena, the CU Events Center. Both venues’ networks will be served by a central head-end room located in an old telephone PBX space near the center of campus. Fiber links will run from there to both Folsom Field and the Events Center.

At Folsom, the NCN team will have a long list of deployment challenges, mainly having to navigate the construction particulars of a stadium that has been gradually expanded and added onto over the years.

“Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s behind a brick,” said NCN director of program management Bryan Courtney, speaking of existing infrastructure that has been around for decades. Smith said the Folsom Field DAS will make use of overhead antennas, including some that will require new flagpole-type structures that will need to match Folsom Field’s architectural heritage.

Basketball arena is all top-down

At the 11,064-seat CU Events Center, formerly known as the Coors Events Center, deployment of both Wi-Fi and DAS will be somewhat easier, as all the gear servicing the seating area will be suspended from the catwalks. With the main concourse at stadium entry level and all the seats in a single rectangular bowl flowing down from there, the ceiling is close enough for good top-down coverage for both Wi-Fi and celluar, NCN’s Smith said.

The Golden Buffalo Marching Band on a CU game day. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

Though deployment of both networks in the Events Center is currently underway, neither will be active until after the current college basketball season is completed. However, the Events Center stays somewhat more busy than the football stadium, with events like local high school graduations and other special events (like a Republican Party debate in 2015) making use of the space. Both networks should be fully up and running by the next basketball season, according to NCN.

Unlike some other universities that are aggressively pursuing digital fan-connection strategies, CU’s Biggers said the school will start slowly with its fan-facing networks, making sure the experience is a solid one before trying too hard.

“We’re pretty conservative, and this is a complicated project and we want to make sure we get it right,” said Biggers. Though Biggers said CU fans haven’t been extremely vocal about connectivity issues inside the sports venues, he does admit to hearing about “some frustration” about signals in some areas of the stadium (which until now has only been served by a couple of dedicated macro antennas from the outside).

“There’s definitely a hunger [for wireless service],” Biggers said.

On the business side, Biggers said CU will also be taking more time to evaluate any additions to its game-day digital operations. Though CU recently introduced a mobile-only “buzzer beater” basketball ticket package that offered discounted passes that would deliver an assigned seat to a device 24 hours before game time, Biggers said that for football, a longtime paper-ticket tradition for season ticket holders would likely stay in place.

Colorado will also “re-evaluate” its game-day mobile application strategy, Biggers said, with the new networks in mind. “But the real game-changer for us is data collection,” he said. “We’re most excited about having data to better serve the fans.”

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Basketball, Cisco, DAS, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, Pac-12, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, CU Events Center, DAS, Folsom Field, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, NCN, Neutral Connect Networks, Pac-12, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, University of Colorado, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Commentary: Cheer, Cheer for old Wi-Fi

April 22, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

A hoops fan records action during the FInal Four at U.S. Bank Stadium. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any picture for a larger image)

News item: Super Bowl 53 sees 24 terabytes of Wi-Fi data used.

Second news item: Final Four weekend sees 31.2 terabytes of Wi-Fi data used.

Even as people across the wireless industry seem ready to dig Wi-Fi’s grave, the view from here is not only is Wi-Fi’s imminent death greatly exaggerated, things may actually be heading in the other direction — Wi-Fi’s last-mile and in-building dominance may just be getting started.

The latest ironic put-down of Wi-Fi came in a recent Wall Street Journal article with the headline of “Cellphone Carriers Envision World Without Wi-Fi,” in which a Verizon executive calls Wi-Fi “rubbish.” While the article itself presents a great amount of facts about why Wi-Fi is already the dominant last-mile wireless carrier (and may just get stronger going forward) the article doesn’t talk at all about the Super Bowl, where Verizon itself basically turned to Wi-Fi to make sure fans at the big game who were Verizon customers could stay connected.

Wi-Fi speedtest from U.S. Bank Stadium during the Final Four championship game.

As readers of MSR know, the performance of the cellular DAS at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta has been a question mark since its inception, and the emergence of competing lawsuits between lead contractor IBM and supplier Corning over its implementation means we may never learn publicly what really happened, and whether or not it was ever fixed. Though stadium tech execs and the NFL said publicly that the DAS was fine for the Super Bowl, Verizon’s actions perhaps spoke much louder — the carrier basically paid extra to secure part of the Wi-Fi network bandwidth for its own customers, and used autoconnect to get as many of its subscribers as it could onto the Wi-Fi network.

While we did learn the Wi-Fi statistics in detail — thanks to the fact that Wi-Fi numbers are controlled by the venue, not the carriers — it’s interesting to note that none of the four top cellular providers in the U.S. would give MSR a figure of how much cellular traffic they each saw in the stadium on Super Sunday. For the record, stadium officials said they saw 12.1 TB of data used on the Mercedes-Benz Stadium DAS on Super Bowl Sunday, a figure that represents the total traffic from all four carriers combined. But how that pie was split up will likely forever remain a mystery.

AT&T did provide a figure of 23.5 TB for Super Bowl traffic inside the venue as well as in a 2-mile radius around the stadium, and Sprint provided a figure (25 TB) but put even a less-measurable geographic boundary on it, meaning Sprint could have basically been reporting all traffic it saw anywhere inside the greater Atlanta city limits. Verizon and T-Mobile, meanwhile, both refused to report any Super Bowl cellular statistics at all.

An under-seat Wi-Fi AP placement in the end zone seating at the Final Four.

Verizon also did not reply to a question about how much traffic it saw on the Verizon-specific Wi-Fi SSID inside the venue. While we get the marketing reasons for not reporting disappointing stats (why willingly report numbers that make you look bad?), it seems disingenious at best for one Verizon executive (Ronan Dunne, executive vice president and president of Verizon Wireless) to call Wi-Fi “rubbish” when another part of the company is relying heavily on that same rubbish technology to make sure its customers can stay connected when the cellular network can’t keep up. One man’s trash, I guess, is another division’s treasure.

Wi-Fi 6 and more spectrum on the way

For venue owners and operators, the next few years are likely going to be filled with plenty of misinformation regarding the future of wireless. The big carriers, who pull in billions each quarter in revenue, are staking their near-term future on 5G, a label for a confusing mix of technologies and spectrum chunks that is unlikely to be cleared up anytime soon. Unlike the celluar industry change from 3G to 4G — a relatively straightforward progression to a new and unified type of technology — the change to 5G has already seen carriers willing to slap the marketing label on a different number of implementations, which bodes many headaches ahead for those in the venue space who have to figure out what will work best for their buildings and open spaces.

There’s also the imminent emergence of networks that will use the CBRS spectrum at 3.5 GHz, which will support communications using the same LTE technology used for 4G cellular. Though CBRS has its own challenges and hurdles to implementation, because it is backed by carriers and the carrier equipment-supply ecosystem, you can expect a blitz of 5G-type marketing to fuel its hype, with poor old Wi-Fi often the target for replacement.

While the Wi-Fi Alliance and other industry groups rallying around Wi-Fi might seem like the Rebel Alliance against a First Order dreadnought, if I’ve learned anything in my career of technology reporting it’s that you should never bet against open standards. I’ve been around long enough to see seemingly invincible empires based on proprietary schemes collapse and disappear under the relentless power of open systems and standards — like Ethernet vs. DEC or IBM networking protocols, and TCP/IP vs. Novell — to count out Wi-Fi in a battle, even against the cellular giants. In fact, with the improvements that are part of Wi-Fi 6 — known also as 802.11ax in the former parlance — Wi-Fi is supposed to eventually become more like LTE, with more secure connections and a better ability to support a roaming connection and the ability to connect more clients per access point. What happens then if LTE’s advantages go away?

With Wi-Fi 6 gear only now starting to arrive in the marketplace, proof still needs to be found that such claims can work in the real world, especially in the demanding and special-case world of wireless inside venues. But the same hurdles (and maybe even more) exist for CBRS and 5G technologies, with big unanswered questions about device support and the need for numerous amounts of antennas that are usually ignored in the “5G will take over the world soon” hype stories. I’d also add to that mix my wonder about where the time and talent will come from to install a whole bunch of new technologies that will require new learning curves; meanwhile, as far as I can tell the companies supporting Wi-Fi continue to add technology pros at ever-growing user and education conferences.

So as we ready for the inevitable challenge of sifting through cellular FUD and hype let’s have a cheer for good old Wi-Fi — for now the champion of the biggest data-demand days in venues, and maybe the leader for years to come.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AmpThink, Aruba, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, Hewlett-Packard, NCAA Hoops, NFL, Sprint, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AmpThink, Aruba, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, Final Four, Final Four 2019, Men's NCAA Tournament, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 53, U.S. Bank Stadium, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi