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Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: Lots of Networking at F1 Race in Austin

November 14, 2012 by

If you are a fan of F1 racing you might be headed down to Austin, Texas this weekend for the Austin Grand Prix at the new Circuit of The Americas course. From what we can deduce, it should be a good place to connect with your mobile device, since we have seen two press releases over the past weeks talking about wireless deployments at the track. But will there be free fan Wi-Fi? Probably, but we’re not sure yet.

We’re not sure because the main press release — from our friends at AT&T — talks mainly about how Ma Bell wired this place for high capacity data transfers, which we are guessing means lots of fiber for set video camera positions and the whole boatload of car-performance stats that regularly fly around the ether at any big-time motorsports event. From the sounds of it the new AT&T network should support fan Wi-Fi — but unfortunately neither AT&T nor the course/race website makes any mention of whether or not there will be free Wi-Fi for fans.

In case you’re wondering, we think such information omissions are a big mistake. But we are checking with AT&T and the race folks to see what’s up.

In the meantime, if you are a Verizon customer your cell phone should also work better at the track, thanks to an independent Distributed Antenna System (DAS) infrastructure put in place by our friends at ExteNet, a company that has built similar deployments at other sporting stadiums, like the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn. According to ExteNet its DAS will improve cellular reception around the track, mainly for Verizon customers this year since Verizon is the only cellular provider using the ExteNet solution right now. Since ExteNet builds independent networks — which means any provider can sign up and pay ExteNet to carry signals from their customers — other providers like Sprint or T-Mobile may join up for future events. Our guess is that AT&T won’t have to. The cool thing is, fans should be able to share photos and videos of the F1 racers as quickly as possible. And that is a good thing.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: Ruckus Goes Narrow with New Directional Antenna

November 7, 2012 by

Ruckus Wireless on Tuesday announced a new suite of products and an enhanced overall focus aimed at addressing high-density networking needs like stadiums, including an innovative antenna technology that can focus beams into smaller angles — all the better for servicing tightly packed crowds.

If Wi-Fi networking infrastructure deployments were originally about coverage, they’ve now switched to more concerns about capacity, said Steve Hratko, director of carrier marketing at Ruckus, who met with us at the Wireless Broadband Alliance’s Wi-Fi Global Congress conference in San Francisco Tuesday. And when it comes to deploying antennas and other infrastructure to serve high-density crowds, Hratko said, “all the rules of thumb have changed.”

One of those rules has to do with antennas. Historically antennas were designed to cast as wide a signal as possible, to cover the most airspace with the fewest number of devices. Now, with demand increasing at explosive levels, to serve high-density areas like stadiums takes some different deployment thinking, like antennas that use narrower beams. Ruckus’ new Wi-Fi access points, Hratko said, can shrink their signals into 30-degree slices, making it easier to aim them at a specific sector of seats, or other geographically specific areas, like airport waiting rooms.

“Sometimes, the beams can’t be narrow enough,” said Hratko. “It all ends up being more clever about where you put antennas.”

Ruckus, which is in the midst of preparing for an initial public offering, is also ready to help clients with its deployment smarts, which it is learning as it puts its gear into more high-density places like Time-Warner Cable Arena, where Ruckus gear helped keep the Democratic National Convention wirelessly connected earlier this summer. We’re sure we’ll hear more high-density talk from Ruckus sometime soon.

BT: Olympics Used 6 Terabytes of Wi-Fi Traffic

We’re going to try to track down the presentation — it was loaded with cool networking statistics — but one of the ones we did write down during a BT talk about Olympics network usage at the Wi-Fi conference was the staggering stat that there was 6 Terabytes of Wi-Fi traffic consumed on BT’s London networks during the games this summer — with some 697,383 separate Wi-Fi sessions initiated on the 1,500 access points BT had installed for Olympics use.

Though BT exec Chris Bruce said the network performed without many hitches — we heard some different stories — by all accounts the Wi-Fi networks on the Games sites apparently held up even in the face of record demand. It’s old news to us here at MSR but Bruce said if you didn’t believe it before, believe it now — crowds at big sporting events want to take pictures and video and share them instantly.

“Crowd behavior now is such that everyone wants to capture the moment and share the moment,” Bruce said, meaning that event hosts better have super-sturdy Wi-Fi and cellular or be ready for the inevitable immediate social-media backlash. One funny story he noted was that when planning started for the London Games 10 years out, the idea of having a Wi-Fi network wasn’t even considered. His advice for future big-event network planners?

“Take your demand model and keep revising it,” he said. “You just can’t predict it ahead of time.”

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

GoPro takes Hero to Level 3

October 22, 2012 by

GoPro has enhanced its popular Hero line of action cameras with the unveiling of its Hero3 family that should meet the needs of the most demanding user by following the company’s tried and true method of continually making the devices faster and more powerful.

The Hero3 moves GoPro into the realm of the 4k resolution capabilities in its top end offerings. The Hero3 family has a trio of models, each designed for different users at different price points, starting with the Hero3 Black at the high end.

The Black comes with 4k resolution, or ultra high definition, capabilities and has a 12MP image sensor that is coupled with an enhanced low light performance. It is capable of recording video at 1080p, 1440p, 960p and 720p resolutions.

The $399.99 camera supports up to 64GB MicroSD cards for storage and has built-in Wi-Fi making it very easy to transfer images and video to more permanent storage or to large screen displays for viewing. It can take still in three resolutions, 12MP, 7MP and 5MP and has burst speed of 30 frames per second and also has both time lapse and continuous capabilities. It has a waterproof case good to 197 feet and is gear mountable.

Next up is the $299.99 Silver Edition, targeted as the natural replacement for the company’s previous workhorse offering, the Hero2, but it comes it 25% lighter at under 3 ounces and 30% smaller while sharing the same basic specifications such as the ability to capturing ultra-wide 1080p 30 fps and 720p 60 fps video plus 11MP photos at a rate of 10 photos per second but also has built-in Wi-Fi.

The $199.99 entry level White Edition is waterproof to 197 feet, and is capable of capturing 1080p 30 fps and 720p 60 fps video plus 5MP photos at a rate of 3 photos per second. As with all of the new generation Hero3 cameras it has built-in Wi-Fi. All of the cameras are expected to be available by the end of the month.

There are a growing number of developers in this space with Polaroid jumping into the market recently with a trio of offerings while Sony has been making waves with its Bloggie Sports Camera line.

Filed Under: Apps, GoPro, Outdoor Activities, Polaroid, Sports Action Cameras, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , ,

Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: Brocade, Niners Make it Official

October 17, 2012 by

After hinting about a relationship earlier this year, the San Francisco 49ers and networking vendor Brocade made it official Tuesday, announcing Brocade as the “exclusive and official network solutions partner of the San Francisco 49ers.” Though no details on the exact buildout are yet available, Brocade Chief Technical Officer Dave Stevens told MSR in a phone interview Tuesday that Brocade will be responsible for the “entire wired and wireless network infrastructure” for the new Niners stadium currently being built in Santa Clara.

We’ll break out more details from our interview with Stevens next week but the bottom line is, he says Brocade knows that this stadium will have to live up to a higher standard because of its location smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley. That means the Niners and Brocade will aim for building the best Wi-Fi and cellular fan network that can be built, as well as a wireless network to run other stadium apps like signage, ticketing, security and more.

“The Niners and Brocade are looking for an unprecedented network experience,” Stevens said. What that will be is a bit of a moving target, since the stadium won’t be ready for a couple years at the earliest. While technology changes and improvements will affect deployments some, Stevens said you can probably count on Wi-Fi equipment that embraces the nascent 802.11ac standard, which supports much higher data rates than current Wi-Fi gear. As we said, more from our interview next week.

If there’s a loser right now in the game it’s Cisco, which like Brocade has its headquarters in the same San Jose/Santa Clara neighborhood as the stadium. (Cisco’s HQ is literally just down the street.) With a business unit dedicated to building out stadium networks, Cisco might have been seen as a lock for the bid and even earlier this month had hinted rather strongly that they wouldn’t be shut out of the Niners’ new stadium, which has a long list of corporate sponsors on its roster, like SAP, whose name is on the practice center. Maybe there will be some room for Cisco on the digital signage part of the buildout? Cisco reps contacted Tuesday had the “no comment” light on, but from the looks of it this Brocade deal doesn’t seem to leave much room for any Cisco gear. But it ain’t over until the access points get connected, or something like that.

Ericsson Intros Stadium-Specific Wi-Fi Gear

Telecom supplier Ericsson Tuesday announced a set of stadium-specific Wi-Fi gear, the first new products coming out of the company’s acquisition of Wi-Fi specialist BelAir Networks earlier this year. According to the press release, Ericsson now has a Wi-Fi access point and a Wi-Fi controller designed specifically for stadium use. Since Ericsson sells mainly to big telecom companies like Verizon and AT&T, look for this year to be used side by side with small-cell cellular technology as the big carriers continue their quest to make fans’ phones work in stadiums worldwide.

(hat tip to Phil Harvey at Light Reading for alerting us to the news release. Phil and his crew cover Ericsson… a lot.)

AT&T Adds 4G LTE DAS to… Some Stadium in Foxboro

From the “we can’t tell you but you can figure it out file” comes a press release from AT&T today telling us of the company’s newest DAS upgrade, a 4G LTE implementation that will make fans’ cell phones work better in… a football stadium in Foxboro, Mass. Yep, because of stadium naming rights AT&T apparently can’t use the name of the place but… we are under no such restrictions. So unless there is a spaceship stadium that landed during the night we are guessing that New England Patriots fans will find their AT&T iPhones connecting a bit better now.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: Cal’s Memorial Stadium Gets Multi-Beamed

October 3, 2012 by

It’s not necessarily Wi-Fi but when it comes to bringing more wireless capacity to stadiums who are we to quibble? While at an event at the AT&T Foundry in Palo Alto last week where Ma Bell was showing off a bunch of innovative wireless stuff we saw in the flesh (well in the silicon and plastic, I guess) some of the new multi-beam antennas AT&T developed earlier this year.

Turns out those suckers are pretty big. See this picture with the helpful person standing next to it for perspective.

An AT&T multibeam cellular antenna. Shown next to real-life person. Credit: MSR.

In case you didn’t read through our earlier story the multi-beam antennas are great for stadium situations because they shoot their signals out on a very narrow beam, allowing for greater density in capacity. Basically what that means is with a multibeam antenna operators can direct the signals better, instead of just broadcasting out in a circle and hoping for the best. These whiteboard drawings below might help you understand how this all works.

We missed the presentation but I think you can figure out what this means.

Not as clear but the idea is, multibeam antennas serve a slice of the crowd.

If you are attending any football games at the University of California’s refurbished Memorial Stadium in Berkeley this fall you might be able to spot a few of these bad boys, since AT&T has installed them there to improve cell coverage, according to an AT&T rep we met at the event.

Best Wi-Fi at AT&T Park? Try Section 336

With his team having clinched the National League West, it made sense that San Francisco Giants CIO Bill Schlough was in a good mood at the AT&T event last week (where he was telling folks all about the wireless wonderland inside the stadium walls). We got a chance to ask Bill where the best reception was in the park, and he gave a surprising answer — Section 336, way up in the upper deck at the corner of the left-field line.


According to Schlough that part of the park is absolutely blanketed with Wi-Fi antennas because it is the area where the team puts overflow media members during the playoffs. To make sure the sportswriters have a great signal the team saturates the section, making it also a good place for fans with tablets and smartphones.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Baseball, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , ,

Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: Cisco Scores Big Wi-Fi (and Video!) Win at Nets’ Barclays Center

September 26, 2012 by

The biggest vendor in the stadium Wi-Fi space scored a big win last week when Cisco announced it would supply the Wi-Fi network and the digital video services to the new Brooklyn Nets stadium, aka the Barclays Center.

Just after the announcement last week we caught up via phone with David Holland, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Entertainment Solutions Group, and Stuart Hamilton, Cisco senior director for sports and entertainment, to get the skinny on the Barclays deal as well as their thoughts on how fast the stadium Wi-Fi movement was picking up. According to Hamilton, the pace of stadium Wi-Fi installs has picked up significantly since late last year, when Cisco seemed to be preaching to a sort-of interested choir.

Now, pretty much all stadium operators are singing the Wi-Fi tune. “They [stadium owners] have gone from ‘should we do it’ to ‘when are we going to do it,’ ” Hamilton said. “They all know they have to do it. And budgets are being moved up.”

After talking big about the stadium business earlier this year, Cisco has been somewhat quiet, without any real big wins — and even smaller victories, like getting the Wi-Fi network bid for the Super Bowl — were curiously understated, perhaps just part of the business since sometimes stadium owners or their telecom provider partners don’t want to talk too much about gear suppliers since giving praise means less leverage at the negotiating table.

Though the space is attracting a lot of innovative gear makers — Xirrus, Ruckus and Meru all come to mind — Holland thinks Cisco’s might gives it an edge, especially when it comes to scalability. “The me-too people out there, the question is, can they scale,” Holland asked. “We have a high density platform. It’s easy to look good when there’s only one person on your network, but how does it act when it’s heavily loaded?”

The Barclays Center is a big win for Cisco because it includes the StadiumVision feature, Cisco’s sports-specific implementation of networked digital signage. From the press release, here’s just part of what will be deployed:

700 HDTV’s and approximately 100 concession menu boards throughout the venue will provide content ranging from action on the court, to concession specials (all boards update simultaneously and are integrated with point of sale), to out-of-town games and scores, to traffic updates, and much more.

We’ve seen a live demonstration of this stuff (Cisco’s entertainment group has a building on Cisco campus that is set up like a stadium/sports bar, with HDTVs and concession menus to show the capability of the system) and it’s a big leap for the fan experience. And perhaps most importantly for Cisco the Barclays deal also includes a contract for the infrastructure network, the routers, switches and other gear that will power a network that will run not just the fan Wi-Fi service, but also help with wireless connectivity for ticketing, security, internal communications and more. That’s where Cisco makes its big dollars, so that combo makes the Barclays deal more than just a Wi-Fi install.

The bonus kicker from our conversation was a claim by the Cisco folks that they might not be out of the running for the new San Francisco 49ers Stadium, currently being built in Santa Clara. Though Niners CEO Jed York has tweeted about a pending technology deal with wireless provider Brocade, there might be several such contracts before all is said and done. First of all, the Brocade folks told us earlier in the summer that an official announcement was pending… but it hasn’t happened. And just this week the Niners announced a sponsorship deal with software vendor SAP, so it looks like there might be a bigger pie to divvy up when it comes to tech and the new Niners stadium.

Will Cisco get a slice? Stay tuned.

Filed Under: Cisco, NBA, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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