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Tablet or iPad + Wi-Fi = Mobile Sports Nirvana

March 8, 2012 by

One of the interesting features of the new Apple iPad it its inclusion of a 4G LTE communications chip, which will let the device connect directly with the high-speed wireless networks now being built by Verizon Wireless and AT&T in the U.S. While that’s great news for tablet users who want more power on the go, for mobile sports fans a Wi-Fi connection is going to remain the wireless link of choice going forward.

Why? Because data rates for 4G LTE are still too high to make cellular-only usage an option, especially if you want to give the tablet a regular full-game workout. There’s no set way yet to measure exactly how much cellular data you use when you are viewing live video because the answer depends on a lot of variables, including video resolution rate, your distance from the nearest cell tower, and the strength of the signal. But the bottom line for sports fans is that if you want to use the tablet exclusively for sports consumption, the smart move is to find a Wi-Fi signal whenever you can.

And since more stadiums are now putting Wi-Fi inside, bringing your tablet or iPad to the game is going to become as much a no-brainer as “buying peanuts on the outside,” to coin a phrase you hear outside Wrigley. Within the next few years we are guessing that most teams will start to implement some kind of “stadium app,” which delivers custom content and in-stadium-only goodies like multiple camera angles or replays. The old days of people wringing their hands over whether or not devices should be at games are over. The new future is folks bringing a tablet or iPad and taking it out to watch an occasional memorable replay, or to look up stats. Or to order a cold one, and have it waiting at an express window.

On the couch, the tablet is going to become as ubiquitous as the remote — hell, it might even replace the remote at some point in the future when cable providers like Comcast get their act together. Though the live streaming of the Super Bowl this year wasn’t a tremendous experience, we are betting that this year’s Masters coverage online will really move the ball forward when it comes to having a complementary viewing option. And the tablet format — big enough screen to be exciting, small enough to carry around easily — is just going to keep getting bigger, with or without a 4G LTE connection.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, Super Bowl, Tablets, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Video Streaming Tagged With: , , , , ,

Verizon Used Cisco Gear for Super Bowl Wi-Fi Network

February 15, 2012 by

Cisco Sports and Entertainment Solutions Group SVP and GM David Holland

Nobody’s talking yet about how much traffic it carried, but from a recent Cisco blog post we learned that Verizon’s Wi-Fi network used inside Lucas Oil Stadium for Super Bowl XLVI was a Cisco Connected Stadium deployment.

David Holland, the Sports and Entertainment Solutions Group SVP and GM at Cisco, revealed the partnership Tuesday in a company blog post where he claimed that the Super Bowl was the first time fans had used an in-stadium Wi-Fi network for the big game. Cisco representatives, however, declined to say just how well that network was used during the Giants’ win over the Patriots. If Verizon ever credited Cisco for being the gear behind the Wi-Fi network at the stadium, we haven’t seen it.

Verizon has also remained mum on just how much traffic traversed its in-stadium Wi-Fi network for the big game. In its follow-on press release Verizon did note that its own customers used “2.75 times more data than last year’s Super Bowl in Dallas and 4.5 times more data than a regular-season game at the stadium,” but without hard numbers it’s hard for us to judge how big a deal that really was.

Verizon did note that other cellular customers, and not just Verizon customers, were able to use the in-stadium Wi-Fi network during the game. And neither Sprint nor T-Mobile has yet to reveal any discrete traffic numbers from the game, unlike AT&T which provided a very detailed description of the cellular traffic its customers generated.

So the question of “how much wireless data did Super Bowl fans really use” remains unanswered. But as Holland said in his blog, it’s a practice that will quickly go from being unique to mainstream:

Most importantly it shows that this is headed mainstream, and a tipping point has been reached. Just as people walk into an airport today and expect to be connected to a Wi-Fi network, so fans in stadiums around the world are beginning to look for and demand the same thing.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, NFL, NFL Mobile, Sprint, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , ,

LTE iPads, More Mobile Data: Who’s Going to Pay for All This?

February 14, 2012 by

Two stories in the news today — the potential of LTE-enabled iPads and new projections for mobile data growth — seemed to me to be closely related and both lacking a final explanation: Who’s gonna pay for all the new toys and bandwidth?

As sports fans know, the Apple iPad and its imitators are great devices for watching sports on the go. The screen is big enough to approximate a TV experience, and the device is light enough to not be a bother. And the 4G LTE networks from Verizon Wireless, AT&T and soon from Sprint will make mobile video better thanks to faster download speeds and overall better behind-the-scenes technology.

But my question again — who’s going to pay for all this? At what point do we decide we’ve got enough devices, and that we’re not going to pay premiums just to get content whenever we want it? Are the devices and services so alluring that consumers will simply find a way to budget for them, or are they giving other things up from their disposable income buckets? Or will we see a backlash soon?

For all the heat the two stories have generated in the tech news world, my guess is that both are slightly overrated. Since LTE data contracts still remain fairly expensive — right now Verizon is charging $80 a month for 10 GB of data, its highest plan for tablets — I think folks might buy an LTE-enabled iPad for the convenience but will probably go for the lower-priced plans and use Wi-Fi whenever they can, especially when watching things like sports. Some smart guy already reported that Verizon’s 4G LTE phones aren’t big sellers because there isn’t anything compelling enough to make people pay a premium for the service. I think the LTE iPads will follow a similar lukewarm adoption curve.

On the mobile-data projections there are already some signs that Cisco’s predictions have shot past reality; AT&T, for example, said that its most recent figures showed data use growing more slowly than previously predicted. With cellular services prices expected to remain constant or rise even higher, my guess is that people may want to consume mobile data at the rate Cisco predicts but budgetary pressure will keep it from happening until lower-cost Wi-Fi networks reach out to more places than coffee shops and airport waiting lounges.

What will be really interesting to see is what happens if the LTE iPads fly off the shelves and crowd the networks, bringing back the original iPhone network jams. Think that won’t happen? Want to bet on it?

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, Cisco, iPad, iPhone, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , ,

AT&T Brings Wi-Fi to Pebble Beach Golf Tourney

February 8, 2012 by

Since they are the title sponsor it’s perhaps no surprise that AT&T is making Wi-Fi available to spectators (patrons?) at this weekend’s PGA Tour stop on the Monterey Peninsula, the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. What’s interesting is that while smartphones and tablets are becoming an integral part of what fans bring to other sporting events, for golf encouraging mobile-device use is a longtime taboo, given the possibility of a cellphone ring interrupting a player’s backswing.

According to the AT&T press release the company has a variety of mobile-device plans for tournament attendees, including free Wi-Fi in select areas around the courses for AT&T customers, as well as a text-message contest and a “digital clubhouse” on the Pebble Beach course where fans can watch the action while taking in some AT&T demos in between the action.

The press release also says there will be a policy to make folks put their devices on silent or vibrate mode, but anyone who’s been on a plane or at a conference knows how well that works. At the AT&T where alcohol will be sold and there will be “hospitality” tents you can bet that the attention span will be even lower. We won’t be able to make it down to Monterey this weekend, but would love to hear any field reports about how well the “use your cell phone for data but keep it quiet” plan works. Especially around El Tigre, who is known to take umbrage at such offenses.

Filed Under: AT&T, Golf, PGA, Social Media, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , ,

Super Bowl’s Social/Mobile Angles Don’t Move the Needle

February 5, 2012 by

My quick post-game take on the whole “social Super Bowl” angle is that I don’t think any of the ad campaigns really moved the social-networking needle. Though I missed part of the first quarter I didn’t see any ads that asked for an online audience interaction, which might have been fun. And the mobile game platforms, both NBC’s website broadcast and Verizon’s NFL Mobile app, were so far behind the live action they were useless as a “second screen” for viewers also watching the television.

A quick kudo to Twitter for not crashing in what was probably the most-active day ever on Twitter (which is kind of a meaningless stat since every big event for the foreseeable future will become “the biggest” as Twitter becomes more mainstream and adds more users). But I have to give a conditional “fail” to NBC’s online broadcast of the game, which was anywhere from three to four plays behind the live action, even showing commercials while the “real” game was live.

Though I understand why technically the online show might be slower, the wide gap made it impossible to keep the laptop (or tablet) open while watching the game on TV, eliminating the whole “second screen” thing that the online broadcast was supposed to enable. Plus I was underwhelmed by NBC’s multiple-choice camera views — they were uninteresting and pretty much blah compared to the rapid-fire screen switching you get from watching professional broadcasters produce a game live. So maybe that whole viewer-choosing-the-camera thing is overrated.

And Verizon’s NFL Mobile app, while glitch-free over in-house Wi-Fi and a 4G cellular signal, was still anywhere from 23 to 28 seconds behind the live action, also rendering it useless except maybe for trips to the bathroom. But with all the commercial breaks that’s hardly a concern during the Super Bowl. Maybe these alternative platforms will be more important for events with multiple things happening at once, like the Olympics or a golf tournament like the Masters. And maybe advertisers will become more bold and try more live interactive ads in the future. But for right now the “Social Super Bowl” didn’t live up to its advance billing.

UPDATE: As we thought, the Twitterers were out in force:

In the final three minutes of the Super Bowl tonight, there were an average of 10,000 Tweets per second.

February 5, 2012 9:43 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite
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Filed Under: Facebook, iPad, Live sports via mobile, NBC Sports, NFL, Super Bowl, Twitter, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , ,

MSR Profile: Stadiums a Target for Wi-Fi Gear Maker Xirrus

January 26, 2012 by

Add Wi-Fi gear maker Xirrus to the expanding list of technology providers targeting stadium owners who are looking to better serve the wireless needs of both the fans sitting in the seats, as well stadium owners looking for wireless applications to help run their business better.

Like networking giant Cisco, which has created an entire business unit dedicated to stadium installations, the relative newcomer Xirrus is going to aggressively pursue more stadium clients this year, according to Steven Wastie, chief marketing officer for Xirrus. Last year Xirrus’s high-performance wireless network arrays (the antennas and other gear that provide the wireless link between Wi-Fi user and the network) helped bring video services and Wi-Fi power to business applications inside Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots.

In a snappy video (embedded below) you get not only a customer’s explanation of the benefits Wi-Fi can bring to teams (wirelessly enabling point of sale systems allows for greater building flexibility), but also a quick data point on why you need Wi-Fi to provide features like video highlights — the Patriots’ content guy talks about how each video highlight stream takes up 300K of bandwidth, something that would be nearly impossible to provide using cellular airwaves.

The Xirrus xr4000, which can fit up to 8 wireless radios into its smoke detector-like housing. Other arrays can fit as few as two or as many as 16 radios.

The edge Xirrus brings to the stadium Wi-Fi game is its “high density” arrays, which can fit up to 16 wireless radios into a single device and are highly configurable especially directionally. By comparison, the wireless router in your home or business probably has just two antennas, which are pretty much just set to broadcast out in a circle as far as they can reach.

Being able to have more throughput per device, Wastie said, is key for stadium deployments where there are a lot of people in one place, all trying to do the same thing on their mobile device. “It’s very different from just two years ago,” Wastie said in a recent interview. “Back then high density situations were a niche. Now high density is everywhere.”

Having arrays that support more users also gives Xirrus a technology edge over competitors, since it can cover a stadium with fewer devices and less network infrastructure — often meaning significantly lower costs. Mobile Sports Report will be watching Xirrus closely throughout 2012, to see if its less-is-more wireless message gets across to stadium owners and operators.

Founded in 2004 by CEO Dirk Gates and some of his pals from chip manufacturer Xircom, the Thousand Oaks, Calif.-based Xirrus is privately held.

Filed Under: Cisco, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Video Streaming Tagged With: , ,
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