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The MSR Interview: David Payne, University of Oklahoma

September 8, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Welcome to the new season of MSR Podcasts! We are thrilled to start off this season of interviews with one of our favorite people from the realm of stadium technology deployment and operation — David Payne, who is the senior technology strategist at the University of Oklahoma. With “school in session,” join us as we talk with David about how a patient, steady approach to technology deployments allows you to keep the focus on the fan, and improving the fan experience instead of just looking at the next shiny object in wireless tech.

Here is an older story about part of the process David went through:

Wi-Fi to the RV: Oklahoma brings Wi-Fi services to RV parking lot

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST:

Here is the link to the podcast on iTunes!

Here are some photos David was kind enough to send us:

Outside the football stadium entrance

A look at some handrail-mounted AP enclosures

Filed Under: AmpThink, NCAA Football, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Colorado State fans connect with Wi-Fi at stadium-opening victory

August 29, 2017 by Leave a Comment

For both stadium networks and football teams, the first games are always a challenge; but at Colorado State there was nothing but smiles and celebrations as fans enjoyed great Wi-Fi connectivity at the new CSU stadium during the Rams’s 58-27 win over Oregon State Saturday.

With a sellout crowd of 37,583 crammed into the new on-campus venue for the Fort Collins, Colo., school, the not-yet-finished Wi-Fi network built by 5 Bars nevertheless saw 5,891 unique connections during the day with a peak concurrent number of 3,680 users at 3 p.m. local time. Even with most of the under-seat Wi-Fi connections not yet online (5 Bars said the network was about at 35 percent capacity), the network still saw 2.7 terabytes of data used, an average of 458 MB per connected user.

And though we don’t have the connection locations, some enclosed speedtest screen shots sent to us by the 5 Bars crew seems to show very good connectivity via Wi-Fi, with a top reading of 47.70 Mbps down and 65.88 up, as well as a couple other readings in the 20 Mbps range. Mobile Sports Report plans to be on hand for the next home game at the new CSU stadium on Sept. 9, so stay tuned for more testing. According to 5 Bars the Wi-Fi network should be “75 percent complete” by then, so we will test wherever we can.

The 5 Bars crew also said that Verizon was live on the stadium DAS, but so far we have not seen any stats from Verizon about performance. Stay tuned for more tests and pictures when we head north a couple weeks from now!

Picture of the west stands overhang, with a Wi-Fi antenna highlighted. Credit all photos below: 5 Bars

Gear locations on the east-side lighting stanchions

Under-seat AP enclosure. Pretty sure Wi-Fi can go through popcorn

Good speeds!

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Cisco, DAS, NCAA Football, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

First Look: Shining start for Notre Dame’s stadium renovations, new Wi-Fi network

August 23, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Notre Dame logo on Wi-Fi railing enclosure at Notre Dame Stadium. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

How do you bring new technology into a building and institution that embraces history as an integral part of its brand? There may be many answers but in the sports stadium world, Notre Dame’s renovation of its hallowed football field and the addition of high-speed Wi-Fi look like a good example for any other venues trying to solve the same issues.

At this past Sunday’s “New and Gold” game, a sort of glorified scrimmage, the public (including Mobile Sports Report) got its first look at the University of Notre Dame’s Campus Crossroads project, a $400-million plus effort to bring premium seating, a large video board and high-density Wi-Fi to a venue that came to life in 1930, according to university history.

While we will have a full report on our visit to Notre Dame Stadium in our upcoming Fall STADIUM TECH REPORT issue, we wanted to give you a “first look” at the new facilities, which basically include three new large buildings built into the sides of the existing structure, to provide support for the video board as well as two expanded premium-seating and press box areas on either side of the field.

Wi-Fi AP overlooks a concession stand

One of the coolest parts we saw were the new rooftop premium seating areas, where you can sit on a couch and see the full field while also peering out over the edge of the stadium to see Touchdown Jesus, the Golden Dome, and the rest of the world (well, OK, mostly South Bend, Indiana) while enjoying your favorite beverage and speedy Wi-Fi.

The new Wi-Fi network design using Cisco gear was led by AmpThink, and includes custom-designed enclosures for railing-mounted APs that feature a sharp version of the “ND” logo known to any football fan. Though the network hasn’t yet been optimized or tested with a full house of fans, we were still getting solid up/down signals in the 60-70 Mbps range throughout the building, even in low and high bowl seating areas. There is also a new neutral-host DAS in the stadium, built by Crown Castle. According to Notre Dame, Verizon Wireless and AT&T will be live on the cellular network by the start of the season, with T-Mobile to follow soon.

Like we said, look for more details in our upcoming report… but for now enjoy some scenes from Sunday’s game!

A good look across the main east seating section, with Wi-Fi handrail enclosures visible

DAS in the grass: A DAS antenna finds a home in the grassy strip separating seats from the field

The new big screen video board now dominates the south end zone

A good look at how the new structures bookend up to the stadium on its sides

Now that’s a premium suite: Rooftop couch area provides full view of field, plus scenic views over campus and beyond

Additional seating Wi-Fi coverage from small antennas over VOMs

Painted Wi-Fi AP blends in to column in main concourse outside seating area

The view of ‘Touchdown Jesus’ remains unobstructed

Inside look at the swanky, wood-paneled club for premium seatholders in west building

Scoreboard plug for the Wi-Fi

Notre Dame fans already figuring out how to use social media to get on the big screen

Smart fans at Notre Dame — early arrivers went right for the new, padded premium seats

How do you get bandwidth to APs located below grade level? By being clever and using routing down the side of stairways… more details on this trick coming soon!

Filed Under: AmpThink, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, MSR Guides, NCAA Football, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

T-Mobile joins DAS at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field

May 5, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Corning ONE DAS headend equipment at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field deployment

The DAS network at Texas A&M University’s Kyle Field will now support T-Mobile cellular customers, according to an announcement from the school.

According to Texas A&M, T-Mobile will pay $3.5 million to have its signals carried on the DAS inside the 102,512-seat Kyle Field. Previously, AT&T and Verizon Wireless had paid $5 million each to be the first carriers on the stadium’s new DAS, which was installed ahead of the 2015 football season as part of a network deployment that cost north of $20 million according to school officials.

The network, one of the highest-performing deployments in U.S. sports stadiums, saw an 8.2 terabyte traffic day for a game this past season against Tennessee, with 3.8 TB of that traffic on the DAS network.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, NCAA Football, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

College Football Playoff championship sees 2.4 TB of Wi-Fi — big decline from 2016

March 6, 2017 by Leave a Comment

We finally have numbers for the Wi-Fi usage at the most recent College Football Playoff championship game, and in somewhat of a first the total data used during the event was much lower than the previous year’s game, with just 2.4 terabytes of data used on Jan. 9 at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla. — compared to 4.9 TB of Wi-Fi used at the championship game in 2016, held at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz.

The reason for the decline is probably not due to any sudden dropoff in user demand, since usage of in-stadium cellular or DAS networks increased from 2016 to 2017, with AT&T’s observed network usage doubling from 1.9 TB to 3.8 TB in Tampa. More likely the dropoff is due to the fact that the Wi-Fi network at the University of Phoenix Stadium had been through recent upgrades to prepare for both the college championship game and Super Bowl XLIX, while the network in Raymond James Stadium hasn’t seen a significant upgrade since 2010, according to stadium officials. At last check, the Wi-Fi network at University of Phoenix Stadium had more than 750 APs installed.

Joey Jones, network engineer/information security for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, said the Wi-Fi network currently in use at Raymond James Stadium has a total of 325 Cisco Wi-Fi APs, with 130 of those in the bowl seating areas. The design is all overhead placements, Jones said in an email discussion, with no under-seat or handrail enclosure placements. The total unique number of Wi-Fi users for the college playoff game was 11,671, with a peak concurrent connection of 7,353 users, Jones said.

Still tops among college playoff championship games in Wi-Fi is the first one held at AT&T Stadium in 2015, where 4.93 TB of Wi-Fi was used. Next year’s championship game is scheduled to be held at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, where one of the latest Wi-Fi networks should be in place and operational.

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

AmpThink’s Wi-Fi data reveals interesting attendance trends for collegiate customer

February 20, 2017 by Leave a Comment

AmpThink infographic about how Wi-Fi data can help teams discover attendance information (click on photo for link to infographic page)

AmpThink infographic about how Wi-Fi data can help teams discover attendance information (click on photo for link to infographic page)

If there’s a single business concern we hear over and over again from stadium owners and operators, it’s the desire to answer a simple but powerful question: Who, exactly, is sitting in our seats?

Before digital technology arrived, that question was exceedingly hard to answer, as teams, schools and other ticket-sellers often only knew details of a small percentage of the actual fans in attendance. Paper tickets could be given to family, friends or sold to brokers, meaning the people actually at the game might very well not be the person who purchased the tickets.

While digital ticketing has improved the insight somewhat, many fans at many stadiums still use printed tickets for access, which may still keep the at-game attendee somewhat anonymous. But with a high-definition Wi-Fi network in place, stadium owners and operators can gain deep insights from the fans who do attend, even whether or not they actually log on to the network for access.

Wi-Fi deployment firm AmpThink, which has customers in all the U.S. pro leagues as well as in many major university venues, has put together a deeply sourced infographic showing how Wi-Fi analytics from a full season of games at a Power 5 college football stadium can produce some interesting insights — like the fact that 71 percent of all attendees only went to one game, and that only 2 percent of attendees went to all six games.

Using data to replace assumptions

Editor’s note: This post is part of Mobile Sports Report’s new Voices of the Industry feature, in which industry representatives submit articles, commentary or other information to share with the greater stadium technology marketplace. These are NOT paid advertisements, or infomercials. See our explanation of the feature to understand how it works.

While we here at Mobile Sports Report don’t often recommend company-produced infographics, the data and conclusions surfaced in this one are eye-opening and are likely to be informative to venue owners and operators in a wide range of sports; that’s why we agreed to make this information available to our readers.

We also like the detailed explanations accompanying the infographic, spelling out how the data were collected and how Wi-Fi can be used to identify fans (including those with devices that may not even be purposely connected to the network). The last part of the infographic page, which asks “How could Wi-Fi data change sports marketing?” is a question we’ve already seen others starting to answer — and one we expect many to test in the near future as teams deploy not just Wi-Fi networks but also Bluetooth beacons, login portal pages and other methods to increase the granularity of fan identification.

For the unidentified client, AmpThink said the results “surprised” the school, which had (like others) believed in “long-held industry assumptions about fan loyalty and audience size.” It’s our guess that digital data will increasingly be used to replace assumptions, and we’re looking forward to sharing your stories of how that happens.

Filed Under: AmpThink, NCAA Football, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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