AT&T Park gets more Wi-Fi, new DAS backend, and iBeacon… plus seat upgrade app

March 28, 2014 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Generally recognized as perhaps the best-connected sports stadium anywhere, AT&T Park in San Francisco will greet fans for the 2014 baseball season with upgrades to make the technology experience even better than before, with upgraded Wi-Fi and DAS, as well as Apple’s new iBeacon technology.

In a press release sent out earlier this week the Giants said that they and partner AT&T had been busy this offseason adding upgrades to the Wi-Fi network that has hosted more than 1.85 million visitors since it first went online in 2004. According to the Giants the park now has 1,289 access points for its free Wi-Fi service, second in number only to the Dallas Cowboys’ home, cavernous AT&T Stadium in Dallas.

On the DAS side of things AT&T Park now has a completely new headend system that fully supports both AT&T and Verizon versions of 4G LTE signals. According to the release T-Mobile and Sprint services will join the DAS later this year.

Like many other MLB parks the Giants’ home will now feature Apple’s iBeacon technology, which is basically low-power Bluetooth connections that can communicate with nearby Apple iOS7 devices. Though phones may now run out of juice quicker at the park if you need to leave both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on, it should be interesting to see how fans respond to the iBeacon deployments, whether they find them helpful or annoying. MSR will keep following the iBeacon deployments through the year, and we encourage any and all fans who use the system to tell us how it worked.

This year the Giants will also be working in partnership with the Pogoseat app for instant at-the-game ticket upgrades. The feature will be available in the Giants version of MLB’s At the Ballpark app, where Giants fans will be able to search for better seats to pay for while at the park. Of course you can always try the time-honored method of just sneaking into empty seats in later innings of the game, but there is no app for that.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, Baseball, DAS, iOS 7, Major League Baseball, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Apple, At the Ballpark, AT&T, AT&T Park, DAS, iBeacon, MLBAM, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, Pogoseat, San Francisco Giants, Sprint, Stadium Wi-Fi, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless

Stadium Tech Report: DAS, Wi-Fi puts end to no-signal problem at Denver’s Sports Authority Field

January 10, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 2 Comments

These days, Denver’s Sports Authority Field at Mile High is the new home of the NFL’s most prolific signal-caller. With a record season for passing yards and passing touchdowns, Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is recognizable for his animated pointing, shouting and line-of-scrimmage audibles, the ultimate practicioner of last-second communication.

Not too long ago, the fans at Mile High might have had to resort to the same tactics to communicate, using hand waving or shouting, since getting a cell signal was next to impossible. “Forget making a phone call, you couldn’t even send a text,” said Rick Seifert, communications manager for the Broncos’ stadium management company. “And it wasn’t just the fans. We [the staff] couldn’t make calls in the stadium to do our jobs.”

But in 2012, the Broncos changed all that with the installation of a full-featured distributed antenna system (DAS) deployed by TE Connectivity, and a fan-facing Wi-Fi network installed by Verizon Wireless.

Russ Trainor

The Broncos also put in a huge new digital scoreboard and robust back-end connectivity provided by Comcast as part of their blitz of networking improvements, and this past fall, AT&T joined in by upgrading its connection to the stadium’s DAS. By next year the Broncos hope to add AT&T and Sprint to its roster of Wi-Fi service providers, reflecting what vice president of information technology Russ Trainor sees as a “never ending growth” of wireless in-stadium consumption.

All carriers on board, slowly

One of the biggest problems with DAS deployments in stadiums is convincing major cellular carriers to work together. Since each carrier wants to deploy systems to do the best job for its customers, there is often a difference in opinion on strategy and operations, which is often followed by similar snags in contract negotiations. Trainor said that the stadium, built in 2001, presented unique RF challenges to wireless with its primarily exposed-steel construction. Verizon and Sprint were the first carriers to sign up for the neutral DAS, followed by AT&T this fall.

DAS equipment at Sports Authority Field. Credit: Denver Broncos

“It was tough to get them [all the major carriers] to agree on DAS, but we have good engineers on the back end and we came up with a nice solution for everybody,” said Trainor. While the antennas and stadium network are neutral, each carrier provides its own back-end gear, much of which at Mile High had to be placed in a building built outside the facility specifically to house telecom gear. In many stadium DAS deployments, the telecom gear can take up thousands of square feet, which can be challenging to find in facilities built before such needs were known.

“There’s no room inside for all the space they [the carriers] wanted,” Seifert said.

The Wi-Fi network, deployed by Verizon, uses Cisco equipment and is also a neutral host infrastructure, meaning that other carriers could use it to provide Wi-Fi connectivity to their clients if they so choose. According to Seifert, AT&T and Sprint will offer Wi-Fi services to customers next season, in part to answer the consistently growing demand. Like in other stadiums, fans at Sports Authority Field know what to do when they finally find bandwidth: Use more.

Steady growth in wireless use

When Sports Authority Field is at its listed capacity of 76,125 on game days, it becomes the 14th-largest city in Colorado, Trainor said. The team has already seen 525,000 downloads of its mobile application, which provides such in-stadium features as four different video replay angles, a connection to the NFL Network’s RedZone channel, and a direct link to the radio feed from hometown sports station KOA. The application is geo-fenced to ensure that the video rights are only used inside the stadium, and to give fans there a unique game-day experience.

Wi-Fi antennas on stadium overhang. Credit: Denver Broncos

According to Trainor, the team usually sees an average of 4,000 simultaneous connections on the Verizon Wi-Fi network on game days, though on colder days when fans need to wear gloves that number can drop in half. Trainor said the Cisco infrastructure is designed to accomodate 25,000 concurrent connections, a number the team hasn’t yet reached. However, the team did have to double the back-end capacity already for the Wi-Fi network, which is being used more as more fans find it.

“Word of mouth really gets [usage] going,” said Trainor, who noted that at a Kenny Chesney concert last year, the stadium crew saw data uploads outpace data downloads for the first time — a sure sign that fans in attendance were using the network to do things like share pictures and videos with their social-network connections.

“We haven’t seen any true bottlenecks yet, but usage is consistently rising, game after game, for concerts, soccer and football,” Trainor said.

Rick Seifert

A good sign from the Wi-Fi networking statistics is a shift in usage from the often crowded 2.4 GHz bands to the 5 GHz bands, which Trainor said is likely due to fans using the latest 5 series iPhones, which support the 5 GHz Wi-Fi frequency. And no matter what happens to the Broncos in the playoffs, Trainor and Seifert know what they will be doing this summer: Upgrading the network components, in the never-ending battle to provide bandwidth.

“Verizon and Sprint have already made significant upgrades to their DAS deployments because of demand and changes in technology, like LTE,” said Seifert. “And next year we’ll probably see AT&T circle back again. It’s very dynamic.”

“As smart phones get smarter it’s a never-ending challenge” to provide connectivity, Trainor said. “It’s a job that’s never finished.”

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, Apps, AT&T, Cisco, Comcast, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, MSR Guides, NFL, NFL Network, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: AT&T, DAS, Denver, Denver Broncos, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, NFL Network, Paul Kapustka, Peyton Manning, RedZone, Sports Authority Field, Sports Authority Field at Mile High, Sprint, Stadium Tech Report, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless

‘Big Four’ wireless carriers sign on to use DAS at Niners’ Levi’s Stadium

January 7, 2014 by Paul Kapustka 1 Comment

Whenever you are putting a neutral DAS in a stadium, one of the biggest challenges is convincing the major cellular carriers to participate in your deployment. Even before their new arena has opened, the San Francisco 49ers have scored a victory of sorts with the news that the four biggest U.S. cellular carriers — AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile — have all agreed to use the neutral-hosted DAS at Levi’s Stadium.

According to DAS Group Professionals, who are behind the DAS deployment at Levi’s, the system of small cellular antennas will also be synchronized with the stadium’s Wi-Fi coverage to produce “seamless” coverage for fans. Though we are historically wary of promises made before networks go live, the fact that the big players in U.S. cellular all agreed to use the neutral DAS shows at least in some way that the folks putting together the technology at Levi’s have a convincing story.

We’ll have more from DGP and the Levi’s DAS deployment at some point in the future, so stay tuned for the stadium launch that has everyone in the stadium tech marketplace watching and waiting.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, NFL, Sprint, T-Mobile, Wi-Fi Tagged With: AT&T, DAS, DAS Group Professionals, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, T-Mobile, Verizon

Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: DAS, but no Wi-Fi, for Niners at Candlestick

August 22, 2012 by Paul Kapustka 1 Comment

There’s already buzz building in Silicon Valley for the new Niners stadium being constructed in Santa Clara, as the team is already out front saying the facility will be an example of how to do stadium technology right.

Unfortunately for Niners fans, the next two home seasons will still be played in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, which has historically been one of the worst places to try to get a cellular signal. Though a new Distributed Antenna System (DAS) deployment should help matters some this season, there is no stadium-wide Wi-Fi in the cards, a bit of a bummer since the team’s new game-day app features lots of video — which you need Wi-Fi to watch.

With an edict from the commish Roger Goodell to put Wi-Fi into every stadium, teams across the league are moving quickly to figure out how to get that done (see the second part of this post about Carolina’s new spiffy network). Caught in the middle of this deployment strategy is Candlestick, which has to be one of the worst geographic locations for wireless traffic. Not only is the stadium hidden by a small hill directly to the west (which can block signals from nearby cell towers), it is surrounded on its three other sides by the San Francisco Bay — in case you weren’t aware, wide open spaces of water also play havoc with wireless signals, and you don’t see too many antenna towers floating around.

The historically terrible cellular situation at Candlestick was brought even more to light by last year’s “blackout” game, a Monday night tilt against the Steelers that saw the stadium lose power not once but twice. Though we didn’t hear any reports of fan panic (no shaking) we did hear from a lot of folks about how nobody knew what was going on because nobody could get a cell signal to check Twitter.

To help alleivate the problem the Niners and the top three wireless carriers — Verizon Wireless, AT&T Mobility and Sprint Nextel — collaborated on the installment of a DAS system at Candlestick, essentially a bunch of small cellular antennas mounted inside the stadium to make it easier for fans to connect. Apparently there is also a day-of-game Wi-Fi network in service at Niners games, though we haven’t been able to find any press material telling us where the service can be accessed. While we wait for the Niners’ reps to get back to us we will take a wild guess and post that it is a parking-lot or concession-area only network, and not something you can use at your seat.

So, Niners fans — even though there is a spiffy new game-day app, you probably aren’t going to get much use out of the video component at Candlestick. And since it doesn’t make sense to drop a few million bucks on a Wi-Fi network that will only be used less than a couple dozen times before the team moves south, unless the Niners can figure out how to bring in a portable Wi-Fi network the Candlestick fans are probably stuck with the DAS deployment as their best connection. Though DAS deployments are better than nothing, they simply don’t have the bandwidth that a robust Wi-Fi network can bring to the table.

Carolina Gets Stadium-Wide Wi-Fi, Courtesy of AT&T

In stark contrast to the situation at Candlestick is the news from the Carolina Panthers, who will have a powerful new Wi-Fi network at Bank of America stadium in Charlotte this year, courtesy of Ma Bell.

You can read the press release and from it what jumps out at us is the 460 Wi-Fi access points, a huge number that should keep everyone there connected. According to the release the Wi-Fi access is free and easy for AT&T customers, with users of other carrier systems having to connect via a “simple login.” Anyone out there in Panther land sample the new network yet? If so give us some SpeedTest results in the comments.

NFL’s Mobile Device Stadium Strategy Slowly Coming into View

There is no official announcement we have seen but if you peruse any NFL team web page you will see a bunch of little widgets popping up saying things like “Watch 49ers games online” with a link to the new preseason and rewind tablet apps that Greg Quick wrote about last week. There are also several teams, like the Niners, who apparently have some kind of GameDay Live-branded app — if this reminds you at all of MLB.com and its AtBat app strategy, it’s not a coincidence. You don’t need a press release to see what is happening, albeit a bit slowly — the NFL, like baseball, is moving to a single app for live mobile-device action, and it will cost you a bunch of extra dollars to watch it.

I think the fly in the ointment right now is the NFL’s current exclusive deal with Verizon for the NFL Mobile app, but I think that contract is up soon and I would be surprised if the NFL renews it. More likely we will see an MLB.com strategy emerge, where you purchase mobile-device access on a monthly or season-long basis. For the current year the NFL will take baby steps as it tries to help teams get networks put into stadiums. But I bet by next year there is a cohesive digital device content strategy that will cost fans a few more bucks. Might be worth it though, to get other games and RedZone while you are tailgating or waiting through halftime.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, DAS, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, NFL, NFL Mobile, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Video Streaming Tagged With: Candlestick Park, DAS, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Niners, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Wi-Fi

Mobile Sports Report TechWatch: Microsoft Ticks off OEMs, Apple to Invest in Twitter?

July 30, 2012 by Greg Quick Leave a Comment

The China Times, via Endgadget, is reporting the Microsoft is limiting the number of OEMs that can build a tablet that runs the RT version of its upcoming Windows 8 operating system. This is the version that can be run on a tablet built using an ARM-based processor.

According to the piece the lucky few include Asus and Lenovo, which can use Nvidia processors, Texas instrument processors will be in Toshiba products while Samsung and Hewlett-Packard opting into the Qualcomm camp, with HP later dropping out at least in the near term.

Apple looking to invest in Twitter?
The New York Times has reported that Apple is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Twitter, according to unnamed sources familiar with the talks. It appears that the talks are informal at this point so do not cross your fingers just yet if you like the deal. However it could lead to tighter integration between Twitter and Apple’s operating systems, much like what Apple is doing with Facebook.

Google breaks down Motorola Mobility purchase
Ever wonder what $12.5 billion will get you? Well that is the price that Google paid for Motorola and the company has recently explained what each of the major components was valued. The 17,000 patents in its portfolio were worth roughly $5.5 billion. It paid $2.9 bn for the cash acquired, $2.6 bn was goodwill, $670 million was other assets and $730 million was customer relations. You can look here for more details or head over to its 10-Q filings with the SEC.

Microsoft wins around in Germany vs Motorola
Microsoft has won a round when a German court ruled that Motorola Mobility has infringed on a patent that deals with common names for long and short file allocation tables. The two sides have been battling around the globe on the issues of patents and both sides have won, and so of course lost, various patent rulings in the last six months so if this sounds like a repeat, it is close to one.

Microsoft admits hostility over Surface
In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft has said that there could be potential problems with its introduction of a table that would compete with its OEMs that purchase the Windows 8 operating system.

Microsoft said that smartphones and tablets from rivals such as Apple represent a threat to its current business, in part because their increased popularity coupled with declining PC sales makes Microsoft’s existing platforms less appealing to application developers.

Kickstarter favorite Pebble to deliver late
The Pebble smart watch, one of the real success stories in regards to funding via Kickstarter, has said that it will be delivering its product later than it had originally expected, IT Business is reporting. Part of the problem, according to the company, is the very success it had with Kickstarter.

The people that funded the company were to receive watches as part of compensation for their pledge, and originally the company had expected to produce 1,000 watches to meet that demand. Since it went off the rails in terms of funding the company now needs to produce over 68,000 watches for the investors.

Major settlement in patent case brings in major mobile players
The patent holding firm NTP has reached what is possibly an unprecedented settlement with 13 major mobile technology developers over the use of a number of patents that NTP owns. The companies included in the settlement are: Apple, Google, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, HTC, Motorola Mobility (now owned by Google), Palm (now owned by Hewlett-Packard), LG Electronics, Samsung, and Yahoo.

According to a piece in InfoWorld the terms of the deal were not revealed but it did say that all of the tech companies could use a number of NTP’s patents and that NTP will receive a licensing fee from the firms and that in turn it has ended its patent infringement suits against these companies.

Apple vs Samsung starts today in Calif.
The on again off again suit between the two will start in front of US District Court Judge Lucy Koh today as Apple seeks to prove its damage claims against rival Samsung revolving around a number of Apple patents that it claims Samsung has infringed on. The stakes are high as Apple has claimed that it is entitled to $2.525 billion in damages.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Asus, AT&T, Google, Lawsuit, Mashable, Microsoft, Nvidia, Samsung, SEC, Sprint, Surface, T-Mobile, Tablets, The New York Times, Verizon Wireless, Windows 8 Tagged With: Apple, Microsoft, SEC, Verizon

NASCAR News: STP 400 this Sunday at Kansas Speedway

April 20, 2012 by Greg Quick Leave a Comment

Last Race
So what is it about Texas that the Roush Fenway team loves so much, the BBQ brisket maybe? They performed great at the track last year and continued with the winning trend when Greg Biffle captured the checkered flag at the Samsung Mobile 500. A fast race with very long periods of green flag racing witnessed Biffle break his long losing streak and with his strong finishes this season he could be the first driver to win all three NASCAR titles. He has already won the Truck Series and the Nationwide Series titles in past seasons.

Biffle edged by Jimmie Johnson late in the race while one of the favorites in the race, Tony Stewart, finished two laps down, hurt by the fact that his primary car out from a practice accident earlier in the week and a slow backup. The top five was filled by Johnson, Mark Martin, Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth.

This Weekend
This week they are back to running under the sun, with the STP 400 at the 1.5-mile Kansas Speedway that features 15 degrees in the turns and 10.4 degrees in the front stretch and 5 degrees in the back stretch. The facility has a 72,000 person capacity and if you want to see video of past events, and other NASCAR races head over to YouTube.

Broadcast
Sunday, 12:30 pm ET on Fox

Twitter feeds
@Kansasspeedway- Tracks official Twitter feed
@NASCAR-Official NASCAR feed
@NationwideNNS-Nationwide Official Twitter
@NASCAR_NNS-NASCAR Nationwide feed
@NASCARONFOX-Fox Sports feed
@AllWaltrip-3 Time NASCAR Champ and Fox announcer
@PRNLive-Performance Racing Network

Sprint Cup Standings
1) Greg Biffle
2) Matt Kenseth -19
3) Dale Earnhardt Jr. -19
4) Martin Truex Jr. -20
5) Kevin Harvick -24

Nationwide Series
The Roush team did not just win the Sprint race; it also won the Nationwide race of Friday night with Rickey Stenhouse Jr. surviving a restart with six laps left in the race. This is Roush’s fourth consecutive Nationwide Series win at the Texas Motor Speedway, and that is quite something.

Paul Menard, who led the race for a total of 100 laps and started in the pole position came in second while the rest of the top finishers were Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin and Austin Dillon. For any Dancia Patrick fans, she had her best finish to date with a late race charge going from 13 into the 8th spot at the finish line.

Once again the Nationwide Series is taking a week off, and will next appear once again under the lights, this time racing in Richmond on the 27th.

Nationwide Series Standings
1) Elliott Sadler
2) Ricky Stenhouse Jr -4
3) Austin Dillon -20
4) Sam Hornish Jr. -54
5) Michael Annett -64

Dale Juniors’ Track
Ever wonder what drivers do at home? Well I cannot really tell you but here is an interesting look at the property that Dale Earnhardt Jr. lives on, and it looks like he has developed a nice dirt track where he and friends can go take a spin. Oh, it is also a car graveyard.

I like to think that he has BBQs and then has friends do impromptu races around the track, setting new records reaching what looks like a number of his and his rivals older cars stationed around the property. Head over here and see how many cars you can find in the photos on Yahoo.

Filed Under: Athlete to Follow, Contests, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Fox Sports, Kansas Speedway, NASCAR, Sprint, Yahoo, YouTube Tagged With: Fox Sports, NASCAR