Extreme Networks

SignalShare sued for $7.8 million over alleged fraudulent leases

May 17, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Screen shot of nGage Fan Feed. Credit: SignalShare

SignalShare, a company involved in bringing Wi-Fi networks and associated fan-experience apps to stadiums, is being sued by an equipment leasing company over a dispute involving allegedly fraudulent leases by SignalShare, and SignalShare’s default on an agreement to pay back money obtained through those leases. A report on the Law360 website said the case filed in Massachusetts federal court by NFS Leasing of Beverly, Mass., on Jan. 28, 2016, seeks $7.8 million from SignalShare.

SignalShare, which has partnered with Wi-Fi gear vendor Extreme Networks on deployments for the Jacksonville Jaguars, the University of Maryland and the Detroit Red Wings, has most recently touted its Live-Fi nGage suite, a system that combines content, analytics and advertising links to give venue owners and operators a turnkey method to improve fan engagement and perhaps increase revenue opportunities for large-venue Wi-Fi networks.

According to the Law360 story, the lawsuit from NFS Leasing claims that SignalShare “began requesting financing from NFS for purchasing equipment for fictitious contracts,” using forged, altered and falsified documents for deals that didn’t exist. From the Law360 report, which quotes from the legal complaint:

“[SignalShare] would represent to NFS that it had entered into an agreement with a sports arena or team and would induce NFS to provide funding for the acquisition of the allegedly-needed equipment,” the complaint said.

SignalShare would provide fake or forged invoices for the equipment it allegedly ordered, or provide fictitious serial numbers for items allegedly purchased and installed in the fraudulent contracts, the complaint said.

Between May 20, 2014 and May 21, 2015, SignalShare conned NFS into advancing funds on 10 fraudulent lease transactions to the tune of $4.9 million, the complaint said.

The Law360 story also said that NFS Leasing and SignalShare agreed to a short-term repayment of the debts incurred, but that SignalShare defaulted on the payments. With interest and attorney fees, NFS is claiming SignalShare owes $7.8 million.

So far, neither NFS nor SignalShare has replied to a request for more information.

UPDATE, 5/18/16: Since the original post we have obtained more court documents related to the case, which indicate that former SignalShare CTO Joe Costanzo has left the company and is counter-suing SignalShare over its actions regarding this issue. More to come later today.

Filed Under: Apps, Extreme Networks, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Detroit Red Wings, Extreme Networks, Jacksonville Jaguars, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, NFS Leasing, nGage Live-Fi, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, University of Maryland, Wi-Fi

Betting the Under (Part 2): Putting Wi-Fi antennas under seats is the hot new trend in stadium wireless networks

March 29, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Under-seat Wi-Fi AP at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

Part 2 of this story picks up with the decision to put Wi-Fi APs under seats at Levi’s Stadium. If you missed it, here is the link to Part 1.

According to Chuck Lukaszewski, now vice president of wireless strategy and standards at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (formerly very high density architect in the CTO Office of Aruba Networks), Aruba had been testing under-seat AP designs since around 2010, “in one form or another.” There were some initial tests of under-seat AP deployments at Turner Field in Atlanta and at American Airlines Arena in Dallas, but nothing on the scale of AT&T Park’s 2013 deployment, or on the scale Aruba planned to have at Levi’s Stadium when it opened in 2014.

Some of the first under-seat Wi-Fi deployments in other arenas were actually deployed completely under the stands, Lukaszewski said, with signals shooting up through the concrete. Though he said “you could get reasonably good throughput through concrete,” especially for 2.4 GHz frequencies, installing antennas above the concrete was “considerably better,” Lukaszewski said.

Curiously, one of the biggest problems in stadium Wi-Fi deployment — especially for those heavy on overhead antenna use — is negotiating interference between antennas; sometimes, clients can “see” antennas and APs that are across the stadium, and will try to connect to those instead of the AP closest to them, a problem that leads to inefficient bandwidth use. Interference also means you can’t place APs too closely together, making it somewhat of an art to find ways to increase coverage without increasing interference.

Dan Williams, former VP of technology for the San Francisco 49ers, talking networking at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR

What Aruba found in its testing, Lukaszewski said, was that under-seat Wi-Fi AP deployments could be far more dense than overhead-centric designs, mainly because the human bodies in the seats would provide beneficial “blocking” of signals, allowing network designers to place APs more closely together, and to be able to re-use the same Wi-Fi channels in more antennas.

“If you can use human bodies to contain signals, you can have much smaller cells,” Lukaszewski said. Under-seat deployments, he said, “allows us to re-use the same channel less than 100 yards away.”

With more channels available for each AP, the difference in the metric Lukaszewski calls “megabytes per fan” can be “profound” for an under-seat design versus an overhead design, he said.

“We do see trends [in stadium network data] of under-seat being able to deliver well over 100 MB per fan per event, while overhead designs [deliver] significantly under 100 MB per fan per event,” said Lukaszewski.

Dan Williams, the former vice president of technology for the San Francisco 49ers, said he and Lukaszewski were in agreement that under-seat was the best method to deploy at Levi’s Stadium.

Kyle Field at Texas A&M. White spots in stands are under-seat AP locations. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR

“I just did not believe in overhead,” said Williams, who said he brainstormed with Aruba’s Lukaszewski on the under-seat idea, which they both brought to the Wi-Fi design at Levi’s. By using under-seat APs, Williams said, the Levi’s Stadium design looked to provide “cones [of bandwidth] around the audience, immersing [fans] in a signal.”

After beating the previous year’s Super Bowl Wi-Fi total at its NFL regular-season opener in 2014, Levi’s Stadium’s Wi-Fi network more than passed its biggest test ever this year, carrying a record 10.1 terabytes of Wi-Fi data during Super Bowl 50. Those numbers are proof of Lukaszewski’s claim: “By far, under seat is better.”

New deployments trending to under-seat

Editor’s note: This excerpt is from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, our long-form PDF publication that combines in-depth stadium tech reports with news and analysis of the hottest topics in the world of stadium and large public venue tech deployments. Enjoy this PART 1 of our lead feature, or DOWNLOAD THE REPORT and read the whole story right now!

Even though under-seat deployments can be considerably more expensive, especially in a retrofit situation where deployment requires coring through concrete, many stadiums are now seeming to agree with another Lukaszewski claim, that “the return absolutely justifies the investment.”

At AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the Cowboys quicked followed their sister park’s lead and installed under-seat APs in force ahead of that venue’s hosting of the inaugural College Football Playoff championship game in January of 2015. John Winborn, chief information officer for the Dallas Cowboys Football Club, said the team worked with AT&T’s “Foundry” innovation centers to produce a smaller, sleeker under-seat AP enclosure that fit well with the stadium’s commitment to aesthetics.

Back on the baseball side, the Giants now have 1,628 Wi-Fi APs in their park, with the vast majority of them under-seat, in all three decks of seating. And the Giants’ main rival to the south, the Los Angeles Dodgers, also used under-seat APs in a recent Wi-Fi upgrade.

Close-up of conduit running to under-seat AP at Kyle Field. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR

And if Levi’s Stadium led the way for under-seat Wi-Fi, the new mainly under-seat network at the refurbished Kyle Field at Texas A&M might be the QED on the debate, with ultra-fast network speeds and big data-consumption numbers (including 5.7 TB of Wi-Fi at a game versus Alabama) adding measureable momentum to the under-seat trend. Bill Anderson, CEO of Wi-Fi deployment strategy firm AmpThink, said he was an early disbeliever in under-seat Wi-Fi — until he saw the numbers.

“At first we mocked it, made fun of it,” said Anderson, whose firm has been called in to produce Wi-Fi network designs for several recent Super Bowls, as well as for the Kyle Field design. But when Aruba showed AmpThink the data from under-seat tests and deployments, “that was the ‘a-ha’ moment for us,” Anderson said.

Working with Aruba at Kyle Field, AmpThink was able to collect its own data, which convinced Anderson that under-seat was the way to go if you wanted dense, high-performing networks.

“The really important thing is to get APs closer to the people,” said Anderson. “That’s the future.”

Anderson said some doubters may remain, especially those who try to mix a small amount of under-seat APs with existing overhead deployments, a recipe for lowered success due to the potential interference issues. At Texas A&M, Anderson said AmpThink was able to build a design with far less interference and much greater density than an overhead solution, producing numbers that people have to pay attention to.

“We only know what we’ve observed, but we’re evangelistic supporters” of under-seat designs, Anderson said. “If someone says to you under-seat is hocus-pocus, they’re not looking at the data.”

Not for everyone, but more are trying under-seat

Though proponents of under-seat Wi-Fi all agree on its ability to deliver denser, faster networks, they all also agree that under-seat can be considerably more costly than overhead Wi-Fi, especially in a retrofit situation.

In addition to having to core through concrete seating areas to get conduit to the under-seat APs, the devices themselves need to be sealed, to guard them from weather, drink spills, and the power-washing equipment employed by most stadiums to clean seating areas.

Aruba’s Lukaszewski also noted that under-seat deployments generally use more linear feet of cabling to connect the APs than overhead, which also drives up the cost. Then since under-seat designs tend to use more APs, that also means a higher budget to cover a higher number of devices.

A row shot of the under-seat APs at AT&T Stadium. Photo: Dallas Cowboys

For some stadiums, the construction materials used prohibit the under-seat option from even being tried. At the Green Bay Packers’ legendary Lambeau Field, a late-1950s construction design that used lots of concrete and rebar — as well as part of the stadium’s bottom sitting directly in the ground — meant that under-seat Wi-Fi wasn’t an option, according to Wayne Wichlacz, director of information technology for the Packers.

Other stadiums, like the University of Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium, don’t have enough space between the stadium’s bleacher seats and the floor for under-seat APs to be safely installed. And many schools or teams simply don’t have big IT budgets like the $20-million-plus available to Texas A&M that allowed the Kyle Field design to seek the best result possible.

But many of the new stadiums under construction, as well as existing venues that are planning for new best-of-breed networks, have already committed to under-seat Wi-Fi designs, including the Sacramento Kings’ Golden 1 Center, where Ruckus Wireless will implement its first under-seat stadium Wi-Fi network.

Steve Martin, senior vice president and general manager at Ruckus, said the Golden 1 Center design, planned to be the most dense anywhere, will “primarily be underseat,” a choice he said “helps in a lot of ways.”

Foremost is the performance, something Martin said Ruckus has been testing at the Kings’ current home, the Sleep Train Arena. “It [under seat] does give you the isolation for frequency re-use,” he said.

The under-seat design also makes sense in Golden 1 Center since the stadium’s overall design is very open, with lots of glass walls and unobstructed views.

And under-seat deployment is even making inroads into the distributed antenna system (DAS) world, with Verizon Wireless implementing more than 50 under-seat DAS antennas at Levi’s Stadium prior to Super Bowl 50. Mainly installed to cover the bottom-of-the-bowl rows, the under-seat APs helped Verizon manage a record day for DAS traffic, with 7 TB reported on its in-stadium cellular network during the game.

“To get a quality signal, we had to go under seat,” said Brian Mecum, vice president, network, for Verizon Wireless, who said that in that area of the stadium, under seat was the only way to get a quality signal close to the subscriber’s phone. Verizon, he said, helped design the under-seat DAS antenna, and is looking to deploy it in other stadiums soon.

“It’s the first of more,” he said.

END PART 2… HERE IS THE LINK TO PART 1… TO READ THE WHOLE STORY NOW, DOWNLOAD OUR REPORT!

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, Dallas Cowboys, DAS, Hewlett-Packard, Levi's Stadium, NCAA Football, NFL, Sprint, Super Bowl, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Aruba, Aruba Networks, AT&T, AT&T Stadium, Cisco, Dan Williams, DAS, Extreme Networks, Kyle Field, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, NFL, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl 50, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

NFL Stadium Tech Reviews — NFC East

December 1, 2015 by Paul Kapustka 1 Comment

Editor’s note: The following team-by-team capsule reports of NFL stadium technology deployments are an excerpt from our most recent Stadium Tech Report, THE PRO FOOTBALL ISSUE. To get all the capsules in one place as well as our featured reports, interviews and analysis, download your free copy of the full report today.

NFC EAST

Reporting by Paul Kapustka

Dallas fan in mobile action at AT&T Stadium. Photo: Phil Harvey, MSR

Dallas Cowboys
AT&T Stadium
Seating Capacity: 105,121
Wi-Fi – Yes
DAS – Yes

AT&T Stadium continues to push the envelope when it comes to wireless connectivity, perhaps no surprise given the sponsor name on the building. For 2015 the venue will have up to 2,000 Wi-Fi APs at any given time (1,900 fixed and 100 flexible for deployment where needed), making it by far the stadium with the most access points.

New York Giants
MetLife Stadium
Seating Capacity: 82,500
Wi-Fi – Yes
DAS – Yes

Like with the Jets, the Giants and their fans are still benefitting from the technology installed for the Super Bowl two years ago, with superb Wi-Fi and DAS coverage throughout the facility.

Philadelphia Eagles
Lincoln Financial Field
Seating Capacity: 69,176
Wi-Fi – Yes
DAS – Yes

One of the early Extreme deployments, the “Linc” will continue to be well-connected with Wi-Fi available to all seating areas.

Washington Redskins
FedExField
Seating Capacity: 79,000
Wi-Fi – Yes
DAS – Yes

After briefly considering Chinese firm Huawei for Wi-Fi last season, the Redskins pulled a reverse and instead went for a deployment led by Cisco and Verizon, now apparently with United Airlines as a service sponsor.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, Dallas Cowboys, DAS, NFL, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, AT&T Stadium, DAS, Extreme Networks, FedEx Field, Lincoln Financial Field, MetLife Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

IBM formally launches sports consulting practice to bring tech to stadiums

November 18, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Texas A&M student at recent Aggies football game. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any photo for a larger image)

IBM formally cemented its entrance to the sports-stadium tech deployment market with the announcement of a sports and fan experience consulting practice, and a “global consortium” of tech and service suppliers who may help IBM in its future stadium and entertainment venue deployments.

For industry watchers, the Nov. 19 debut of the IBM “Sports, Entertainment and Fan Experience” consulting practice was not a surprise, since its leader, Jim Rushton, had already appeared at tech conferences this past summer, talking about IBM’s plans to deploy a fiber-based Wi-Fi and DAS network at the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium being built for the Atlanta Falcons. IBM was also publicly behind a similar network build over the last two years at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field. For both networks, IBM is using Corning optical gear.

Still, the formal creation of the IBM practice (you can read all about it at the new IBM sports website) means that the 800-pound gorilla is now firmly inside the competitive ring of the stadium-tech marketplace, a landscape that currently has multiple players, many of which have multiple stadium deployments under their belts. However, IBM’s vast experience in big-time sports technology deployments — Big Blue is behind such endeavors as the truly wonderful online experience of The Masters, as well as technical underpinnings of three of tennis’ Grand Slam events (Wimbledon, the U.S. Open and the Australian Open) — as well as its considerable tech and monetary resources probably makes it a No. 1 contender for all of the biggest projects as well as possibly smaller ones as well.

Artist’s rendering of planned overhead view of new Atlanta NFL stadium

Rushton, who spoke with Mobile Sports Report earlier this year in one of his first public appearances as an IBMer, said in a phone interview this week that IBM’s fiber-to-the-fan network model isn’t just for large-scale deployments like the one at 105,000-seat Kyle Field or the Falcons’ new $1.4 billion nest, which will seat 71,000 for football and up to 83,000 for other events after it opens in 2017.

“That type of system [the optical network] is scalable,” Rushton said, and even in smaller venues he said it could potentially save customers 30 percent or more compared to the cost of a traditional copper-based cabled network. The flip side to that equation is that purchasers have fewer gear suppliers to choose from on the fiber-based side of things, and according to several industry sources it’s still sometimes a problem to find enough technical staffers with optical-equipment expertise.

How much of the market is left?

The other question facing IBM’s new consulting practice is the size of the market left for stadium tech deployments, an answer we try to parse each year in our State of the Stadium survey. While this year’s survey and our subsequent quarterly reports found a high number of U.S. professional stadiums with Wi-Fi and DAS networks already deployed, there are still large numbers of college venues as well as international stadiums and other large public venues like concert halls, race tracks and other areas that are still without basic connectivity.

Full house at Kyle Field. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR

With its new “global consortium” of companies that supply different parts and services of the connected-stadium experience, IBM could be an attractive choice to a customer that doesn’t have its own technical expertise, providing a soup-to-nuts package that could conceivably handle tasks like in-stadium IPTV, DAS and Wi-Fi, construction and stadium design, and backbone bandwidth solutions.

However, IBM will be going up against vendors who have led deployments on their own, and league-led “consortium” type arrangements like MLBAM’s project that brought Wi-Fi to almost all the Major League Baseball stadiums, and the NFL’s list of preferred suppliers like Extreme Networks for Wi-Fi and YinzCam for apps. Also in the mix are third-party integrators like CDW, Mobilitie, 5 Bars, Boingo Wireless and others who are already active in the stadium-technology deployment space. And don’t forget HP, which bought Wi-Fi gear supplier Aruba Networks earlier this year.

Certainly, we expect to hear more from IBM soon, and perhaps right now it’s best to close by repeating what we heard from Jared Miller, chief technology officer for Falcons owner Arthur Blank’s namesake AMB Sports and Entertainment (AMBSE) group, when we asked earlier this year why the Falcons picked IBM to build the technology in the new Atlanta stadium:

Remote optical cabinet and Wi-Fi AP at Kyle Field. Photo: Paul Kapustka, MSR

“IBM is unique with its span of technology footprint,” Miller said. He also cited IBM’s ability to not just deploy technology but to also help determine what the technology could be used for, with analytics and application design.

“They’ve looked at the [stadium] opportunity in a different manner, thinking about what we could do with the network once it’s built,” Miller said.

From the IBM press release, here is the IBM list of companies in its new “global consortium,” which IBM said is not binding, meaning that none of the companies listed is guaranteed any business yet, and others not on the list may end up in IBM deployments, like Kyle Field, which uses Aruba gear for the Wi-Fi:

Founding members of the consortium, include:

· Construction and Design: AECOM, HOK, Whiting Turner

· Infrastructure Technology/Carriers: Alcatel/Lucent, Anixter, Commscope, Corning, Juniper Networks, Ruckus Wireless, Schneider Electric, Smarter Risk, Tellabs, Ucopia, Zebra Technologies, YinzCam (IPTV), Zayo, Zhone

· Communications Solutions Providers: Level 3, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, AT&T

· Fan Experience Consulting & Data Management Integration: IBM

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, Extreme Networks, Hewlett-Packard, Major League Baseball, NCAA Football, NFL, SEC, The Masters, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Wimbledon Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, Atlanta Falcons, Corning, DAS, Extreme Networks, iBM, Kyle Field, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, MLBAM, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Texas A&M, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Stadium Tech Report: Wi-Fi arrives at the Green Bay Packers’ legendary Lambeau Field

November 10, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, now has Wi-Fi for fans. All photos: Green Bay Packers (click on any photo for a larger image)

When most NFL fans think of the Green Bay Packers and Lambeau Field, they think of frozen tundra – of Vince Lombardi roaming the sideline in his thick glasses and peaked hat, with visible breath coming through the face masks of behemoth linemen on the field. In the stands, they see the venerable fans braving the cold of northern Wisconsin in their snowmobile suits, with mittens wrapped around a bratwurst and a beer.

But do they think of those same Packers fans pulling out their iPhones and Samsungs to take selfies, and posting them to Instagram or Facebook? Maybe not so much.

The reality is, however, that in 2015, football fans in Green Bay are pretty much like fans anywhere else when it comes to wanting to use their mobile devices while at the game. So to make sure the Lambeau Field fan experience remains at the top of the league, the Packers teamed up with Extreme Networks and Verizon Wireless to bring a fan-facing Wi-Fi network to Lambeau this season, one that will likely be heavily used even at the risk of frostbitten fingers.

Editor’s note: The following profile is an excerpt from our most recent Stadium Tech Report, THE PRO FOOTBALL ISSUE. To get all the profiles in one place as well as our featured reports, interviews and analysis, download your free copy of the full report today.

Bringing the beast to the bowl

With more than 1,000 Wi-Fi access points installed throughout the stadium, the already-live network in Green Bay is the culmination of a 2-year project that started with an overhaul of the venue’s distributed antenna system (DAS), a task completed last year by Verizon, which acts as the DAS neutral host.

According to Wayne Wichlacz, director of information technology for the Packers, the second step of putting in and turning on a full-stadium Wi-Fi network required a lengthy search and qualification process, to ensure that the partners could deliver in the face of big challenges that exist in bringing wireless technology to a historic and legendary facility like Lambeau Field.

Wi-Fi APs visible on press box structure

Even the most casual of NFL fans probably has some knowledge of Lambeau Field, which has known more than its share of history since opening in 1957. The glory years of the Packers of the 1960s, when coach Lombardi and quarterback Bart Starr won the first two Super Bowls, helped cement the Green Bay “Titletown” lore, and the famous “Ice Bowl” game of Dec. 31, 1967, between the Packers and the Dallas Cowboys, gave birth to the “Frozen Tundra” nickname for the big concrete circle on Lombardi Avenue.

That big bowl, which has been added to significantly since its opening, now can seat 81,435 fans, making it the third-largest in NFL seating capacity, behind only AT&T Stadium in Dallas and MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Though Lambeau Field previously had Wi-Fi networks for internal business purposes as well as for some suite and premium seating, bringing Wi-Fi to the full stadium was a task of a different magnitude, Wichlacz said.

“It’s a different beast to bring [Wi-Fi] to the bowl,” Wichlacz said.

The two big challenges for Wi-Fi deployment at Lambeau revolved around aesthetics and placements; as a historic and legendary structure, extreme care needed to be taken to make sure Wi-Fi gear placements didn’t detract from the visual experience and old-time charm. And just to make that first task tougher was the challenge of finding enough places for Wi-Fi APs in a facility that is mainly a big open bowl, without much overhang space for mounting.

And don’t forget about the large amount of metal-bench seating, which took away the opportunity to install under-the-seat APs.

“There’s just not a lot of levels [in Lambeau] for us to do things,” Wichlacz said. “It was a real installation challenge.”

After putting out an RFP that took all the necessary considerations into play, Wichlacz said the Packers evaluated proposals from all the major players in the large public venue Wi-Fi gear market before finally settling on Extreme, which has a solid history of NFL stadium deployments. After picking Extreme in the middle of last year, construction got underway in early 2015, Wichlacz said.

On the Extreme side, the company knew it was deploying on the NFL equivalent of hallowed ground, said Norman Rice, executive vice president for marketing at Extreme.

“A lot of additional work went into the design, in part because Lambeau Field is a historical site and such an iconic part of the landscape in the NFL,” Rice said. “We did a lot of unique stuff to get to what a Packers fan expects.”

Yellow paint and handrail enclosures

If most NFL fans are familiar with the Packers’ traditional gold and green colors, so now are the Wi-Fi deployment teams from Extreme and the Packers, who spent a good part of the deployment time painting APs to blend in to the stadium scenery. That meant green for antennas mounted up against certain building sections, and the bright yellow for the handrail antennas that Extreme used to help bring signals down into the rows of the bowl.

“We did a lot of unique stuff,” said Extreme’s Rice. “There are some pretty cool enclosures, where the yellow blends right into the walls.”

“If you’re looking for it, you can probably find it,” said Wichlacz of the painted antennas. “But it blends in pretty good.”

Lambeau bench seating with railing-mounted Wi-Fi APs

To gain some important real estate for wireless components, the Packers and their partners actually relocated the team’s signage listing the names of Packers inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, raising it up one level and using it as a way to mask Wi-Fi and DAS gear.

“You can actually see the [names] better now, and we were able to put Wi-Fi and DAS antennas in there,” Rice said. “It’s a nice piece of work.”

All the aesthetic work had to also be blended with the technical requirements of antenna placement, to ensure good coverage without interference. Jacque Vallier, the Illinois/Wisconsin regional executive director of network for Verizon Wireless, compared Lambeau Field to the older college stadiums, the large concrete bowls that are among the hardest structures to bring services to.

“It definitely was an RF and engineering challenge,” said Vallier of the DAS design. Vallier said that AT&T is currently a client on the Verizon neutral DAS, which uses CommScope gear. The DAS also covers the parking lot areas outside Lambeau Field, where tailgating is a high art.

Separate SSID for Verizon Customers

Like other NFL deployments where Verizon is a major sponsor, the Lambeau Field Wi-Fi network will have two separate SSIDs, one reserved for Verizon Wireless customers, and the other for everyone else. According to Verizon’s Vallier, the Verizon subscribers will have access to about 40 percent of the Wi-Fi bandwidth, with some devices supporting automatic authentication to the service. Verizon and Extreme have a similar deployment at CenturyLink Field in Seattle.

According to Extreme’s Rice, the mix of network usage is tuned to ensure that all fans who are seeking Wi-Fi connectivity will have more than enough bandwidth. Both the Verizon-specific network and the public network (which run off the same Wi-Fi gear) will meet or exceed the NFL’s Wi-Fi requirements, he said.

“It’s done to ensure Verizon customers have a good connection, but not at the expense of other users,” Rice said of the split SSIDs. Verizon, which is a big sponsor of the NFL in general (including its $1 billion payment for live-action rights on smartphones for its NFL Mobile app), is also a sponsor of Wi-Fi networks at NFL stadiums in Detroit and Denver.

As a final Green Bay touch, the Extreme “Wi-Fi coaches” program, which trains people who wander the stands on game days helping fans to get connected to the network, will use area high school students as “coaches,” fitting right in with the family-friendly atmosphere that the Packers are famous for.

“It’s really going to be cool to tie the coaches program to the community through the schools,” Extreme’s Rice said. “It’s great fun to be part of that.”

Can’t test the network until the stadium’s full

When it comes to large public venue deployments, there is the Wi-Fi network you design on paper, the network you build, and then the network that happens when the venue fills up with users. Thanks to the mid-year completion of the Lambeau Field network, Wichlacz and his IT team were able to test the Wi-Fi network in several “beta” situations, which included a Kenny Chesney concert and a Brett Favre celebration that filled the bowl.

Wave the flag, Wi-Fi has come to Lambeau Field! Photos: Green Bay Packers

“Testing network theory versus having people [using the network] is night and day,” Wichlacz said. Live tests, he said, “give the engineering folks the ability to test and tweak. It’s definitely helpful to have those events.”

And if there was any doubt that fans at Lambeau Field want to use their devices, Verizon’s Vallier can help end the debate.

“During the second preseason game we saw more than 500 gigabytes of traffic [on the DAS],” Vallier said, noting that totals so far are pointing to be one-and-a-half times bigger than in 2014.

And though Wichlacz is reticent to provide exact Wi-Fi data usage numbers, Extreme’s Rice said one of the Packers’ preseason games recorded “one of the highest [Wi-Fi usage] numbers we’ve ever seen.”

That figure seems to answer a question Rice said the team had asked itself earlier, about whether or not the Green Bay Packers and their fans needed stadium Wi-Fi. “There was a time when they [the Packers] had a big question, about if it mattered,” Rice said. Now that the Wi-Fi network is in, he said, “it’s amazing to see how much people use it.”

Wichlacz noted that Packers fans may not need to worry about frozen fingers, since the team has more home games earlier in the season this year. But he also remembers Verizon stats from the DAS last season that showed usage didn’t go down that much when the temperature got cold.

So – if you make it to Lambeau Field from now on, make sure you soak in the atmosphere and if you care to, share it with the world via Wi-Fi – something you can do now with ease thanks to the hard work from the Packers and their partners.

“For our whole team here, it’s been a labor of love,” Wichlacz said. “We spent a lot of hours working on this. We’re excited to launch it, and correct it as we go.”

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Extreme Networks, MSR Guides, NFL, NFL Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Extreme Networks, Green Bay Packers, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, NFL Mobile, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

Buffalo Bills tap Extreme Networks for Wi-Fi at Ralph Wilson Stadium

September 14, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Add the Buffalo Bills to the list of teams that installed Wi-Fi into their stadiums this offseason, as the Bills tapped NFL favorite Extreme Networks for a deployment at Ralph Wilson Stadium that was live for the regular-season opener against the Indianapolis Colts Sunday, a game the Bills won 27-14.

We’ll try to circle back with the team to get more details, but according to a press release on the Bills’ website the team picked Carousel Industries, Extreme Networks and Frey Electric for the deployment, which began in May this year. The Bills said the network went through beta-type testing this summer, at concerts for the Rolling Stones and One Direction, and during the Bills’ preseason schedule.

By our count, this is the ninth NFL stadium to use Extreme gear for its fan-facing Wi-Fi, a signal that Extreme’s preferred-supplier deal with the league is working well for all concerned. So far this season the Baltimore Ravens and the Green Bay Packers have announced Wi-Fi deployments from Extreme. Last year Ralph Wilson Stadium had a DAS upgrade that has no doubt been upgraded again recently, so for all types of wireless communications the Buffalo fans should be well served this season as they enjoy the Rex Ryan ride.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, NFL, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, Buffalo Bills, DAS, Extreme Networks, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Ralph Wilson Stadium, Stadium Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi