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Indiana Pacers upgrade Wi-Fi at Bankers Life Fieldhouse

January 26, 2017 by Leave a Comment

Bankers Life Fieldhouse, home of the Indiana Pacers. Credit all photos: Frank McGrath/Indiana Pacers

Bankers Life Fieldhouse, home of the Indiana Pacers. Credit all photos: Frank McGrath/Indiana Pacers

Whenever you undertake a Wi-Fi retrofit project, one thing is for certain: You can always expect surprises along the way.

For the Indiana Pacers, the biggest surprise in their recent renovation of the Wi-Fi network at Bankers Life Fieldhouse was finding out that their venue already had holes drilled in the concrete under the seats, greatly simplifying (and reducing the cost) of the mainly under-seat deployment that just went live in December.

The new 400-plus AP network, using gear from Ruckus, replaces one of the NBA’s first in-stadium Wi-Fi networks, one built and run by SignalShare using gear from Xirrus. With SignalShare now in bankruptcy and facing legal charges of fraudulent behavior, the Pacers went a different route for their new network, which is part of a plan to bring more digital-based fan services to the 17-year-old venue in downtown Indianapolis, which seats roughly 18,000 for basketball games.

According to Kevin Naylor, vice president of information technology, Pacers Sports and Entertainment, that plan got an unexpected (and welcome) boost when the Pacers’ IT team looked and found pre-drilled holes underneath many of the seats, covered up with temporary aluminum plates. With Ruckus able to use the pre-drilled holes for its under-seat Wi-Fi design, the Pacers were able to save “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in deployment costs, Naylor said.

A new digital plan for fans

Editor’s note: This profile is from our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, the ONLY in-depth publication created specifically for the stadium technology professional and the stadium technology marketplace. Read about the Sacramento Kings’ new Golden 1 Center and the new Wi-Fi network for the Super Bowl in our report, which is available now for FREE DOWNLOAD from our site!

Leading the venue’s new digital direction is Ed Frederici, chief technology officer, Pacers Sports and Entertainment, who joined the organization in the fall of 2015, after spending almost 6 years as the CTO of ExactTarget, a marketing automation provider that was aquired by Salesforce in 2013.

Though he came into the job “relatively ignorant of sports,” Frederici said he saw “a really interesting problem to solve” revolving around the ongoing evolution of the live-event fan, and who the new attendee was. With a plan to help drive the fan engagement through technology, Frederici, Naylor and the Pacers’ organization began a thorough assessment of Wi-Fi gear providers as part of their plan to bring a new network to Bankers Life Fieldhouse, replacing one that didn’t stand up to current use patterns.

“The old network tapped out when it got to about 3,000 [concurrent] users,” Frederici said.

Pacers director of IT Kevin Naylor shows off a new under-seat Wi-Fi AP

Pacers director of IT Kevin Naylor shows off a new under-seat Wi-Fi AP

According to Frederici, the Pacers looked at “all the major providers” of Wi-Fi gear, testing implementations live by putting gear into mobile merchandise-selling stands in use on the stadium concourses. The final decision, Frederici said, came down to a battle between Ruckus and Xirrus, with Ruckus the final winner.

Under seat the best option

According to Bart Giordano, vice president for business development and strategic partnerships, for Brocade’s Ruckus business unit, going under-seat with Wi-Fi seems to be the direction large public venues are all headed in.

“It [under seat deployment] is sort of standard now,” said Giordano. “You really need to have users close to the APs, and it’s hard to achieve that with overhead.”

With just over 430 APs in the new network, Frederici was worrying about the drilling costs — until it turned out that most of the drilling had already been done, apparently as part of the arena’s original electrical configuration.

“Seventeen years ago, cables were much thinner, and it looks like [the holes] were cored for electrical,” Frederici said. “But it worked out fabulously.”

And like several other venues have done recently, the Pacers have decided to scrap support for fan-facing services on the 2.4 GHz spectrum, which makes administration of the fan Wi-Fi network easier and cheaper. The team will still keep some 2.4 GHz connections for back of house use.

With 2.4 GHz, Naylor said, “the noise level just got really bad in the lower bowl. It’s much easier to go to [only] 5 GHz. Every phone made now has 5 GHz.” For the older phones, Naylor said, the arena’s neutral-host DAS run by ExteNet Systems can provide connectivity, with AT&T and Verizon Wireless already on the system with plans to add more carriers in 2017.

While the Pacers currently have a basic YinzCam-based game-day app, Frederici is looking forward to more services in the future, including the possibility of having amenities like live parking and traffic information available via the app, as well as blue-dot wayfinding to the seat. For this year, the Pacers have already added concession and restroom wait time alerts to the app, the first step in a planned process of greater digital engagement.

“We want to own the experience from your driveway to the stadium, then back home,” Frederici said. Part of the new network deal includes analytics software services from Ruckus partner Purple, which helps teams mine data from fan interaction with the Wi-Fi network.

“We’re excited to see what kind of data we can pull from them [Purple],” Naylor said.

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

New Report: First look at Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center

January 19, 2017 by Leave a Comment

q4 thumbMOBILE SPORTS REPORT is pleased to announce the Winter 2016-2017 issue of our STADIUM TECH REPORT series, with a first look at the pervasive stadium technology built into the Sacramento Kings’ new home, the Golden 1 Center.

Also in our latest in-depth publication created specifically for the stadium technology professional and the stadium technology marketplace is a profile of a new Wi-Fi deployment at the Indiana Pacers’ Bankers Life Fieldhouse, and a profile of new Wi-Fi and DAS networks deployed at Arizona State’s Sun Devil Stadium. We also provide an update on how the new Wi-Fi network at Houston’s NRG Stadium is getting ready for the upcoming Super Bowl LI.

Renting a Wi-Fi network?

In addition to our historical in-depth profiles of successful stadium technology deployments, our fourth issue for 2016 has additional news and analysis, including a look at whether or not stadiums will soon be able to lease their Wi-Fi networks. Download your FREE copy today!

We’d like to take a quick moment to thank our sponsors, which for this issue include Mobilitie, Crown Castle, SOLiD, CommScope, JMA Wireless, Corning, Samsung Business, Xirrus, Huber+Suhner, ExteNet Systems, and Extreme Networks. Their generous sponsorship makes it possible for us to offer this content free of charge to our readers. We’d also like to thank you for your interest and support.

As always, we are here to hear what you have to say: Send me an email to kaps@mobilesportsreport.com and let us know what you think of our STADIUM TECH REPORT series.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, MSR Guides, NBA, NCAA Football, NFL, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Pacers get new Wi-Fi network from Ruckus to replace SignalShare

October 24, 2016 by Leave a Comment

Screen Shot 2016-10-24 at 1.15.36 PMThe Indiana Pacers have signed a 3-year deal with Ruckus Wireless and Wi-Fi analytics and deployment firm Purple to put a new Wi-Fi network into Bankers Life Fieldhouse, the home of both the NBA’s Pacers and the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.

The new network, which the firms said would use 437 Ruckus Wi-Fi APs, will replace a Wi-Fi network installed at Bankers Life Fieldhouse by SignalShare, a Wi-Fi deployment firm that recently went bankrupt in the middle of legal issues that alleged fraudulent practices. According to Ruckus, the new network should be live by early December; stay tuned for a more thorough profile of the new deployment.

So far, all of the teams that we’ve contacted who were caught up in the SignalShare snafu (under which some of the network leases were being offered for auction before the SignalShare bankruptcy put a halt to things) seem to be coming out of the mess OK. The Jacksonville Jaguars have a new manager for their Wi-Fi network, and the Pacers will have a new Ruckus-gear network.

It’s still a little unclear as to what is happening at the Golden State Warriors’ Oracle Arena, but press representatives there said the building will have an Extreme Networks Wi-Fi deployment up and running for this season; previously, SignalShare had run the network using Extreme gear so our best guess is that Extreme somehow took over the SignalShare lease. Neither the Warriors nor Extreme would comment on any SignalShare matters.

In Indianapolis, the press release said that Purple, previously known as Purple WiFi (a “cloud-based marketing and analytics WiFi software company,” according to the firm), will be providing analytics from the Wi-Fi network to the Pacers. Terms of the deal were not diclosed, so it is unknown if Purple is paying for the Wi-Fi gear and making money off analytics and advertising sales; again, stay tuned for more details when we speak to the Pacers IT team in more detail.

Filed Under: Basketball, Extreme Networks, Golden State Warriors, NBA, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Philadelphia Eagles will test CrowdOptic’s Google Glass tech at Lincoln Financial Field

May 29, 2014 by 1 Comment

Indiana Pacers cheerleaders wearing Google Glass. Credit: Indiana Pacers.

Indiana Pacers cheerleaders wearing Google Glass. Credit: Indiana Pacers.

After successfully convincing several NBA teams to use its Google Glass infrastructure technology, San Francisco startup CrowdOptic has scored an NFL deal, with the Philadelphia Eagles agreeing to test the company’s wearable-device apps at their home stadium, Lincoln Financial Field.

According to a press release out today, CrowdOptic will work with the Eagles’ infrastructure provider, Extreme Networks, which brought high-quality Wi-Fi to the stadium last year.

So far, the CrowdOptic technology has been used by the NBA’s Indiana Pacers, Sacramento Kings and Orlando Magic to provide Google Glass views to stadium jumbotrons. While having such an intimate, new point of view is interesting, CrowdOptic’s technology actually goes much deeper than simple broadcast enhancement; it can also provide a “heat map” of what an aggregate of Google Glass wearers are looking at, a feature that has many possible future applications. However, it’s unclear how stadiums and arenas might eventually regulate or administer Google Glass wearing by fans, and whether or not fans will ever be able to “broadcast” their own Google Glass video views.

“We are looking forward to testing this technology and finding ways to incorporate it into our gameday presentation,” said Brian Papson, Eagles Vice President of Marketing, in a prepared statement. “Our goal is always to provide our fans with unique and behind-the-scenes perspectives through a variety of different sources and we’re excited about the potential of using Google Glass technology through CrowdOptic.”

Filed Under: Apps, Basketball, Google, NBA, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Video Streaming Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Guest Post: How CrowdOptic is helping the Indiana Pacers and the NBA use Google Glass

May 18, 2014 by Leave a Comment

Pacers GlassEditor’s note: The following post is by Jon Fisher, CEO of CrowdOptic, the San Francisco company whose technology is helping bring Google Glass views to NBA arenas. While there’s been a lot of talk about how this is happening Fisher explains the deployment in some more detail here. The feature is being used at Bankers Life Fieldhouse for today’s opening game in the Eastern Conference Finals.

By Jon Fisher, CrowdOptic

The Pacers deployed Google Glass in real time powered by CrowdOptic in every home game since it first launched against the Miami Heat on March 26, and are deploying against Miami Sunday and through the playoffs.

Former Pacer Rik Smits with Google Glass at Sunday's game.

Former Pacer Rik Smits with Google Glass at Sunday’s game.

The solution is a package of 11 Glass devices positioned at court level — worn by a variety of Pacers employees and fans (including celebrities) to contribute immersive points of view of the action. These views are seen on the arena’s Jumbotron and have included scenes like the referees deliberating from the point of view of the game announcer right in front of them. The Pacers run this solution completely on their own logistically; they hand out Glass units and the CrowdOptic software runs on a server and laptops with dashboards in the AV room and truck.

Closer images than anything else

With the Google Glass experience, fans see faces and lips move from a more immersive perspective than a traditional broadcast camera allows. And Glass isn’t simply a GoPro-like camera in these situations (Glass is a computer) as the Pacers can text through the Glass interface telling the Glass wearers when they’re broadcasting live and/or to look in a different direction if necessary to capture a desired angle using a GUI / radar interface. The Glass wearers can dynamically change their broadcasting quality (bit rate) to conserve battery life. And the Pacers just announced the capability that anyone wearing Glass in-stadium will be able to zoom into these POVs on demand and even the POVs of the Pacers’ own stadium cameras.

Jeff Van Gundy looks very Evil Empire with Google Glass on.

Jeff Van Gundy looks very Evil Empire with Google Glass on.

This is possible using CrowdOptic technology (including U.S. Patent 8,527,340) to understand when and where the Glass units are aimed in common so inferior views of the action can be discarded for quality thereby translating the noise from the 11 Glass units into manageable broadcast streams algorithmically. Glass units aimed in the same direction can also be merged using the same technology, enabling one wearer to inherit the view of another authorized wearer.

It’s this zoom capability that the Pacers announced yesterday that we think completely changes the game. Finally, CrowdOptic is the only company currently capable of broadcasting from multiple Glass units in high density simply because we were focusing on this difficult problem early. We convert the Glass Wi-Fi signal from 2.4 to 5.0 GHz frequencies, we have optimized our code for large live events and are integrated with Wi-Fi deployers SignalShare and soon Extreme Networks, and we even have a WiMAX solution.

Jon Fisher, CEO of CrowdOptic, is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, inventor, author and economic analyst. Earlier he co-founded and was CEO of Bharosa, an Oracle Corporation company, which produced the Oracle Adaptive Access Manager. Fisheris a named inventor on six U.S. and eight foreign patents, and three U.S. and 17 foreign patents pending. Fisher is a recipient of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur Of The Year award.

Filed Under: Basketball, Google, GoPro, NBA, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Video Streaming Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Has CrowdOptic found its niche with Google Glass and the NBA?

April 2, 2014 by 4 Comments

Screen shot of Google Glass footage from Indiana Pacers practice. Credit: Indiana Pacers

Screen shot of Google Glass footage from Indiana Pacers practice. Credit: Indiana Pacers

While we’re still far away from knowing whether or not wearable devices will really take off, the integration of personal-view video into stadium situations seems like a quick win. And San Francisco-based CrowdOptic appears to be ready to benefit from the latter idea, as its technology is being used in a couple announced deployments where Google Glass is being used to bring interesting video looks to big-screen displays in NBA arenas.

Both the Indiana Pacers and the Sacramento Kings have been using Google Glass to bring “personal” video views to the big screens in their arenas recently. Though players haven’t yet worn Google Glass during an actual game, in Indianapolis the wearable technology and its built-in camera was used to provide video feeds from a practice, as well as game-day views from cheerleaders and from a courtside PA announcer’s seat.

CrowdOptic, which had previously developed a unique mobile-device triangulation technology (which it somewhat unsuccessfully tried to market as a security or analytics-gathering tool) has seemingly found a perfect fit with Google Glass. According to a partnership announcement made with Wi-Fi gear and software provider Extreme Networks last week, CrowdOptics’ technology is helping weed out the best views from the devices to produce a watchable video stream.

This paragraph from the CrowdOptic press release with the Pacers actually describes it pretty well:

Another Google Glass view from an Indiana Pacers practice. Credit: Indiana Pacers

Another Google Glass view from an Indiana Pacers practice. Credit: Indiana Pacers

“The experience will be powered by CrowdOptic, a software platform which analyzes the real-time Google Glass feeds and curates them by their subject matter and quality, exporting only the highest quality live footage to the scoreboard. CrowdOptic’s ability to analyze where mobile and wearable devices are aimed allows future opportunities, such as optimizing in-seat arena services or providing fans the option to control their own broadcast.”

According to a recent Fortune Business article, CrowdOptic is charging NBA teams $25,000 per deployment, but some of that arrangement may change with the new Extreme partnership. Some new deals with additional NBA teams are also expected to be announced soon.

What will really be interesting to watch from a stadium technology perspective is how Google Glass use, for both team-approved activities as well as casual fan use, will affect things like in-stadium networks. Though our recent Stadium Tech Report for Q1 2014 found that most NBA stadiums already have fan-facing Wi-Fi, few seem ready for advanced applications, especially high-bandwidth generating ones like streaming Google Glass videos. What’s also unclear is how NBA broadcast rights may or may not affect the ability of teams or fans to record or stream live action via technology like Google Glass. Add another item to the stadium IT department and team legal department to-do lists!

Filed Under: Apps, Google, NBA, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,