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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: , , , , , , ,

Alamodome taps AmpThink for new Wi-Fi ahead of 2018 Final Four

August 30, 2017 by Leave a Comment

A new full-stadium Wi-Fi network installed by AmpThink is coming to the Alamodome, scheduled to be finished just ahead of this year’s Alamo Bowl and well in place for next spring’s men’s NCAA basketball tournament’s Final Four, Alamodome executives said.

Scheduled to be announced publicly by the San Antonio, Texas, venue today, the new network is part of a $50-million-plus renovation project that includes updated video boards, sound systems and TV screens throughout the stadium. Nicholas Langella, general manager of the Alamodome, said the new Wi-Fi network was financed in part by donations from Alamodome customers, including the Valero Alamo Bowl, scheduled this year for Dec. 28. The network will use Wi-Fi gear from Cisco, according to Langella.

According to Langella, approximately $6 million out of the roughly $10 million needed for the Wi-Fi upgrade came from the Alamo Bowl. Langella also said that the venue now has an updated DAS as well, built by Verizon, which will also have AT&T and T-Mobile on board. “We’re very happy about that [the DAS],” said Langella in a phone interview.

Going under seat for Wi-Fi

Though Wi-Fi deployment firm AmpThink has lately preferred railing Wi-Fi enclosures for proximate network builds, such as at Notre Dame, Langella said the Alamodome deployment will use more under-seat AP placements than railings, given the designed mobility of the Alamodome seating areas. “We have so much mobility with the stands, it’s hard to do lots of railing [placements],” Langella said.

According to Langella when the Wi-Fi deployment is finished — the network is scheduled to be fully completed by Dec. 1 — there will be approximately 750 APs installed, allowing the Alamodome to increase coverage from being able to serve 3,500 fans to being able to cover 65,000 fans, meaning every seat in the house. The improvements, he said, were part of a plan to attract the Final Four, which succeeded.

“We always thought we would improve the Wi-Fi,” Langella said. With the Final Four looming, he said, “we took the bull by the horns and got it done.”

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AmpThink, AT&T, Basketball, Cisco, DAS, NCAA Hoops, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, 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: , , , , , , , , ,

Final Four final score: 17.6 TB (at least) of wireless data used at University of Phoenix Stadium

April 17, 2017 by Leave a Comment

We finally have the Wi-Fi numbers from the NCAA men’s basketball tournament Final Four weekend at the University of Phoenix Stadium, and they are big — a total of 11.2 terabytes of data used during the two days of competition, according to the stadium network crews running the operations for the NCAA. Combined with AT&T’s reported DAS total of 6.4 TB, that means the total wireless usage so far is at least 17.6 TB — and that’s not including DAS numbers from Verizon Wireless, Sprint or T-Mobile, which if we had them would probably push the total far higher.

Just on the Wi-Fi side of things, the Saturday semifinal games this year produced enough single-day traffic (6.3 TB) to sneak into our unofficial Top 5 list for Wi-Fi events, barely edging Super Bowl XLIX, which saw 6.2 TB of traffic in the same building a couple years earlier. Granted, the Final Four has more fans in attendance and more time with two games compared to one, but it’s still a sign (to us, anyway) that wireless use by fans at big games of all types is continuing to grow. (It’s cool to see the comparison between a Super Bowl and a Final Four in the same venue, as well. Looks like the network operators there keep improving from big game to big game.)

According to the network stats provided to us, the Final Four crowd on Saturday saw 38,520 unique users connected to the Wi-Fi at some point, with a max concurrent user total of 20,675. On Monday night’s championship game, those numbers were 31,458 uniques and 19,861 max concurrent users. Attendance for the two sessions was 77,612 for Saturday’s semifinals and 76,168 for Monday’s championship, which were both second-highest ever numbers, according to a cool NCAA infographic that has some more stats on TV and internet viewership.

See you next year in San Antonio, NCAA… to see if the connectivity pace keeps increasing!

THE NEW TOP 8 FOR WI-FI

1. Super Bowl 51, NRG Stadium, Houston, Feb. 5, 2017: Wi-Fi: 11.8 TB
2. Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016: Wi-Fi: 10.1 TB
3. Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys, Divisional Playoffs, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 15, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.25 TB
4. WrestleMania 32, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, April 3, 2016: Wi-Fi: 6.77 TB
5. NCAA Men’s Final Four, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., April 1, 2017: Wi-Fi: 6.3 TB
6. Super Bowl 49, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015: Wi-Fi: 6.23 TB
7. Alabama vs. Texas A&M, Kyle Field, College Station, Texas, Oct. 17, 2015: Wi-Fi: 5.7 TB
8. Pittsburgh Steelers vs. New England Patriots, AFC Championship Game, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Jan. 22, 2017: Wi-Fi: 5.11 TB

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