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New Report: Super Bowl 50’s super wireless, under-seat Wi-Fi feature and more!

March 2, 2016 by

STR Q1 THUMBThe record-setting wireless network consumption at Super Bowl 50 is one of the lead topics in our latest STADIUM TECH REPORT, our long-form publication that takes an in-depth look at the most important news of the stadium technology world, alongside some great in-depth profiles of successful stadium technology deployments. Download your free copy today!

With fans consuming 26 terabytes of wireless data — 15.9 TB on the stadium’s distributed antenna system (DAS) and another 10.1 on the Wi-Fi network — the Super Bowl provided the ultimate test for the Levi’s Stadium wireless infrastructure, one that the venue passed with flying colors. One unique factor of the stadium’s wireless deployment, under-seat antennas for both the DAS and the Wi-Fi networks, is covered in-depth in our most recent issue, with a feature story about how under-seat deployments got started, and why they may become the default antenna placement for large public venues going forward.

Also in the issue: A profile of Wi-Fi and associated mobile device strategies at the University of Wisconsin, including geo-fencing for fan marketing at away games; a close-up look at the wireless infrastructure at the Denver Broncos’ Sports Authority Field at Mile High; a profile of the new Wi-Fi network at the Montreal Canadiens’ Bell Centre; and a look at some new social-media strategies deployed by the Miami Dolphins. All this information is available now for FREE DOWNLOAD so get your copy today!

We’d like to thank our Stadium Tech Report sponsors, who make this great content free for readers thanks to their support. For our Q1 issue our sponsors include Mobilitie, Crown Castle, CommScope, Samsung, Corning, JMA Wireless, Aruba, SOLiD, Xirrus and 5 Bars.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, About MSR, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, MSR Guides, NFL, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Super Bowl 50 app use sets Levi’s Stadium records, led by video watching and drink orders

February 17, 2016 by

Screenshot of home page of Super Bowl 50 stadium app. (Click on any photo for a larger image)

Screenshot of home page of Super Bowl 50 stadium app. (Click on any photo for a larger image)

As part of the Wi-Fi and cellular usage records set at Super Bowl 50, fans at Levi’s Stadium also set new records for usage of the main stadium app features, including overall app adoption, viewing of action replays and Super Bowl commercials, and food and drink ordering.

According to the San Francisco 49ers networking staff, 46 percent of the 71,088 fans at the game downloaded the Super Bowl 50 stadium app, an NFL-specific app built by VenueNext, designers of the regular Levi’s Stadium app. That total is 16 percentage points higher than any recorded at a San Francisco 49ers regular-season game, according to the Niners.

One of the more unique features of the Super Bowl app was the ability for fans to use the app to order food and drinks, either for express window pickup, or for drinks only, the option for in-seat delivery. According to the Niners there were 3,284 food and beverage orders, 67 percent higher than the previous top order number ever recorded at a Levi’s Stadium game.

The Niners did not provide separate statistics for how many orders were for express pickup and how many were for in-seat delivery out of the larger total. Unlike the regular-season Levi’s Stadium app, which supports food and beverage delivery service to every seat, the Super Bowl app only offered drink delivery, per the wishes of the NFL.

Drink delivery order page on Super Bowl stadium app, including the $13 Bud Light.

Drink delivery order page on Super Bowl stadium app, including the $13 Bud Light.

According to VenueNext and the team, the average in-seat delivery time for drinks was 10 minutes. The top drink item ordered was Bud Light beer, while the top food item ordered via the app was chicken tenders, VenueNext said.

The Super Bowl 50 crowd also set Levi’s Stadium app records for video viewing, a stat helped perhaps by the availability of Super Bowl broadcast commercials, which fans at the game could watch via the app after they aired on TV. A full 55 percent of all app users either watched a video replay or Super Bowl commercials, the Niners said, 36 percent higher than the previous Levi’s Stadium record for video app views.

The app’s unique wayfinding feature, which uses the 2,000 beacons inside Levi’s Stadium to provide interactive maps, was used by 33 percent of the app users, according to the Niners. Fans could also use the app to purchase Super Bowl merchandise (which could be picked up at a concession stand or delivered to a suite), and according to the Niners all the mobile inventory was sold out before the game actually started, with an average order price of $212. Previously, the high-water average mark for app-ordered merchandise was $77 at a concert.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Levi’s Stadium crowd sets single-day Wi-Fi record with 10.1 TB used at Super Bowl 50

February 9, 2016 by

Broncos fans celebrate during Super Bowl 50 at Levi's Stadium. Photo: LevisStadium.com

Broncos fans celebrate during Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: LevisStadium.com

The 71,088 fans at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl 50 helped set a single-day record for Wi-Fi usage, with 10.1 terabytes of traffic on the stadium network, according to the NFL and the San Francisco 49ers network staff.

According to figures provided to us by Roger Hacker, senior manager for corporate communications for the Niners, the Super Bowl 50 crowd broke last year’s previous Wi-Fi record of 6.23 TB by halftime, and ended up with the 10.1 total after recording traffic from 6 a.m. local time until 11 p.m. Of that total, 9.3 TB was used by fans on the free Super Bowl network and another 453 GB was used by media at the game. The remainder of 370 GB was used on dedicated internal operations networks, Hacker said.

When the Wi-Fi number is added to the 15.9 TB of cellular data used at the game, the total of 26.0 TB of wireless traffic is fairly stunning, and perhaps a wake-up call to current network operators at large public venues or those designing new ones, signifying that the usage pattern for mobile data at big events is still growing rapidly, with no top yet in sight.

Levi’s Stadium also set other Super Bowl connectivity records, the first by recording 27,316 unique Wi-Fi users and 20,300 concurrent users (set at 5:55pm PT), topping the previous Super Bowl records from last year of 25,936 uniques and 17,322 concurrent users, respectively. The previous max for concurrent Wi-Fi users at Levi’s Stadium was 18,901 for the stadium’s inaugural regular season game vs. the Chicago Bears on Sept. 14, 2014. At that game, the stadium saw 3.3 TB of Wi-Fi use.

Also new records for sustained connectivity and average use

While we’re still waiting for news about usage of the Super Bowl stadium app, there are some more record-setting stats to note: According to the stadium IT figures, the big-bandwidth day also saw a Levi’s Stadium record for peak Wi-Fi bandwidth used at 3.67 Gbps — this number is the total amount of bandwidth going through the network at a single moment in time, in this case at 3:25 p.m. Pacific Time. The previous record was a mark of 3.55 Gbps set during the Coors Light Stadium Series hockey game on Feb. 21, 2015, a night when not everything went well on the stadium-network side.

Sunday at Super Bowl 50 there were no apparent big glitches, with some Twitter complainers noting that stadium network technicians were quick to respond to any mentions of network downtime. Bandwidth provider Comcast has an interesting infographic of game-day data use, and said the peaks in Wi-Fi network activity happened during the following list of Super Bowl moments:

The 10 moments that generated the most data traffic at the stadium included:

The introduction of the 50 Super Bowl MVPs

Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem and the Blue Angels flyover

The opening kickoff

The first coach’s challenge

Von Miller’s forced fumble and the first touchdown of the game by Malik Jackson

The halftime show with Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars

Von Miller’s second forced fumble and C.J. Anderson’s game-sealing touchdown

Peyton Manning exiting the field and Gary Kubiak’s Gatorade shower

The Lombardi Trophy presentation

Using apps to get back home and to hotels

For those who are interested, here is our updated list of the top five big-venue single-day Wi-Fi records. If anyone has one to add to this list, please let us know!

1) 10.1 TB — Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016
2) 6.23 TB — Super Bowl XLIX, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015
3) 5.7 TB — Alabama vs. Texas A&M, Kyle Field, College Station, Texas, Oct. 17, 2015
4) 4.93 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 12, 2015
5) 4.9 TB — College Football Playoff championship game, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Jan. 11, 2016

Congrats to the Niners, the NFL, Aruba, Comcast, and Brocade, as well as DAS Group Professionals, DAS gear supplier JMA Wireless and all the major cellular carriers, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint, who all made exceptional efforts to ensure great connectivity for fans across the board.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, DAS, Levi's Stadium, MSR Guides, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

UPDATE: Top 4 carriers combine for 15.9 TB of cellular data use at Super Bowl 50

February 7, 2016 by

New Verizon Wireless under-seat DAS antenna placement at Levi's Stadium. Photo: Verizon Wireless

New Verizon Wireless under-seat DAS antenna placement at Levi’s Stadium. Photo: Verizon Wireless

UPDATE, 2/8/16, 1:50 p.m. — We now have data totals in from all four of the major U.S. cellular carriers, and at Sunday’s Super Bowl 50, fans combined to use 15.9 terabytes of data on the networks in and directly around Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif.

Leading the way in usage was Verizon Wireless with a claim of 7 TB used by its customers; AT&T was next with 5.2 TB of claimed usage, followed by T-Mobile with a report of 2.1 TB, and Sprint with 1.6 TB. All the carriers’ numbers are well above figures from last year’s Super Bowl, where by our reporting Sprint, AT&T and Verizon had a combined 6.56 TB of cellular data consumed during the big game. (We did not have any T-Mobile reports from last year.)

For all the carriers, the data apparently includes both traffic on the in-stadium distributed antenna system (DAS) network was well as any macro deployments outside the stadium in parking lot areas. The final total was well over double the 6.56 TB of cellular traffic seen at last year’s big game in Glendale, Ariz. We are still waiting for Wi-Fi numbers from the Levi’s Stadium networking crew but it’s a good bet the 6.23 TB number from last year’s game will be eclipsed and we will have a new single-game Wi-Fi record as well so stay tuned.

Though we did hear and see some scattered reports of network connectivity issues during the Denver Broncos’ 24-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers it appears the upgrade of the DAS Group Professionals DAS install at Levi’s Stadium with its gear mainly provided by JMA Wireless stood up to the biggest-ever test of traffic. Congrats to all involved.

Thanks also to the Verizon and AT&T crews who supplied us with tweet reports and emails Sunday night, it made for some entertaining in-game stats. Some tweets embedded below.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Commentary: Super Bowl 50 and the pursuit of stadium network statistics

February 7, 2016 by

Dan Williams talks Wi-Fi while the Levi's Stadium new turf grows silently behind him in this 2014 photo. All photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR

Dan Williams talks Wi-Fi while the Levi’s Stadium new turf grows silently behind him in this 2014 photo. All photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR

If there’s one person who didn’t get enough recognition in the run-up to today’s Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium, it’s Dan Williams, the former director of information technology for the Niners and the man who was largely behind the venue’s celebrated network design.

From our standpoint, Williams deserves credit not just for leading the deployment of a stadium network that set the standard for the future of connected venues, but also for being among the first to openly talk about the network’s performance, sharing statistics both good and bad during his short stay at Levi’s Stadium. His honesty helped open the door wider on a potentially rich stream of information that we think could greatly assist stadium network professionals everywhere, especially if more teams followed his lead and shared stats openly and honestly.

But the pursuit of meaningful network statistics remains a challenging process on many levels, and it’s one that is ironically likely to get more confusing today as multiple parties are set to release live network statistics from Super Bowl 50 at Levi’s Stadium. Both Verizon Wireless and AT&T are planning to release live game-day performance figures for their cellular networks in and around the venue today, and we also expect to get Wi-Fi network statistics from the San Francisco 49ers, if not during the game then shortly thereafter.

Niners VP of technology Dan Williams attempts to fix my Droid 4 Wi-Fi issues (while trying not to laugh at the fact that I actually have and use a Droid 4) during the first preseason game at Levi's Stadium, July 2014

Niners VP of technology Dan Williams attempts to fix my Droid 4 Wi-Fi issues (while trying not to laugh at the fact that I actually have and use a Droid 4) during the first preseason game at Levi’s Stadium, July 2014

While we salute the change of heart (especially from Verizon) to make more information available, we’d also like to make a plea here for more independent access to venues on game day, so there can be an independent, objective voice on hand to counter the “sanitization” or simple non-reporting of less-impressive data that is almost sure to occur when interested parties are talking about themselves. But unless team, league or venue IT representatives band together and craft recognized standard methods of reporting the most-interesting data, we’re going to be left to sift through an ever-increasing mix of figures provided by those with their own agendas on what’s important and what should remain hidden. We’ll do our best on that front, but it’d be better if we had some industry-wide help.

Out of school behavior provides the most interesting info

Like many other stadium network professionals we’ve been fortunate enough to meet and spend time with — a list here that includes folks like the San Francisco Giant’s Bill Schlough, Madison Square Garden’s Katee Panter, the Dallas Cowboys’ John Winborn, and Chip Foley, formerly with the Barclays Center, among many others — Williams from the start showed a passion for making the network better, so it could better serve the fans who used it. Our first face to face meeting came during the first preseason football game at Levi’s Stadium, when I tweeted that I was having problems connecting to the Wi-Fi network. William’s response? An email asking me where I was sitting, followed quickly by an in-person visit. Now that’s customer support.

The outcome of that interaction was a revelation that the Levi’s Stadium Wi-Fi network hadn’t prepared adequately for older devices that were still using the 2.4 GHz unlicensed bands; what was cool to me was not just that I kind-of discovered it by accident, but that Williams and his team admitted it publicly, then went about fixing it. The combination of objective reporting and honest confirmation, I think, worked to the benefit of all. But not everybody sees such things in the same light.

Season opener issues: Picture of app late in the first half.

Season opener issues: Picture of app late in the first half.

For instance, during the rest of Levi’s Stadium’s first year of operation, Williams shared with us not just raw “tonnage” numbers of Wi-Fi use but also interesting stats from the app, like exact numbers of replays watched and in-seat food delivery orders. Since those numbers were kind of low — in the low thousands for food deliveries and a decline in replay use after the season opener — they weren’t necessarily flattering to the owners of the system, even if you took into account the fact that some of this (like delivering to any seat in a 68,500-seat stadium) had never been tried before. In the end, even Niners CEO Jed York admitted that some elements of the stadium hadn’t performed as expected, as the stats we’d been seeing had borne out.

After Williams left the team, the Niners took control of the network stats reporting and hugely trimmed down the list of things they were willing to report, though we would also note that Roger Hacker and the Niners communications team are still at the top of the list when it comes to consistent, repeated reporting of the network stats they feel comfortable talking about. When there are big numbers to report, all goes well because everyone loves to talk about systems that deliver for fans as promised. But I can also tell you that when things go south, so does a lot of the honest communication, an unfortunate if understandable situation.

Who will tell you when things don’t work?

For Levi’s Stadium, the darkest night for the network came on Feb. 21, 2015, at the NHL’s Coors Light Stadium Series outdoor hockey game between the San Jose Sharks and the Los Angeles Kings. In what has easily been our highest-traffic post ever, we described in detail some of the big problems that surfaced that evening, which included breakdowns of the delivery service, the Wi-Fi network, the light rail boarding process, and part of Verizon’s cellular network. What’s funny about our reporting is that I hadn’t planned on “working” that night — I had bought full-price tickets for myself and my brother, and as longtime hockey nuts we proudly wore our Blackhawks jerseys to represent our hometown team.

Screen shot of Levi's Stadium app during hockey game issues

Screen shot of Levi’s Stadium app during hockey game issues

My plan was just to relax, take CalTrain and VTA to the stadium and show off the network by ordering us food and drink to be delivered to our seats, but when some obvious and incomprehensible network breakdowns were evident, I went into reporting mode, and eventually found out mostly what went wrong. My point here is that, without independent, objective reporting live from the scene, it’s doubtful that parties with vested interests — like cellular providers or owners of the stadium network — are going to honestly and quickly talk about breakdowns or failures. Yet it’s always the lessons learned from problem times that help the most; my worry is that with more “sponsored” or in-house statistics flooding the zone, the more valuable objective data will get lost or devalued.

How can this be fixed? For starters, teams and leagues that spend an inordinate amount of time and money promoting technical features of stadiums should at the very least credential some reporters who are interested in following up to see how said deployments perform. While we’re grateful for the few forward-thinking organizations that have given us the same access that sports reporters get, more often than not our requests for media access to events are denied.

Since we can’t be at every stadium, we also rely on teams, venues and network operators to provide stats when possible, and we encourage more participants to join the growing list who do provide us with network performance figures, like the IT teams at Nebraska and Texas A&M, among others. While we have also drawn some industry criticism for our headline focus on such stats, our response is that the more data we get and the more opinions on which data matter, the better we will get over time. We also encourage any and all interested parties to attend the SEAT Conference this summer in Las Vegas, where you can be sure we will have discussions about this topic and how to make stats reporting more useful for those to whom it matters most — the professionals who install and operate these networks so that fans can stay connected at events.

MSR on the scene at Sports Authority Field at Mile High in January

MSR on the scene at Sports Authority Field at Mile High in January

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apps, AT&T, Dallas Cowboys, DAS, Denver Broncos, Denver Broncos, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, Xfinity Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

NFL’s CIO sees Levi’s Stadium as leader in connected-stadium future

February 5, 2016 by

NFL CIO Michelle McKenna-Doyle (Twitter profile photo)

NFL CIO Michelle McKenna-Doyle (Twitter profile photo)

Even though Sunday’s Super Bowl 50 has long meant a packed schedule for her, NFL CIO Michelle McKenna-Doyle is happiest this week about what she and her team didn’t have to do — namely, they didn’t need to supervise any technology makeovers to Levi’s Stadium since the well-connected venue was “big game” ready from the moment it opened its doors.

“This is the first Super Bowl since I’ve been here where the league didn’t have to do significant [technology] upgrades,” said McKenna-Doyle in a phone interview. In a way, McKenna-Doyle has seen the future of connected stadiums rise from the ground up, since after joining the league as its chief information officer in 2012 she was able to watch Levi’s Stadium get built, one of the first large venues where connectivity was not an afterthought. With several new NFL stadiums slated to open in the near future, McKenna-Doyle said infrastructures like Levi’s will become the rule, not the exception, as fans and the sport itself increase the need for more connectivity.

“It [connectivity] is as important as electricity and water,” McKenna-Doyle said. “The game is more connected, the fans are more connected. No longer is the idea that you go inside a concrete bowl and are disconnected from the world.”

Super Bowls, stadium apps and staying out of the way

But even as she talks about the future of a game-day experience that relies more heavily on mobile, digital technology, McKenna-Doyle is also trying to make sure that technology works for the benefit of all, and isn’t just there for technology’s own sake. Proof of this thinking is evident in her office’s call to remove the in-seat food delivery feature from the regular Levi’s Stadium app, instead only allowing beverages to be available for the stadium’s unique deliver-to-any-seat service.

“That was our call,” said McKenna-Doyle about the decision to remove food delivery from the app. According to McKenna-Doyle, her staff monitored the service during home games for the San Francisco 49ers and saw that food delivery could at times cause “lots of foot traffic” as runners delivered orders.

“It (food delivery) is a cool option, but we saw it could cause a lot of traffic, with people going up and down stairs and passing food down the rows,” McKenna-Doyle said. “Since the Super Bowl is such a special moment, we didn’t want it [food deliveries] to be a distraction.”

Putting a Super Bowl game-day app together is a bit of art, as the league tries to blend what’s available in the existing venue app with the specific Super Bowl needs. What she likes a lot about the VenueNext-built regular Levi’s Stadium app is its focus on fan services, such as parking, ticketing and wayfinding, in addition to being able to order food ahead of time for “express window” pickup.

And though the Levi’s Stadium and the Super Bowl app will also support instant replay video, McKenna-Doyle thinks more app use may come from fans wanting to find out how to get around. At last year’s big game, McKenna-Doyle said that while half the fans in the stadium logged in through the game-day app, only 20 percent of that number used the app to watch replays. “Mostly, they used the app to check out what was going on,” McKenna-Doyle said. She also expects stadium-app use to be surpassed on Sunday by use of social media apps like Facebook and SnapChat, and by the inevitable Apple iOS and app updates, which happen because many fans have their devices set to run updates whenever they connect to Wi-Fi.

Wi-Fi that’s great becoming the standard

Last year at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., and the year before at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the league needed to oversee extensive Wi-Fi upgrades so that those venues would be ready for Super Bowl traffic. And even though the league still expects a jump from last year’s total of 6.23 terabytes used on Wi-Fi (a big step up from the 3.2 TB mark a year earlier), McKenna-Doyle is confident the Levi’s Stadium wireless network is ready for the game.

“I was at WrestleMania and that event certainly put the network through its paces,” McKenna-Doyle said of the event that holds the Levi’s Stadium top mark for single-day Wi-Fi use, at 4.5 TB. “I think we will surpass that [total] on Sunday,” she said.

From an overall league perspective, McKenna-Doyle said that with only a few stadiums without Wi-Fi (mainly those with ownership or location issues, like St. Louis and Oakland) she’s “very pleased with the progress” made over the past couple years. With new stadiums in Atlanta and Minnesota seeking to push the connectivity bar higher, and older stadiums getting upgrades, McKenna-Doyle said that league-wide there is full buy-in about the need for fan-facing connectivity.

“We have great support from the owners, and they know that it’s not good enough to have first-generation [networks],” McKenna-Doyle said.

For next year’s Super Bowl LI, it will be back to stadium Wi-Fi upgrades, as Houston’s NRG Stadium finally gets its first Wi-Fi network installed. That job (which won’t start until after this spring’s NCAA Men’s Final Four, which also takes place at NRG Stadium) may make McKenna-Doyle long for Levi’s Stadium, where good infrastructure goes beyond the fan-facing elements of the Wi-Fi, DAS and video boards inside the bowl.

“Levi’s Stadium overall has just so many things that make everything easier,” she said, including unseen elements like power and cabling for on-field and broadcast operations. “Just where the power is, how the cables are all protected. It’s fantastic.”

Filed Under: Apps, DAS, Levi's Stadium, NFL, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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