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Super Bowl Gets Wi-Fi Network, Will be Checking for Rogue Hotspots

February 1, 2013 by 1 Comment

There’s a new Wi-Fi network in the Superdome, and they will be checking you at the door to make sure you’re not screwing it up with a rogue hotspot or a camera that is broadcasting a Wi-Fi signal.

You can read an excellent article at Ars Technica, which breaks down the new Verizon-Cisco network inside the stadium. Verizon is quietly getting more involved in stadium networks, but is not publicizing their deployments — maybe because they don’t want everyone asking for the sweetheart deals Verizon may be giving NFL stadiums? Remember, Verizon and the NFL have an agreement over mobile coming up for re-negotiation soon… maybe Verizon is trying to win favor with Rog and the boys by putting in Wi-Fi for free? Stay tuned or tell us what you hear… the Wi-Fi whisperer is listening.

Filed Under: AT&T, Cisco, NFL, NFL Mobile, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

NFL has Major Digital Push on for Super Bowl

January 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment

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In the past it has seemed that MLB has had a lead on the NFL when it came to using alternative delivery mechanisms such as the Internet but the NFL has a huge bradth and depth of offering leading up to this weekend’s game

You can start with two areas that the average fan s probably well acquainted- The NFL.Com and Superbowl.com web sites that will provide the expected analysis, human interest stories and more prior to and during the game. Included will be live streaming of player and coach interviews all week long in a program called NFL.com Live: Superbowl XLVII that will be available on both sites.

Two additional live streaming events will be the annual NFL Commissioner Super Bowl press conference, and probably of more interest to the average fan, the unveiling of the 2013 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class, something that is always good for some dispute among fans.

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Mobile Users have Plenty of Options
For the mobile user there is also a set of options available from NFL Digital Media if they want to stay connected leading up to the game, as well as features that will help fans that are in New Orleans for the game or just to experience the Super Bowl atmosphere. For Verizon subscribers they can also watch the game on their phone.

A user can download the Super Bowl XLVII Digital Program on both Android and iOS run devices that feature the official game program in all of its 264 page glory and features the scouting reports, player and coach features and other information that will be found in the program that is available at the game.

The NFL’12 app is also available for free download for Android and iOS devices. This free app provides all of the data and stats from the past season as well as live scores and stats from the game. A user can purchase the optional Audio Pass that will enable them to listen to the game on their mobile device.

For a guide to official Super Bowl events as well as a handy tourist guide to New Orleans night life, restaurants and other sights there is the Super Bowl XLVII Mobile Guide, presented by Verizon. It includes the ability to get push notifications for events.

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Then for the fan that needs to be in touch constantly here is the NFL Fan Pass, which launches this morning. This will provide actual access to the players enabling fans to post question and it will host a also host a Google+ Hangout on Media Day connecting fans with their favorite players and NFL reporters. It will also feature exclusive interviews and videos of not only players but also celebrities that will be attending the game.

There are a host of other features that the NFL will be delivering, from game rewind that will show following the conclusion of the game. You can follow events of twitter at @superbowl and there will also be a range of podcasts available during the week.

It really looks like the NFL is covering all of its digital bases, if I can mix metaphors, and is really reaching out to fans in a solid, proactive way so that if you miss all of the action on Sunday the blame will sit on you.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, iOS 6, iPad, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NFL, NFL Mobile, Super Bowl, Tablets, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: , ,

Verizon and the NFL: Pals Now, but What About the Future?

January 9, 2013 by 2 Comments

NFL commish Roger Goodell at CES. Credit: Paul Kapustka, Mobile Sports Report

On the surface the appearance of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell at the Verizon CES keynote was all happiness and light, as chairman Rog traded pleasantries with Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam. But if you listened between the lines there was a bit of a disconnect, making us here at MSR wonder how in sync the two current partners will be in the near future.

The two areas where Verizon and the NFL seem headed in different directions are in mobile content delivery and in-stadium wireless networks, two huge matters for both entities. Currently Verizon is the NFL’s exclusive partner for providing mobile access to live NFL games, available only on Verizon devices via the NFLMobile app. Verizon currently can show live games on Thursday nights, Sunday nights and Monday Night Football, as well as the RedZone channel, which shows a lot of live content from games all around the league. Verizon paid something on the order of $700 million for the deal, which is said to expire after next season.

The unexpected appearance of Goodell during McAdam’s speech led us to initially believe there was some renewal announcement in the air — but instead Goodell left without talking about the future of NFL Mobile. Our guess for most of this season is that the NFL wants to take full control of its mobile/digital content offerings and sell them to fans at a steep cost, like Major League Baseball does. The silence in the presence of Verizon’s CEO can’t be good news for the phone carrier.

Likewise, Goodell has said he wants all stadiums in the league to install high-capacity Wi-Fi networks, to better serve fans with mobile content, social media and other connectivity options while they’re at the games. McAdam’s company, unlike its main competitor AT&T, has not made public Wi-Fi a priority and McAdam talked at CES about his hopes to use the company’s new 4G LTE video broadcast tools to help bring fans mobile coverage of events like the Super Bowl. He even made a pass at Goodell, telling the commish on stage that “we’d love to broadcast the big game [Super Bowl] in the 2014 time frame.” Goodell didn’t bite and didn’t comment. That doesn’t sound like much of a deal or even a promise. Akward stuff for a CEO to be floating, in front of thousands of witnesses.

Though we haven’t yet delved fully into how Verizon’s LTE video broadcast technology works, we’re skeptical that it can handle the big traffic demands of a full stadium of mobile users — more than half of whom are likely not Verizon customers and therefore unable to use any Verizon network technologies. Our guess is that the NFL will keep looking to Wi-Fi to solve stadium network issues — leaving Verizon on the sideline.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, NFL, Super Bowl Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Wednesday Wi-Fi Whispers: Lots of Networking at F1 Race in Austin

November 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

If you are a fan of F1 racing you might be headed down to Austin, Texas this weekend for the Austin Grand Prix at the new Circuit of The Americas course. From what we can deduce, it should be a good place to connect with your mobile device, since we have seen two press releases over the past weeks talking about wireless deployments at the track. But will there be free fan Wi-Fi? Probably, but we’re not sure yet.

We’re not sure because the main press release — from our friends at AT&T — talks mainly about how Ma Bell wired this place for high capacity data transfers, which we are guessing means lots of fiber for set video camera positions and the whole boatload of car-performance stats that regularly fly around the ether at any big-time motorsports event. From the sounds of it the new AT&T network should support fan Wi-Fi — but unfortunately neither AT&T nor the course/race website makes any mention of whether or not there will be free Wi-Fi for fans.

In case you’re wondering, we think such information omissions are a big mistake. But we are checking with AT&T and the race folks to see what’s up.

In the meantime, if you are a Verizon customer your cell phone should also work better at the track, thanks to an independent Distributed Antenna System (DAS) infrastructure put in place by our friends at ExteNet, a company that has built similar deployments at other sporting stadiums, like the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn. According to ExteNet its DAS will improve cellular reception around the track, mainly for Verizon customers this year since Verizon is the only cellular provider using the ExteNet solution right now. Since ExteNet builds independent networks — which means any provider can sign up and pay ExteNet to carry signals from their customers — other providers like Sprint or T-Mobile may join up for future events. Our guess is that AT&T won’t have to. The cool thing is, fans should be able to share photos and videos of the F1 racers as quickly as possible. And that is a good thing.

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

Microsoft Moves Windows 8 into Smartphone Territory

October 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Microsoft continued its move into a more digital, mobile software provider today with the debut of its Windows Phone 8 smartphone operating systems, offering a very much revamped OS along with a number of its partners’ latest offerings.

Microsoft is looking to leverage changes it has made in its operating system , with its Windows 8 OS introduced just last week, and will now be providing a similar look and feel with the same technology core used in both platforms.

The look and feel of the OS appears to be very different from what is offered from its rivals- no static icons but rather what Microsoft is calling Live Tiles, a technology that has the apps that you use in a tile format.

The nice thing about Live Tiles is that a user can customize the startup page and place the apps and functions that they want right there, rather than being stuck with a large number of predetermined apps.

A key attribute of many of the apps is that they are live, that when you look at the phone or start it up an app such as Facebook will be up to date, even if it is still in lock screen mode.. They are also sizable with three formats and you are provided with 20 options for colors.

Microsoft has also been working on developing a much healthier app ecosystem, an area that it has received criticism in the past. Its Windows Phone Store now has 120,000 apps including most of the top rated. In the future it will have Pandora, the leading Internet radio service, in early 2013 with one year of ad-free music.

There is a feature called Data Sense that helps prevent you from going over your data plan by automating and in some cases delaying tasks. It can compress images, or defer tasks until free Wi-Fi is available. It can monitor how much data apps use and inform you when you are nearing the limit. This is used in conjunction with carriers and Verizon is expected to be the first to support it.

One clever piece of software is it’s “Kid’s Corner” an app that enables children to play games on the phone without deleting information, ordering apps or calling Peru.

Along with the Windows Phone 8 OS, Microsoft had a trio of partners delivering new phones. There will be several options available from Nokia, Samsung and HTC, that will go on sale in November at AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon in the U.S., as well as at carriers and retailers around the world.

The move comes just hours after Google announced an update to Android, now at 4.2, along with a new Nexus phone and a revamped Nexus 7 and a new Nexus 1 tablet. Apple had a new iPhone out a few weeks back and a new iPad Mini last week.

I think that, depending on real world performance when the phones are available, Microsoft has a strong story simply because all of its products- PC OS, tablet OS and smartphone OS are compatible with each other and using Microsoft’s SkyDrive cloud service a user can start projects on one device and finish them seamlessly on another- a compelling usage model IMHO.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, AT&T, Facebook, Google, HTC, iOS, iOS 6, iPad, iPhone, Microsoft, Nokia, Samsung, Smartphone, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, Windows 8 Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

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

July 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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