Free Wi-Fi Networks Coming to Pro Sports Arenas

Adapting to new technology trends is often expensive to achieve, but it’s looking more like the pro sports arenas are willing to pay out the big bucks to keep their fans happy and coming back out to the stadiums.

"Wi-Fi is where the technology is going, whether you are on a train, in a coffee shop or sitting on a couch," Smolenski said. "People want access and the ability to do the things they want, which might be to look up a stat or have a restaurant review at their fingertips. Carrying that expectation into a football game was really the driver for us."

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The thought of that just is crazy. 30 - 40,000+ people in a single location all sharing wifi. The bandwidth needs alone would be crazy. Then on top of that to be able to support that many people via all those APs and not have lots of interference... that would be a very crazy thing to solve. I understand why they had to special build the APs.

Exavior said:

The thought of that just is crazy. 30 - 40,000+ people in a single location all sharing wifi. The bandwidth needs alone would be crazy. Then on top of that to be able to support that many people via all those APs and not have lots of interference... that would be a very crazy thing to solve. I understand why they had to special build the APs.

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40,000 people are not simultaneously going to decide they want to use Wi-Fi at a sporting event. A few thousand people at most are going to probably go on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc and post some pics and update their status. The remaining 90-95% are going to watch, drink, cheer, and not be self absorbed for a few hours.

BryanSTG said:

40,000 people are not simultaneously going to decide they want to use Wi-Fi at a sporting event. A few thousand people at most are going to probably go on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc and post some pics and update their status. The remaining 90-95% are going to watch, drink, cheer, and not be self absorbed for a few hours.

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This.. Also why the hell would anyone want to browse the net or do anything at a game they PAID tickets for. People should enjoy being out with friends/family.. not worrying about the internet.

I work for Athletics at a major northeast university and we just wired up the football stadium (seats 109,000, you can figure out which one) for free wifi. AT&T paid for it all to have their name stamped on it at every turn. Fans, theoretically, get replays, stats, highlights, news, etc all in one place as well as the ability to order food (and have it delivered to their seat! [for a fee of course]) right from their phone. We target not all 109,000 seats but around 20,000-30,000 concurrent sessions. I believe there were 300-400 APs in the stadium, controlled by cisco controllers so that no matter where you are, you're always connected.

We also just built a new ice arena seating 6,000 or so with free public wifi, although this one funded by Athletics and not branded by any corporation. There will eventually be the same service offered during a hockey game as the football game.

It really *is* the future. There has to be a way to lure fans into the game for an experience that feels new and fresh, something to get them going to the game, rather than sitting home and watching on tv.

40k people use less bandwidth than you think if it's mobile traffic.

We have like 30k people on one of our corporate campuses, and the traffic is like 130mbps sustained during peak hours. Bursts are pretty low since the clients can't max out gigabit ports like a desktop could.

WIFI is a necessity. Anyone who goes to sporting events knows what happens to the cellular spectrum. 5 bars of nothing. Too much traffic to do anything but decide how to not talk over each other... which never happens.

This is why companies like AT&T will pay for or supply these venue wifi systems.

Also, I believe they released the WIFI metrics from the Superbowl.

100k people only used 400GB of data in around 5 hours. Not impossible at all when it comes to bandwidth, all that matters is interference and properly setting up the wireless APs/spectrum (hardest part to do right, very few folks/companies can do it)

I wasn't part of the installation, but i know that the channels that the access points use are staggered in such a way to maximize their efficiency. It took a few weeks to get it to an acceptable level. Certain sections of the stadium had really bad signal while others were perfect. I think AT&T claims 98% usability now.

We also spent some big bucks to have a DAS put in by AT&T so that cellular calls were possible. Verizon will be renting the bandwidth soon. As of now, they still clog the system and can't get a call out during an event.

Wait, sports arenas currently don't have Wi-Fi? Laugh...

Dion said:

This.. Also why the hell would anyone want to browse the net or do anything at a game they PAID tickets for. People should enjoy being out with friends/family.. not worrying about the internet.

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As the article stated, it is people posting online durng games and concerts. so facebook, twitter, and stuff like that. People uploading videos. For sports watching replies, viewing stats... ordering food.

While it would make sense that you should just be watching the game. People can't drive without being online, being at a game isn't going to change that.

Dion said:

This.. Also why the hell would anyone want to browse the net or do anything at a game they PAID tickets for. People should enjoy being out with friends/family.. not worrying about the internet.

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Hurray spent $400 on two tickets on seats where I can make out which team is which and I got interwebs! #atthegame

Then again I never understood why people would pay $30 to park at the stadium and then just sit outside with their grill and watch the game on one of those portable TVs.

Megalith said:

Wait, sports arenas currently don't have Wi-Fi? Laugh...

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We are in the age where the general public funds the development of new stadiums and any improvements within them. Most ball clubs don't want to spend the money for it on their own, so unless a company wants to sponsor it (like AT&T and Verizon has in several stadiums) or a city decides to put taxes towards it it's not likely going to happen.

The need for it is growing. I know at least with the Georgia Dome, the max they've had is around 9,000 users, and the capacity is around 15k. Most people don't use it for video but it's starting to take off now that the NFL is doing things like instant replay, behind the scenes, and clips from other games at some stadiums. a DAS can handle it now, but maybe for not too much longer.

Glad to see they're doing something with the hundreds of dollars they charge per seat. I think attending one NFL game was enough to hit my lifetime allotment for ticket spending, and it was only a preseason game.

Super-D said:

Glad to see they're doing something with the hundreds of dollars they charge per seat. I think attending one NFL game was enough to hit my lifetime allotment for ticket spending, and it was only a preseason game.

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Most of the Wi-Fi networks are paid for by Carriers, not the stadium.

The high price comes from the NFL and the stadiums being greedy.