Johannesburg, 07 Feb 2013
While large venues, such as concert halls, convention centres and soccer, rugby and cricket stadiums, can attract tens - if not hundreds - of thousands of music lovers, delegates, spectators and fans, they are challenging environments for today's legion of mobile phone and tablet users who make up a large majority of the attendees.
The fan experience is often blighted by poor cellphone reception and spoiled by a lack of WiFi facilities or, frustratingly, WiFi facilities unable to cope with high data traffic volumes, says Martin May, regional director at Enterasys Networks.
The density of devices within reach of any WiFi network has a major performance impact. The spectrum is a shared resource, so the more devices using it, the less of it is available for an individual user to consume.
As fans' complaints escalate, along with demands for improved WiFi network access at sporting venues, so many stadium owners are looking to improve their WiFi facilities.
However, most venues have been unable to provide the network capacity necessary to adequately service their guests, because, up to now, high-density, high-bandwidth WiFi applications have represented unchartered territory for many IT industry vendors and their resellers.
Now, spurred by the demands of sports fans for ever-greater access to venue- and event-specific content, fast, secure, reliable, high-density WiFi solutions have become a reality, available from vendors such as Enterasys Networks.
What's more, these solutions can be combined with innovative, media-rich publishing platforms designed to generate advertising-based revenue through location-relevant information and marketing messages delivered to the mobile devices of fans in an engaging, non-intrusive, content-controlled environment.
The networks on which these solutions run can also provide fans with WiFi access to the Internet, so they can watch videos, check scores, listen to music or simply surf the Web from their mobile devices.
With new content services, sports fans can have access to a near-infinite range of scores, statistics, video, social media and other pertinent content, all essential for an exceptional in-venue user experience.
Furthermore, users are able to upload rich content such as photos and videos from their seats. Now, new-generation services are possible, such as instant play-back and behind-the-scenes video footage.
At any event where 3G cellular services are unreliable or unavailable for Internet access, WiFi can present an attractive alternative solution, transforming smartphones and tablets into valuable engagement and communication tools.
From an advertising perspective, this new digital real estate engages fans with contracted brands, complementing digital signage, video, programmes, guides and printed advertising.
Modern WiFi deployments have the flexibility to deploy services, content and advertising to meet the event demographics without sacrificing performance or capacity.
They can enable venues to sell additional advertising space on splash pages and to distribute push-marketing campaigns to fans, based on their physical locations within the venue. For example, high-end-focused ads go to those in premium seating areas, while family-oriented campaigns are routed to those in areas reserved for families.
This level of user experience is simply not possible through the cellular network due to limited bandwidth, cell coverage and the high cost associated with limited data plans.
It has also not been possible because most stadiums and high-capacity locations are far from perfect for placing wireless access points (APs). And it has been difficult to match the requirement for small radio (WiFi) cells while contending with billboards, screens and other architectural constraints.
Now, with access to new-generation advances such as spectrum analysis and dynamic RF (radio frequency) management, the technology is available within each wireless AP to perform spectral load balancing, which addresses these issues.
This mitigates the effects of non-WiFi interference and insures high performance, low latency and client load balancing.
In public infrastructures (concert halls, convention centres and stadiums), as with any installation, one of the most important considerations is security. The infrastructure must enforce security isolation between users, limiting the access of users to other users' traffic and to other services that may share any underlying networks, such as maintenance systems or video surveillance networks.
Fortunately, the latest high-density WiFi solutions provide the highest levels of security and control. They are able to deliver intrusion-detection protection with features such as the automation of the discovery, configuration and optimisation of APs - and the content that go through them. The result is a secure environment in which cutting-edge performance, reliability and peace-of-mind for mobile device users are the overriding concerns.
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