(04-10-2014 09:19 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  I'm still waiting for the WIFI to be worth a crap in the FEF.

baby steps.

Wonder how big that pipe needs to be to support 18,000 people and mass media who want access to it at the same time?

(04-10-2014 10:53 AM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 09:19 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  I'm still waiting for the WIFI to be worth a crap in the FEF.

baby steps.

Wonder how big that pipe needs to be to support 18,000 people and mass media who want access to it at the same time?

This is the issue. It's the same problem as a hotel where everyone comes back to the hotel at 5:30 or so and starts using the connection at the same time - meanwhile the real priority is with the backoffice network taking credit cards, etc. Wi-Fi isn't usually the problem.

I've had a great experience with the wifi at FEF this season. Every trip down there I easily connected to "GrizzFi" wifi network and it worked great, even during sold out games.

(04-09-2014 10:50 PM)UofMark Wrote:  I love the old school 'hustle stat boards' they brought over from The Pyramid. Simple and basic. In fact I wish they'd add 2 more to the corners that don't have them. Hope those stay for sure.

I agree, I totally love the stats on those boards. It's so easy to just look up and see how each team is doing when it comes to ft, rbs, steals, shooting percentage.

I've been in several arenas and ours is one of the few that I remember that has one of them.

(04-10-2014 11:42 AM)stratecashomie Wrote:  

(04-09-2014 10:50 PM)UofMark Wrote:  I love the old school 'hustle stat boards' they brought over from The Pyramid. Simple and basic. In fact I wish they'd add 2 more to the corners that don't have them. Hope those stay for sure.

I agree, I totally love the stats on those boards. It's so easy to just look up and see how each team is doing when it comes to ft, rbs, steals, shooting percentage.

I've been in several arenas and ours is one of the few that I remember that has one of them.

Smu's gives a great breakdown. It's above both ends of the court. Makes it easy to keep track of your teams efficiency. Let's just say that 2nd half this year was ineffecient.

(04-10-2014 11:02 AM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 10:53 AM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 09:19 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  I'm still waiting for the WIFI to be worth a crap in the FEF.

baby steps.

Wonder how big that pipe needs to be to support 18,000 people and mass media who want access to it at the same time?

This is the issue. It's the same problem as a hotel where everyone comes back to the hotel at 5:30 or so and starts using the connection at the same time - meanwhile the real priority is with the backoffice network taking credit cards, etc. Wi-Fi isn't usually the problem.

The circuit size isn't that big of a problem. We run 20k office workers through a gig pipe and average 450Mb during the noon hump on most day. With mobile devices the bandwidth demands are going to be less. Bandwidth get's cheaper every year.

The real problem in an arena is wireless spectrum available compared to the number of access points needed, combined with the open environment. There are only a limited number of discrete channels available in the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz spectrum used by 802.11 (a/b/g/n) wifi. The simple example is 802.11 B and G on the 2.4Ghz spectrum. Out of the I think 12 channels, you can only use three at one time without stepping on each other. Channel 1 overlaps with channel 2 and 3, channel 2 overlaps with channel 1,3,and 4, and so on. Channels 1,6, and 11 are discrete channels, there is no overlap. There are differences with the 5GHz spectrum and 802.11n, but the same basic problems are there and this is an easy example.

There is a finite amount of bandwidth available on the spectrum. With 802.11G you have three discrete channels, and 54Mb per channel. This is a "shared media" network. Only one device can talk at a time, the more devices that are on the network the more of that spectrum is eaten up by overhead while clients repeatedly announce that they need to transmit and wait for a reply from the AP.

In an office install we can put in hundreds of access points with minimal spectrum interference / overlap. An office has walls, floors, and furniture to absorb the wireless signal. These environmental factors absorb the RF energy and help keep the access points across the campus from interfering with each other. Using the 802.11b/g example if we use channels 1,6,11 as we lay out the access points we can minimize the interference between overlapping RF spectrum.

In an arena (seating area) like the fedexform there are no environmental factors to absorb the RF energy. It is a wide open bowl, and access points and clients on one side will be interfering with every other access point on the same or an overlapping channel. With our 802.11b/g example not matter how many access points you put out you would effectively only have 54Mb (theoretical) times three channels of available bandwidth. These three discrete channels can't handle a thousand clients, the entire available bandwidth would be completely filled with clients announcing they need to transmit.

This is a very simple example with early 2000s technology, and there have been a ton of advancements in this area (like dynamic channel and power assignment for controller based access points) but the same basic problem with available RF spectrum will always be there. I haven't done wireless in a while (5 years) but the same basic problems should be the same.

Cliff Notes : Limited capacity of RF spectrum in a wide open space, no matter how many access points you throw at it.

(04-10-2014 11:02 AM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 10:53 AM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 09:19 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  I'm still waiting for the WIFI to be worth a crap in the FEF.

baby steps.

Wonder how big that pipe needs to be to support 18,000 people and mass media who want access to it at the same time?

This is the issue. It's the same problem as a hotel where everyone comes back to the hotel at 5:30 or so and starts using the connection at the same time - meanwhile the real priority is with the backoffice network taking credit cards, etc. Wi-Fi isn't usually the problem.

Most hotels have the guest internet(usually through a third party contractor Guesttek, etc) and the office internet running off two different systems. Just an FYI.

(04-10-2014 02:03 PM)aTxTIGER Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 11:02 AM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 10:53 AM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 09:19 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  I'm still waiting for the WIFI to be worth a crap in the FEF.

baby steps.

Wonder how big that pipe needs to be to support 18,000 people and mass media who want access to it at the same time?

This is the issue. It's the same problem as a hotel where everyone comes back to the hotel at 5:30 or so and starts using the connection at the same time - meanwhile the real priority is with the backoffice network taking credit cards, etc. Wi-Fi isn't usually the problem.

Most hotels have the guest internet(usually through a third party contractor Guesttek, etc) and the office internet running off two different systems. Just an FYI.

Well aware and I'm well versed in all of the HSIA players at most major hotels (Marriott, Starwood, IHG, and Hilton)

(04-10-2014 02:03 PM)U_of_Elvis Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 11:02 AM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 10:53 AM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 09:19 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  I'm still waiting for the WIFI to be worth a crap in the FEF.

baby steps.

Wonder how big that pipe needs to be to support 18,000 people and mass media who want access to it at the same time?

This is the issue. It's the same problem as a hotel where everyone comes back to the hotel at 5:30 or so and starts using the connection at the same time - meanwhile the real priority is with the backoffice network taking credit cards, etc. Wi-Fi isn't usually the problem.

The circuit size isn't that big of a problem. We run 20k office workers through a gig pipe and average 450Mb during the noon hump on most day. With mobile devices the bandwidth demands are going to be less. Bandwidth get's cheaper every year.

The real problem in an arena is wireless spectrum available compared to the number of access points needed, combined with the open environment. There are only a limited number of discrete channels available in the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz spectrum used by 802.11 (a/b/g/n) wifi. The simple example is 802.11 B and G on the 2.4Ghz spectrum. Out of the I think 12 channels, you can only use three at one time without stepping on each other. Channel 1 overlaps with channel 2 and 3, channel 2 overlaps with channel 1,3,and 4, and so on. Channels 1,6, and 11 are discrete channels, there is no overlap. There are differences with the 5GHz spectrum and 802.11n, but the same basic problems are there and this is an easy example.

There is a finite amount of bandwidth available on the spectrum. With 802.11G you have three discrete channels, and 54Mb per channel. This is a "shared media" network. Only one device can talk at a time, the more devices that are on the network the more of that spectrum is eaten up by overhead while clients repeatedly announce that they need to transmit and wait for a reply from the AP.

In an office install we can put in hundreds of access points with minimal spectrum interference / overlap. An office has walls, floors, and furniture to absorb the wireless signal. These environmental factors absorb the RF energy and help keep the access points across the campus from interfering with each other. Using the 802.11b/g example if we use channels 1,6,11 as we lay out the access points we can minimize the interference between overlapping RF spectrum.

In an arena (seating area) like the fedexform there are no environmental factors to absorb the RF energy. It is a wide open bowl, and access points and clients on one side will be interfering with every other access point on the same or an overlapping channel. With our 802.11b/g example not matter how many access points you put out you would effectively only have 54Mb (theoretical) times three channels of available bandwidth. These three discrete channels can't handle a thousand clients, the entire available bandwidth would be completely filled with clients announcing they need to transmit.

This is a very simple example with early 2000s technology, and there have been a ton of advancements in this area (like dynamic channel and power assignment for controller based access points) but the same basic problem with available RF spectrum will always be there. I haven't done wireless in a while (5 years) but the same basic problems should be the same.

Cliff Notes : Limited capacity of RF spectrum in a wide open space, no matter how many access points you throw at it.

While you're right in that there inherit issues with RF in a place like the forum, most of your examples are based on old technology and advancements such as MiMo (3x3/3x2/4x2/4x4) minimize some of the limitations of RF spectrum. But to your point, RF is still a shared medium - ATT stadium uses unlicensed (actually licensed from the FCC by ATT) RF to serve 30k+ users - the good news is that the FCC just released 100MHz of unlicensed spectrum 2 weeks ago and we should start seeing some of the benefits of that very soon, especially in the 802.11ac AP space.

The grizz issue is probably also RF related but I can tell you I've seen their egress guest router during a game (although admittedly that was a year or so ago) and it was getting hammered.

I read an article a few months ago about the new Levi's stadium in San Francisco as they were considering their Wifi needs while building the stadium. They consulted other NFL, NBA and MLB facilities and found most of them were just waiting for the next generation of technology before they invested on upgrading their existing infrastructure.

The device demand is growing quicker than the infrastructure can keep up with. Devices cheap and ever changing, infrastructure expensive.

I can't ever get a decent signal in Cowboy (AT&T) stadium. No problem at American Airlines Arena.

The interesting part is that five or six years ago, this wasn't even a topic of conversation.

Never had an issue this year at the Forum on GrizzFi, no matter the crowd size. I sit upper level.

(04-10-2014 03:12 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  I read an article a few months ago about the new Levi's stadium in San Francisco as they were considering their Wifi needs while building the stadium. They consulted other NFL, NBA and MLB facilities and found most of them were just waiting for the next generation of technology before they invested on upgrading their existing infrastructure.

The device demand is growing quicker than the infrastructure can keep up with. Devices cheap and ever changing, infrastructure expensive.

I can't ever get a decent signal in Cowboy (AT&T) stadium. No problem at American Airlines Arena.

The interesting part is that five or six years ago, this wasn't even a topic of conversation.

Hotels have a statistic of 3.5 devices per person when they are doing planning. It's insane. And the problem with 802.11 ac (next generation past 802.11n) is that not all devices support it so even the access points that have it you may not see the benefit. The same thing happened when 802.11n was ratified by the IEEE, it took a while before all clients supported the standard.

But the growing # of bandwidth-hungry devices is one of the major reasons why the FCC ruling was applauded last week...

http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-increase...ensed-uses

(04-10-2014 03:35 PM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 03:12 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  I read an article a few months ago about the new Levi's stadium in San Francisco as they were considering their Wifi needs while building the stadium. They consulted other NFL, NBA and MLB facilities and found most of them were just waiting for the next generation of technology before they invested on upgrading their existing infrastructure.

The device demand is growing quicker than the infrastructure can keep up with. Devices cheap and ever changing, infrastructure expensive.

I can't ever get a decent signal in Cowboy (AT&T) stadium. No problem at American Airlines Arena.

The interesting part is that five or six years ago, this wasn't even a topic of conversation.

Hotels have a statistic of 3.5 devices per person when they are doing planning. It's insane. And the problem with 802.11 ac (next generation past 802.11n) is that not all devices support it so even the access points that have it you may not see the benefit. The same thing happened when 802.11n was ratified by the IEEE, it took a while before all clients supported the standard.

But the growing # of bandwidth-hungry devices is one of the major reasons why the FCC ruling was applauded last week...

http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-increase...ensed-uses

Hotels are a piece of work. We "wired" the original hotel that is now the Hilton on Ridge Lake. Back then it was standard telephone cable and TV coaxial to every room. At that time no one had any concept that there would ever be a need for "data terminals" in rooms. So over the years we ran more cable for the dial up days and it seems not long after that we were back pulling CAT 5 everywhere in that building.

We were long gone by the time wifi came around.

(04-10-2014 04:08 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 03:35 PM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 03:12 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  I read an article a few months ago about the new Levi's stadium in San Francisco as they were considering their Wifi needs while building the stadium. They consulted other NFL, NBA and MLB facilities and found most of them were just waiting for the next generation of technology before they invested on upgrading their existing infrastructure.

The device demand is growing quicker than the infrastructure can keep up with. Devices cheap and ever changing, infrastructure expensive.

I can't ever get a decent signal in Cowboy (AT&T) stadium. No problem at American Airlines Arena.

The interesting part is that five or six years ago, this wasn't even a topic of conversation.

Hotels have a statistic of 3.5 devices per person when they are doing planning. It's insane. And the problem with 802.11 ac (next generation past 802.11n) is that not all devices support it so even the access points that have it you may not see the benefit. The same thing happened when 802.11n was ratified by the IEEE, it took a while before all clients supported the standard.

But the growing # of bandwidth-hungry devices is one of the major reasons why the FCC ruling was applauded last week...

http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-increase...ensed-uses

Hotels are a piece of work. We "wired" the original hotel that is now the Hilton on Ridge Lake. Back then it was standard telephone cable and TV coaxial to every room. At that time no one had any concept that there would ever be a need for "data terminals" in rooms. So over the years we ran more cable for the dial up days and it seems not long after that we were back pulling CAT 5 everywhere in that building.

We were long gone by the time wifi came around.

older ones are the worst - lots of old coax that isn't up to standards, concrete everywhere, and most of them won't put down the cash to run copper everywhere. There are a few exceptions though, the waldorf astoria ran 8 strands of fiber to each room during a recent renovation.

8 strands.

(And for the record, no, I do not work for a hotelier)

(04-10-2014 02:51 PM)tiger2000 Wrote:  While you're right in that there inherit issues with RF in a place like the forum, most of your examples are based on old technology and advancements such as MiMo (3x3/3x2/4x2/4x4) minimize some of the limitations of RF spectrum. But to your point, RF is still a shared medium - ATT stadium uses unlicensed (actually licensed from the FCC by ATT) RF to serve 30k+ users - the good news is that the FCC just released 100MHz of unlicensed spectrum 2 weeks ago and we should start seeing some of the benefits of that very soon, especially in the 802.11ac AP space.

The grizz issue is probably also RF related but I can tell you I've seen their egress guest router during a game (although admittedly that was a year or so ago) and it was getting hammered.

Yeah, I've been out of wireless for a while. 802.11G is old but the 3 discrete channels make it really easy to explain the problem of RF congestion.

Wouldn't MIMO be counterproductive in a stadium situation since each device would be using more of the available spectrum? Also the few tablets are probably the only MIMO devices in there, I think I read that the Galaxy S5 is going to be the first MIMO phone. Things like MIMO and wide channels in n and ac are going to get you more throughput, but it doesn't seem like they are going to help with spectrum congestion?

(04-10-2014 09:19 AM)salukiblue Wrote:  I'm still waiting for the WIFI to be worth a crap in the FEF.

baby steps.

So, are you saying organic food causes autism, or autism causes organic food sales to increase, or is this one of those Shark bites increase with icecream consumption kinda things?

(04-10-2014 04:49 PM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 04:08 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 03:35 PM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 03:12 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  I read an article a few months ago about the new Levi's stadium in San Francisco as they were considering their Wifi needs while building the stadium. They consulted other NFL, NBA and MLB facilities and found most of them were just waiting for the next generation of technology before they invested on upgrading their existing infrastructure.

The device demand is growing quicker than the infrastructure can keep up with. Devices cheap and ever changing, infrastructure expensive.

I can't ever get a decent signal in Cowboy (AT&T) stadium. No problem at American Airlines Arena.

The interesting part is that five or six years ago, this wasn't even a topic of conversation.

Hotels have a statistic of 3.5 devices per person when they are doing planning. It's insane. And the problem with 802.11 ac (next generation past 802.11n) is that not all devices support it so even the access points that have it you may not see the benefit. The same thing happened when 802.11n was ratified by the IEEE, it took a while before all clients supported the standard.

But the growing # of bandwidth-hungry devices is one of the major reasons why the FCC ruling was applauded last week...

http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-increase...ensed-uses

Hotels are a piece of work. We "wired" the original hotel that is now the Hilton on Ridge Lake. Back then it was standard telephone cable and TV coaxial to every room. At that time no one had any concept that there would ever be a need for "data terminals" in rooms. So over the years we ran more cable for the dial up days and it seems not long after that we were back pulling CAT 5 everywhere in that building.

We were long gone by the time wifi came around.

older ones are the worst - lots of old coax that isn't up to standards, concrete everywhere, and most of them won't put down the cash to run copper everywhere. There are a few exceptions though, the waldorf astoria ran 8 strands of fiber to each room during a recent renovation.

8 strands.

(And for the record, no, I do not work for a hotelier)

8 strands?

Goodness.

At least we know now why they charge so much. LOL

(04-11-2014 11:37 AM)madtiger Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 04:49 PM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 04:08 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 03:35 PM)tiger2000 Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 03:12 PM)Tiger46 Wrote:  I read an article a few months ago about the new Levi's stadium in San Francisco as they were considering their Wifi needs while building the stadium. They consulted other NFL, NBA and MLB facilities and found most of them were just waiting for the next generation of technology before they invested on upgrading their existing infrastructure.

The device demand is growing quicker than the infrastructure can keep up with. Devices cheap and ever changing, infrastructure expensive.

I can't ever get a decent signal in Cowboy (AT&T) stadium. No problem at American Airlines Arena.

The interesting part is that five or six years ago, this wasn't even a topic of conversation.

Hotels have a statistic of 3.5 devices per person when they are doing planning. It's insane. And the problem with 802.11 ac (next generation past 802.11n) is that not all devices support it so even the access points that have it you may not see the benefit. The same thing happened when 802.11n was ratified by the IEEE, it took a while before all clients supported the standard.

But the growing # of bandwidth-hungry devices is one of the major reasons why the FCC ruling was applauded last week...

http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-increase...ensed-uses

Hotels are a piece of work. We "wired" the original hotel that is now the Hilton on Ridge Lake. Back then it was standard telephone cable and TV coaxial to every room. At that time no one had any concept that there would ever be a need for "data terminals" in rooms. So over the years we ran more cable for the dial up days and it seems not long after that we were back pulling CAT 5 everywhere in that building.

We were long gone by the time wifi came around.

older ones are the worst - lots of old coax that isn't up to standards, concrete everywhere, and most of them won't put down the cash to run copper everywhere. There are a few exceptions though, the waldorf astoria ran 8 strands of fiber to each room during a recent renovation.

8 strands.

(And for the record, no, I do not work for a hotelier)

8 strands?

Goodness.

At least we know now why they charge so much. LOL

They ran 8 for future needs. The labor and materials to install cable is astronomical. While you have a crew out there you might as well run extra cable, you never know what is coming next.

I'd rather see Verizon make improvements around the Forum to handle the traffic better.

I could not even get on twitter through AT&T last season at the forum. Grizzfi worked great! Pera did what he said he would do