Will we get this at the CCS sometime soon ?

Premier League football club Manchester City FC is rolling out high-density WiFi at its Etihad stadium, allowing fans to use their mobile devices to surf the web and to share their live event experiences.

In the coming weeks, the 47,000-seat stadium will be wired up with Cisco’s Connected Stadium Wi-Fi solution, which was also used to provide connectivity within the main stadium at the London Olympics.

The high-density WiFi network will be delivered by mobile operator O2, which will equip the Etihad Stadium with technology that significantly improves mobile phone connectivity, allowing fans to make calls and send text messages without interruption.


“As a Club that is passionate about innovation and prides itself on constantly looking for ways to enhance our supporters’ experience at the Etihad Stadium, we feel we have found the perfect solution with O2 and Cisco,” said Tom Glick, Chief Commercial & Operating Officer for Manchester City Football Club.

“Live games and concerts are highly enjoyable social events and we are delighted to be able to offer supporters a system that allows them to better utilise their own mobile devices when at the Stadium.”

In the near future, Manchester City plans to offer StadiumVision Mobile to all fans, which is capable of delivering live video and relevant event information to fans’ mobile devices with minimal delay. It can also provide multiple channels of unique content, such as a replay channel, an alternate angle view channel, and a dynamic data channel.

“We will soon be able to provide full talk and texting capabilities, while paving the way for exciting new mobile data applications and services – such as mobile video – that will ensure a visit to the Etihad Stadium continues to be one of the best sports experiences available anywhere in the world,” said Glick.

Paul Lawton, General Manager of SMB at O2 added: “The underpinning ICT delivery is something we are really excited to be working on, and will result in the provision of high-speed connection anywhere in the stadium for fans.”

Earlier this year, Techworld reported that Liverpool FC is deploying wireless arrays from networking company Xirrus at Anfield Stadium. The first phase of the deployment covers the two-tier, 12,000-seat Centenary Stand and adjoining corporate facilities, enabling fans to access and share digital content during games.

http://news.techworld.com/networking/34 ... d-stadium/

I am amazed this hasn't been done sooner. It would be a great way for football clubs to get more exposure of their games. I guess maybe some are worried that fans might try to live stream footage or something? I don't know. I'm sure there's some silly legal reason why this hasn't been introduced earlier.

Would be great to get this going down the ccs

Saying that with the excitement we have been served up recently the last thing I've been doing is looking at my phone

I asked Julian Jenkins ages ago, he replied with this:

@Julianj1973: @neddthomas huge financial cost. We are always looking.

All I want is to be able to look at the scores while I'm queuing for a pint at half time. The TVs in the concourse are so intermittant with what they show, sometimes they're off, sometimes they don't have SSN on them and can't really read the scores from the queue anyway.

Yep, all I want to do is check the scores too. Don't know about you but I abhor these marketing bollocks phrases like "experience", "event", "journey" and the like. And the word "awesome" should be put into room 101. That really would be awesome.

I asked this question at a meeting about 2 years or so ago and the answer was it is very expensive.

I then asked when there is a break in play could the latest scores of other games be shown on the big screen, just to keep fans updated what was happening in other games but that idea was dismissed.

to be fair this season with those 2 massive screens, the half times and full times are shown, Premier and Championship I noticed at the Everton game.

Agree with the club - stadium-size WiFi would be a huge cost.

You girls need to stop playing with your devices

Why is it so expensive? Is it due to copyright costs due to the potential of live streaming from fans?

Why is it so expensive? Is it due to copyright costs due to the potential of live streaming from fans?

I expect it's due to the vast size the WiFi network will need to be in order to cope with potentially 27,000 people trying to access it at once. The phone networks aren't even capable of it in a single area god knows what they need to make a WiFi network capable of it.

think about the cost of your router at home and the network it serves - then multiply it by a zillion