The Super Bowl 2013: A glimpse at the Vikings wired future
Ars Technica had a very interesting look at last night's Super Bowl -- as an internet event.
The tech blog says the NFL put up enough WiFi access points to accomodate 30,000 connections at the Superdome in New Orleans.
Ars Technica has an interesting spin on it -- that the NFL is using the robustness of the service as a reason to ban ad-hoc wireless devices, citing potential interference. It sounds like they're actually searching people at the gates, and sniffing for them inside. Ars Technica made no mention of the potential for rogue broadcasting -- showing the big game, potentially without the big commercials, via a WiFi camera or other means.
Someone who said they were actually at the game, broadcast engineer Andrew Stern, with Cumulus Broadcasting, had some interesting observations about the network's capacity. He commented on the AT story:
"I am actually in the media center right now and having incredible wifi problems. I am looking at one of the named WAPs right now. There is so much wifi traffic that most iOS devices are freezing up, everyone's having the same trouble."
That's presumably what the Vikings and the MSFA will be trying to avoid with their high density wireless system and neutral-host cell service baked into the design proposal.
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