Chiefs adding wifi network at Arrowhead
 

http://www.kcchiefs.com/news/article...8-43f908628021

Chiefs Launch Mobile App & Arrowhead Wi-Fi

The Chiefs are bringing fans another way that will enhance the game day experience at Arrowhead Stadium. Starting this Sunday, Wi-Fi will be available in the stadium, along with a new mobile application connecting fans to the team and to each other.

“Our fans told us that we needed to add this element to their game day experience and we listened,” Bill Chapin, Chiefs Senior Vice President of Business Operations explained.

As part of the massive installation project, 600 wireless access points were installed throughout the stadium. Wi-Fi will be available to all fans attending the game under the name “Arrowhead Wi-Fi.”

“Everybody loves their mobile device. They all bring it to the stadium, I do the same thing,” Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt explained. “We felt it was important to get Wi-Fi in the building so fans could use their mobile devices in the stadium. This initiative will add to the fan experience this year and help give the fans the best game day experience.”

The Chiefs are also unveiling the Chiefs Mobile App, which can be downloaded through Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Market for Android devices.

While inside Arrowhead Stadium, this App will allow fans to watch instant replays from multiple camera angles and also see “under-the-hood” replays that cannot be seen anywhere else. In addition, NFL Red Zone will be available; giving fans the chance to check in on all the action from around the NFL. For more information on the app click here.

“This year, at the first regular season game, we will have a full Wi-Fi system in the stadium. Plus, with the Chiefs Mobile App, you will have instant replays on your device. You can watch the NFL Red Zone and track your fantasy football team in stadium,” Chiefs President Mark Donovan noted.

This is just the first step in an ongoing process. The organization will continue to make adjustments to further enhance the fan experience by boosting connectivity inside Arrowhead Stadium. You, the fans, play a key role in assuring those adjustments best-fit fan needs.

“With the new system, we know that over the first few weeks, there will be many things that we will be testing and tweaking to reach optimal performance,” Donovan said. “This adjustment phase could take multiple weeks. As we always do, we’re asking fans to interact with the system and provide feedback so that we can make accurate and timely decisions to ensure everyone has a great in-stadium mobile experience.”

For fans attending the game on Sunday, be sure to download the Chiefs Mobile App and try out the new Wi-Fi at Arrowhead Stadium this week. Fans with feedback on the new Arrowhead Wi-Fi network can email customerrelations@kcchiefs.com.

I know I'm a tech geek, but that sounds really cool. The ability to watch Red Zone is a particularly nice touch.

If they start winning again I don't think they'll need RedZone availability.

Must be a huge undertaking.

That is awesome. As someone who uses Sprint for mobile phone/data, I always thought it was ludicrous that in a stadium that Sprint sponsors and has a ginormous billboard in... that Sprint service there was always awful.

Too bad they didn't do this last year...could have added a pre-game "Banner Cam" that showed all the festivities from above.

In all seriousness, that's pretty cool.

And only 5+ years after pretty much every other business had Wi-Fi available. You've caught up to McDonalds and Panera! :clap:

The app is already in the app stores and is more general than just in stadium stuff in case anyone wants to play with it. It's kind of a mobile version of the Chiefs site.

It was my understanding this was only going to be available to season ticket holders. Interesting if they are making it available to everyone.

It updates a hell of a lot faster than NFL Mobile does.

I'll bet Sprint had a hand in the wifi and it will suck too.

Yeah, I'm playing with it now, and despite some weird UI choices, it's got a lot of nice features. The depth chart is neat, and it's nice to have quick access to things like injury reports and game stats.

Have to compete with the stay home, fantasy playing home theatre crowd.

I got an e-mail last week saying Red Zone would be available to STH for week 1. But then it appeared it was only available for cell phone apps, and then only for Verizon Wireless users. It wasn't very clear and eventually I gave up trying. I've found a lot of their announcements for shit have been unclear so far this season.

When Panera has 90k people descend upon it at once... your point will be valid.

A slightly larger scale.....
Edit:PR beat me to it.

Want to go get some panera?
Bread bowl?

Yes, I know, but its an NFL team. They beam shit all over the world and have access to the top-notchest electronical technology. I think they could have rigged up something by now.

Free Wi-Fi!

Season ticket holders have access to it on their phone whether they're at the stadium or not. I've got this working on my Android phone already, but it doesn't work on my iPad. I was told it works on phones only.

Anybody at the stadium, while connected to the Arrowhead WiFi, will have access as well, but if they're not a season ticket holder they'll lose it as soon as they're far enough away from the stadium that they can't use that WiFi anymore.

I don't see anywhere on the app where you can enter any season ticket info.

Again, make sure you're on a phone because it won't work on tablets. Also make sure you've got the latest version of the NFL Mobile app installed.

Then when you open that app, click the little icon thing in the top/left to open up the sidebar menu. Towards the bottom of that menu it says Season Ticket Members. Click that to login with your mychiefsaccount.com credentials and then you'll get access to RedZone.

Countdown till Deputy Dawg catches someone fapping in their seat to porn?

ahhh, now I see it. Odd that you have to go through NFL mobile rather than the Chiefs app.

Is that why the cap number got reduced?
Posted via Mobile Device

essentially all they are doing is tying their 'site' (in the stadium) to other cell towers in close proximity. It's not a brand new site.

so, yeah - it should've been done long ago.

Translation:

We've seen the soccer team, that used to be the nobodys next door, receive world wide acclaim for their world class fan experience which included WIFI from day one. We quietly consulted with them on how it's done and now we are presenting this as a revolutionary idea for Chiefs fans.

:doh!:

That doesn't sound right at all unless I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. They added "600 access points" which is clearly wifi rather than any kind of cell connection.

This may help keep stadiums full. Now, about waiting in line to pee.......................

I thought wifi needed a cellular connection (in this case):hmmm:
quite possible i'm looking at it from the wrong angle

Nope, it's just like your in-home wireless router that connects you to a broadband internet connection. They just have 600 of them.

Of course, who knows how fast the backend connection will be. It's entirely possible that it'll still be slow as hell once 30k people start using it.

ah. ok yeah. Yeah I was looking at it in terms of back-haul for it.

App makes you sign in with facebook. Stupid.

The wifi - was okay - on the last preseason game - there were some periods where it got really hammered but it was better than nothing

Probably a few years behind the times, but that's pretty awesome... especially being able to watch RedZone and finally being able to use my phone during commercials and halftime.

For anyone going to the home opener though, you should probably have low expectations... it's tough to rollout something like that and not be able to test with 80,000 people on the network until it's gameday (unless the wifi was available during the preseason, which would have been a good chance to test it).

I think he got confused by the info they released. In addition to all the wifi access points, the Chiefs also installed several cellular data booster/repeaters to improve cellular access in the stadium. So they actually did both....

I still question whether they'll have the bandwidth for this to work on actual gameday though...

Yeah, I'll be curious to hear the reports. That's a shit ton of burst bandwidth to deal with.

No shit, Welcome to the Past!

WIFI for 80k > Wifi for 18k

Well, Sporting is owned by IT people, so including perks like that will be natural to them... plus they need to have more focus on attracting fans and creating their brand.

The Chiefs (and NFL), OTOH, can afford to ignore declining attendance for 5+ years, because all they have to do in order to keep 10s of thousands of fans coming back is fire their HC and/or GM every few years.

Steps to start any journey or project. One.

That is why teams and stadiums of various sizes have visited Sporting Park to see how they did it and figure out how to START.

Not to mention that Sporting is owned by 40 somethings who live within the community and are trying to appeal to an average season ticket holder age of 28 vs. the Chiefs which was close to 45.

Nobody cares about Sporting

Yes, the Chiefs are behind the times on this and I cussed them a few times in the past for not being able to get data access on my phone in the stadium. But I'm just glad they are finally addressing this issue.

...and the concession lines. I have never been to any other stadium or large arena in this city or in the country with concession lines as slow as Arrowhead. Every transaction just takes an eternity.

The team that played "Start Me Up..." 10,000 times is now installing Wi-Fi? Our little guy is growing up! Kind of brings a tear to my eye.

Do you ever NOT bitch about something?

Wifi in a sprts stadium is a bad idea....it's just a way for people to steal from you.

Sorry. That stuff has no place here.


:cuss:

FWIW, this isn't at all a "OMG TEH CHIEFS ARE SO BEHIND TEH TIMEZ!" thing.

According to this article, there are only 11 stadiums in the NFL that have wifi (though it's not clear if the Chiefs are in that group or not).

No matter what else happens soccer will always be the 4th or 5th sport in this country.
There is nothing anyone can do to change that fact. Soccer=no one cares. Go away Denise.

All you need is bandwidth to the stadium, T1, T3, Gige port, etc...

Yeah, I think it's in reference to how long it's been a problem at stadiums... it's kind of dumb that only 11 NFL stadiums have it now, considering how much you pay for tickets/parking/concessions/etc. I know there wi-fi wasn't designed for that kind of thing, so there's a lot to think about and do there, but even simply adding the boosters could have been done a while back so people could use their phones.

It's a nice perk that the NFL doesn't really need to invest in to attract fans, so it's not really surprising that it's taken this long. When you're making that much money and attracting 65,000+ fans at each stadium every weekend, it's going to take a while to react to things like pricing out some fans or a few thousand otherwise opting for the comforts of home.

There's an app for that...somewhere I'm sure...

OK, I have a HTC Thunderbolt with Verizon...how the hell do I get this app? I'm a tard when it comes to this stuff. I'm even willing to listen to how damn stupid I am if someone can help me with this.

Flame away...be gentle...

1. Go to the Play store
2. Hit the magnifying glass to search
3. Type Chiefs Mobile
4. Click Install

Good. Now I can check my fantasy scores during the game.

Forget it. I talked to some of the young'uns here at work...got it.

if they're TDM, I wonder how many data T1s they have. or if they'll use near by fiber/4g sites.

I hate Sprint. We switched from T-Mobile in 2011 due to a family discount and it's just been garbage. The family member left earlier this year, so our bill increased $10 per month, which was fine. But just today, I was notified that we no longer qualify, so it's back to T-Mobile, which totally kicked ass.

So people are going be missing around on wifi instead of giving themselves a brain aneurysm yelling when we are on defense? This isn't good we need Arrowhead as loud as possible when we are on defense people.

It'll definitely be used sparingly by yours truly. I go to games to watch the games...but I like the replay idea and the under the hood thing...

This....and to check fantasy teams during halftime and between quarters.

I've heard the same. Sprint is currently upgrading to Samsung equipment (radios and antennas) to support 4G; installing fiber at every site. Long project however. Right now there isn't anything scheduled for SoCal.

What really makes it even worse for us is that we're in the hills and the hillside is made of petrified granite. Without a cell tower nearby, the iPhone 4s is useless and if it's left on, it'll die within a few hours because it's constantly searching for a signal.

T-Mobile put in a tower at Lake Hollywood, so the signal is excellent. I was also able to make calls through our wireless network in the home, which is a service that isn't available through Sprint. They shipped us this big, ugly contraption in order to make wireless calls but it kept losing signal and knocked out our wireless connection.

No offense to Sprint employees but the service is awful in SoCal.

It will be nice just to receive a text or call at the game.
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< not a Sprint employee :)

hopefully it gets better out there. I've been running several markets for a year getting fiber & network vision equipment at sites. Not sure how they came up with the market priority list however. I would've though they would've hit major cities first.

Maybe they wanted to get the kinks worked out before tackling cities like New York, San Fran, L.A., Chicago, etc.?

I worked Chicago (1900 + sites) over the past year; and I know San Fran is being worked now. Right now I'm working 'Pennsylvania' (Pitt, Buffalo, etc)

....I dread NY.

Just realized this was my 25,000th post. I'll be signing autographs after the show.

Ha ha, how long did you have to search around for that?


My point was this. Yes, it sucks that it is hard to get on the internet while in Arrowhead (or even make a phone call). I'm glad they are addressing it. But your bitching about the bathrooms and concessions is, IMO, over the top. I like the fact that they have more concessions stands and restroom access than they used to. It's not really a problem these days. At least not nearly what it was before the stadium upgrades.

Most people I know that have had Sprint say that it is bad.

Thats why you do all your eating and drinking at the tailgate. :D

It is really all about where you live and if you travel a lot. I've used Tmobile, att and verizon networks. In my house and my city, ATT is by far the best. Verizon tends to have a poor signal in my home. Tmobile was shit unless you were right next to the interstate.

the only ones I have traveled with are ATT and Tmobile. I never had a bad signal on ATT but Tmobile had no coverage at all from Salina to Denver.

I am sure this will lead to lots of Facebook posts of "At Arrowhead with blah blah person". Gametime pics and videos from phones.

LMAO Now that I actually have access to that feature I found it kind of cool, but I can see why it would annoy people. I'll keep that in mind the next time I consider doing it.

While annoying, I'm sure that's precisely what they want. That's great marketing for the gameday experience.

I don't have that feature yet. :harumph:
I am just to damn tight to buy a new phone until this one stops working. :skip:

It's time to put our phones down

Just took me a few clicks.

I really wasn't complaining about the internet, it's never really bothered me that much. Just seems odd that such a major business is behind the times on such a thing.

Someone else mentioned the bathrooms, so I just mentioned the concessions, which I actually do find pretty annoying. I just don't see why it should take so long. No where else takes so long, and its been like that for years.