Wi-Fi 6E smart tech for Oracle Park

Image: Oracle Park, Chris6d, CC BY-SA 4.0

The mobile phone network corporation Comcast Business is partnering with the network equipment company Extreme Networks to provide a fully Wi-Fi 6E-capable network at Oracle Park in San Francisco, California (US), home to the Major League Baseball (MLB) team San Francisco Giants.

‘FIERCE Wireless’ stated that the deployment will make Oracle Park the first professional sports venue to be completely Wi-Fi 6E ready, according to the companies.

Philadelphia (US)-based the Comcast Business is a subsidiary of Comcast, which, through several iterations, has handled the sales, marketing and delivery of Internet, phone and cable television to businesses. In 2012, Comcast Business grew by 34 percent, the fastest growth of any of Comcast’s products in 2012, reaching $2.4 billion in revenue.

San Jose (US)-based Extreme Networks is an American networking company based in San Jose, California. Extreme Networks designs, develops and manufactures wired and wireless network infrastructure equipment and develops the software for network management, policy, analytics, security, and access controls.

Wi-Fi 6E expands on the existing Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) standard and allows access to a new 6 GHz band. Wi-Fi 6E takes the efficiency features from Wi-Fi 6 like OFDMA, WPA3 and Target Wake Time and extends them to the 6 GHz band to provide more contiguous spectrum and less interference.

The 42,300-capacity Oracle Park is a baseball stadium in the SoMa district of San Francisco, California (US). Since 2000, it has served as the home stadium of the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball (MLB).

The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco (US). The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League West division.

Traditionally in the United States, the Wi-Fi has operated in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. Opening up the 6 GHz band coincides with the 6th generation of the Wi-Fi standard, which are designated with the 6E moniker.

‘FIERCE Wireless’ further stated that Wi-Fi 6E comes with faster speeds and lower latency. That means the Giants will be able to improve the fan experience inside the park to include things like fast mobile ticket entry and mobile concessions as they ponder future innovations like augmented reality (AR)/virtual reality (VR) experiences and biometrics-based park entry.

Extreme Networks will deploy about 900 Wi-Fi 6E access points in a combination of overhead and under-the-seat placements to support both fans and back-of-house applications throughout the ballpark.

Comcast Business and the Giants will manage the network using the ExtremeCloudQ toolset, which allows them to detect anomalies before they cause issues. In addition, ExtremeAnalytics offers insights into network activity so they can identify bottlenecks in venue traffic or determine where they need to redeploy resources.

Said Bill Schlough, Senior Vice-President (SVP) and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the San Francisco Giants, in a statement, “We are thrilled to build upon Oracle Park’s 20-year legacy as the first sports facility to bring free Wi-Fi to our fans, with a new network that will serve the needs of our fans and staff well into the future. As we implement this new technology, we are also making sure that we install it in such a way that it can be easily upgraded so that as technology advances, we can continue to provide a best-in-class connected experience.”

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