SuperBowl XLII

Super Bowl XLII

Posted by samc on January 22nd, 2008

The undefeated New England Patriots and the New York Giants clash head-on at SuperBowl XLII in Phoenix, Arizona on Feb. 3. The Super Bowl stadium (wikipedia) in Arizona is ready with an advanced wireless system. Actually, several, says writer John Cox in Network World.

The University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, offers Wi-Fi, as well as support for five different cellular carriers, and a separate, dedicated 450MHz public safety net. The stadium holds up to 63,400 fans, and is home to the Arizona Cardinals football team.

“We wanted to build the most technologically advanced stadium in the NFL, or even the world,” said Mark Feller, senior director of technology for the Arizona Cardinals. “All events have wireless needs,” he said, noting that the 1.7 million-square-foot stadium is expected to host more than a million visitors in its first year.

Feller and his team turned to Cellular Specialties Inc. (CSI), an in-building wireless solutions provider, for an infrastructure that gives players, staff, media and fans use of wireless devices such as cell phones, laptops and PDAs throughout the entire stadium.

The stadium’s main data facility houses and connects the infrastructure of all-Cisco routers and switches, and phone lines. Instead of running fiber, installers lay down tube cells; an empty pipe with multiple lanes. When more capacity is needed, compressed air or nitrogen blows optical fiber through the lanes.

Most of the wireless signals are carried via a combination of single-mode fiber and coaxial cable to ceiling-mounted antennas, all part of a system from MobileAccess of Vienna, Virginia (right).

The “distributed antenna” systems enables pervasive cellular and Wi-Fi coverage, and lets base stations and Wi-Fi access points be centralized in one or a few locations. Products from LCG Wireless offer similar in-building services for wireless companies. LGC’s InterReach Fusion delivers ultra high-speed wireless voice, data and video services inside any type of structure. Zinwave says they support all wireless services (including 2G, 3G, LTE, WiFi and WiMAX), on a single wireless infrastructure.

Fiber links the remote hubs, while the hubs link via coax cable to 5-inch dome-shaped distributed antennas. The Cisco Wi-Fi access points are collected in the various remote hubs, where they’re plugged into a Mobile Access aggregator.

The in-building wireless system was part of the original plan for the $450 million, multi-use stadium, which boasts both a retractable roof and playing field, says Mark Feller, vice president for technology, Arizona Cardinals.

Sprint estimates 100,000 fans will converge on Arizona and has doubled the network capacity around the stadium with Revision A enhanced mobile broadband.

The most common still camera among pros covering the Super Bowl XLII in Phoenix this year will probably be the Canon EOS-1D Mark III and 400mm f/2.8L IS (image-stabilized) Canon lens (above), says Pop Photo.

Reuters has used OQO’s Model 02 which can fit in a jacket pocket, so the photographer can shoot directly to the device’s hard drive, where files can be automatically resized and transmitted to a network. They hope Wireless USB connectivity will be available in the future.

UMPC Blog has a video of the OQO in action. But Wi-Fi will not be used at The Big Game. The “data traffic jam,” in the words of Sports Illustrated’s Greg Choat, makes it unreliable. Instead, photographers use runners to transport their memory cards to photo editors in nearby trailers.

For Super Bowl XLII, Reuters will use a new server-based editing system that allows photographers and editors anywhere in the world to simultaneously connect to a single server to both upload and edit pictures. Editors select and pull only the files they want to use from the server. “The system is so efficient,” says Hershorn, “that we’re editing almost in real time. Within 2 or 3 minutes of a play, the pictures are on our clients’ screens.”

The Super Bowl is treated as a Level One National Security threat because of its extreme high profile status. Vice president of security for the NFL, Milt Ahlerich, a former FBI agent, oversees security for the NFL. At earlier Super Bowls, sensor fusion technology from Distributed Instruments monitored a constant flow of data from multiple sensors at a centralized command center.

Some sensors will be mounted in fixed positions, while others will be carried by National Guard personnel as they move around the stadium during the event with handheld computers. Distributed Instruments uses the Transducer Data Exchange Protocol (TDXP), which is being submitted for consideration as a standard protocol. Facial-recognition software helps identify suspects in crowds. Law-enforcement agencies will use a Unified Command Center at Veterans Memorial Coliseum that will serve as an emergency-communications compound through the Super Bowl.

For many of an anticipated 125,000 Super Bowl visitors, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport will be their first introduction to the Valley. The Phoenix newspaper says Super Bowl XLII is expected to drop more than $400 million into Arizona’s economy.

SIRIUS Satellite Radio will provide 12 live broadcasts featuring game calls in eight languages , an increase from the 11 broadcasts and seven languages SIRIUS aired last year, plus live day-long news and expert analysis every day of Super Bowl Week.

The audience in the United States for the telecast by Fox, part of the News Corporation, is expected to exceed 90 million viewers, with estimates as high as 135 million total viewers. The Fox Video Network (FVN) includes 20 regional locations connected with the main FSN facilities in Los Angeles and Houston. Cablecam’s aerial platform, suspended by cables, provides overhead coverage. Skycam and Flycam provide similar capabilities.

The Fox Sports Net enables peer-to-peer connections between all locations in the country and supports simultaneous, bidirectional transfer of program content and control signals. The major technical and vendor solutions used in the FSN network are Tandberg’s comprehensive MPEG compression and decompression systems and Marconi ATM and TCP/IP network switches. They have joint ownership arrangements with industry players such as NBC, Cablevision, and Comcast.

The NFL Network coverage of Super Bowl XLII, features more than 100 broadcasting hours that includes NFL Total Access on the scene with news, features, and interviews all weeke. Every press conference is carried live and expanded pre-and-post game shows are part of the coverage.

Advertisers have paid an average of $2.7 million for 30 seconds in which to wow the American public with their best creative efforts. Last year’s Super Bowl victory by the Indianapolis Colts, broadcast on CBS, attracted 93.2 million viewers, making it the second-most-watched game ever. The price for a 30-second commercial remained under $2.4 million last year.

Fox Sports also is upping the ability of advertisers to connect with potential customers this year by creating a Super Bowl profile on MySpace . Viewers will be able to go to the site and view and share in-game commercials once they’ve aired and also click through to advertisers. Adage handicaps the spots.

Anheuser-Busch buys more commercial time in the Super Bowl than anyone, and is likely to run seven spots in Super Bowl XLII on Feb. 3, all of them for Budweiser or Bud Light. In 2007, Taylor Nelson Sofres reported, Anheuser-Busch spent almost $23.9 million for its Super Bowl spots and PepsiCo spent $11.9 million. In 2006 the totals were $22.5 million and $10 million, respectively.

Tickets are going for a cool $3000 — and up — for the game.

Meanwhile, ESPN’s coverage of Winter X Games 12, Jan. 24-27 from Aspen Colorado will mark “the first ever multi-sport winter action sports event to be presented in HD,” according to Rick Alessandri, senior vice president, ESPN consumer products and X Games managing director. More than 250 of the world’s best winter sports athletes will compete for medals and prize money in skiing, snowboard and snowmobile competitions when X Games returns to Aspen later this month.

Approximately 59 HD cameras will be used to cover the action. The HD roster includes 20 Thomson Grass Valley WorldCams (LDK 6000s and LDK 8000s) and three Thomson Grass Valley super slo-mos (LDK 6200s), as well as 15 models from Sony (HDC1000s and HDC1500s). “A large number of robotics,” will also be involved, ESPN’s Chief Technical Manager Stephen Raymond said.

“We had to replace a large amount of copper runs with fiber optic this year, needing bandwidth to move the signal around,” said Senior Operations Producer Larry Wilson. “We’re looking at 18,000 feet of TAC-12 [tactical grade, 12-strand fiber optics), 6,000 feet of TAC-24, 5,000 feet of TAC-4 and 19,000 feet of SMPTE fiber.”

This Side Up Productions will provide three FlyCam units built around Panasonic AK-HC900 cameras. The task required new initiatives for bandwidth, electrical connections, speed capacity (100 miles per hour) and construction.

AZcentral.com, Yahoo Full Coverage and Google News have more on the Super Bowl.

source : dailywireless.org