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SBC Park Plans A Giant 802.11 Hotspot
Numeric writes "Baseball games won't be as boring at SBC Park, home of the San Fransico Giants, because they are offering "one of the largest hotspots", according to this Yahoo article.
SBC Communications provides DSL and wireless connectivity to business and consumers. I wonder if Minute Maid Park will offer free orange juice or even better Citizen Ball Park could offer free money! Its nice to see the staduim sponsor offering more than just the name sake of their business."
LostCluster writes "The San Jose Business Journal adds the details that the WiFi access will be called SBC's Freedom Link, and and be based on 121 access points spread across the park. Access will be free during the 2004 season, but will cost $7.95 per day or $19.95 per month starting next year."
This will be just another excuse to raise the price of hot dogs and beer.
Is this something I would really want to use. Who would surf the net while watching a game. Why go to a game then.
Evolution or ID?
Hehe, for all those sitting in the very back top rows, now you can watch the game on real player and actually see something.
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
You know a sport is boring when...
Some businessman is going to get smacked in the face by a foul line drive, and sue the ball park because he was using his laptop on their wi-fi connection and didn't see it coming.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
hmmm so we will see more geeks and nerds at the SF Giants games????
What is next??? Geek in gyms???
I am here for the bandwidth.
Consensus is good, but informed dictatorship is better
Maybe someday people will go to the ballgame to watch the game, not to check on their stocks, surf for porn, view the nannycam, or whatever else they think they need a WiFi network for.
The only way I could be arsed to go watch a baseball game live would be to give me wireless access and to let me bring a laptop in. Of course, I'm sure this isn't the purpose they have in mind. Although, providing wireless access within sporting venues might be quite an interesting way to bring in more fans to games especially in the case of Major League Baseball, who over the course of the past ten years have seen an abysmal drop in attendance.
How are people going to do "The Wave" with a laptop on your lap?
Free Beer?
"It's a very tangled subsystem." --Windows kernel guru
get a few mates with webcams and laptops and set up a multiangle freeview of the game ;-)
Any word on Hooters sponsoring a baseball stadium? Just so long as they don't bring their cameras...
the WiFi access will be called SBC's Freedom Link
Previous name considerations included, "SBC's French Link". Though this name was later changed under public and Congressional pressures.
Minute Maid: Free Juice with every $4 cup
FedEx Field: Free Truck delivery, when you pay the airfare for your package.
Either that, or they raise the ticket prices by a % equivalent to what they would 'loose' on giving away the free stuff. NOTHING IS FREE
This seems like a good idea simply because baseball is so interminably dull. Thirty seconds of gameplay interluded with 2 minutes of adverts, merchandising and competitions. Rinse. Repeat.
Multitasking is the new favorite activity of millions of people (talking on the celly while eating a hamburger while driving... a manual transmission car), so since baseball has so much downtime, this is perfect! Now we'll all be able to write computer programs and check email and read slashdot while waiting for the pitcher to read the signal from the catcher. Well, maybe some people will - I'll be stuck over here on the east coast. Oh well.
Pay wireless fee in cash
share thousands of MP3s
Let the RIAA take on SBC Park
What's a hotspot not?
I obviously don't attend many live sporting events (price of tickets + parking + beer not justified), but don't they limit what can be taken into these events? Wouldn't they worry about someone streaming the events content to the web, bypassing revenue generation.
On the other hand, people would probably spend more time updating their fantasy league rosters.
I guess that might be good to those interested in online betting. Since with the instant availability of statistics and easy access to the betting site they might develope more "who catches the next ball" type of bets.
It's nice to live in a place where sports "fans" don't feel the need to bring a laptop to a game. It's always gratifying to ask those pompous Bay Area 49er, make that Raider, no, make that 49er fans when they last went to a Warriors game.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Hard to surf on a laptop in bright sun, wonder if they will also rent you an umbrella? Also wonder if security will let a laptop in.
I paid $50 for a seat at a baseball park so I can play Unreal Tournament with 50,000 other people.
Has anyone considered how this will affect (or even effect) the ease of gambling at sporting events. This could allow for betting on individual free throws in basketball, whether a play will be overturned in football, individual innings in baseball (you can even change your bet real time, double down etc).
This seems to be a world wide trend. Here in good ol' .dk the local telco just installed wifi access on McDonalds, Statoil gas stations and a lot of other places. Access is free for the next three months.
I wonder if people with laptops will replace the image people with cell phones had 5 years ago.
Underholdning.info
Just a quick question...
If I am at a game with my child and see that the guy in front of me is watching pr0n, then can they get arrested for the corruption of minors? Can I sue for damages?
-m
#
# Modus Ponens
#
is it just me or does anyone else think that there wont be too many people paying for this?
...or even Pepsi center, I could cope.
With this milestone reached at last, the WiFi enabled hotdog, and the USB-enabled beer mug are not far behind.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
While it is nice that it is free this year, I have a hard time seeing a lot of people willing to pay $8/day or $20/month next season to have wireless access at only one location; especially a baseball stadium.
Maybe I'm just short sighted or unable to comprehend the demographic they expect, but I don't see a big market for this once che charges kick in.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
I guess it's nice if you live near the park and run wireless. How I wish that SBC would move their ass so that I could get DSL though. When I moved into my current house four years ago Ameritech (which got taken over by SBC) told me that all the hardware was in place and was being tested and I could expect DSL in my area within a couple of months. Four years later and as of Monday, no DSL. My town's government got sick of answering questions so they sent out a flyer basically saying that yes, the hardware is there but SBC is in a pissing contest with the feds about who gets to co-locate so they refuse to turn the system up. It's funny, in the Chicago area where I live SBC's new ad campaign shows them starting to lay fiber back in the '80's and how broadband is all over the area. I guess they're trying to show how ahead of the game there were back in the day. Here I am, 30 miles north of the city and no DSL. I have to laugh whenever the commercial comes on. :)
I wouldn't say I'm a bad gambler but the last time I went to Vegas I even lost a buck on the soda machine.
It would mean more up-to-the-minute online recaps of games in progress. MLB will shut them down.
only thing I see good about it is if I need to vpn to work if I am on call otherwise the laptop stays home.
can I charge the 7.95 to work because I got paged - umm!! interesting
"And here's the pitch...BUFFERING...wow that was amazing let's show it again...BUFFERING...oh man, Steve, they'll never be able to do that again."
See the game and send lots of spam out over someone else's network.
I wonder why the SF Giants chose not to go one (two at most) phased array panel(s)?
Seastead this.
You didn't even have to read the article for this one: the wireless access will be a separate charge next year. This year it will be positioned as a loss leader: get people using/hooked on the product for free, then start charging (also called the drug dealer's sales model).
And so what if you don't want to use it? Don't use it - there, that was easy. It's possible someone will. I don't want to drive a dump truck around but I understand there are people with different needs that might be able to use a dump truck. You != everyone.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Minute Maid Park will offer free orange juice or even better Citizen Ball Park could offer free money!
Yikes... that means Fenway Park would offer places for gays to have sex in the bushes.
Verizon may be evil, but at least they have the good sense to use their existing user accounts for authentication on their wireless stuff. I can't imagine having to pay SBC for DSL and then have to pay them again when I'm out and about. I'll find yet another wide-open residential AP first, thanks.
You may say I'm a dreamer, but in the future, fans will be allowed to stay home and access the internet with a computer whilst listening to the game on the radio for free.
IM managerial instructions even after being ejected from the game?
Two words: Coors Field.
SBC Park Plans A Giant 802.11 Hotspot
I don't want to spoil their fairytale, but I don't think giants are the right group to target for 802.11 hotspots.
They don't like all this modern technology.
Some gambling sites already use WAP, and next gen smartphones apps could easily do this sort of gambling functionality.
Why bet on a play being overturned... bet on the yardage of EACH and EVERY play. Use a betting exchange to co-ordinate across the people in the stadium and watching on TV... hey presto.
This isn't future stuff... this is now stuff. Most betting exchanges, if they just allowed WAP or created a smartphone app, or if you could use Opera on your P900, can do this today.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Baseball isn't basketball or hockey, where the downtime is kept to a minimum. I've been to many baseball games where I'm simply bored out of my skull waiting for something to happen. That's not to say I dislike the game, I played for several years while I was younger. And rarely have I cheered like when the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees in the World Series a few years back.
Some people hit on the desire for real-time stats during the game, whether for the game they're watching or the rest of the MLB. That's great. One could argue that statistics are half the sport.
They generally don't post stats on the board as to how Pujols has fared against Schilling in the past - that's generally the interesting fare for the TV audience.
If they do charge in 2005, I would hope that they provide some other value-add, such as streaming instant replays, customizable stats pages, etc.
"We've created one of the largest, if not the largest, hot spot in the world," says Larry Baer, Giants executive vice president and chief operating officer.
Don't think so Larry Baer. You're in a one-block stadium. Case Western Reserve (in my hometown Cleveland) has what I believe is the largest public WiFi network. It covers university square and most surrounding areas.
Betting on every play... cool! (I don't gamble though.) Multiple camera angels (long overdue) is a great idea!
Do or do not. There is no try. --Yoda
Airlines already treat every laptop coming through the gates like it's packed with C4. Aside from the potentially real risk of someone disguising a bomb in a laptop, the headache of searching hundreds of laptops at the gates is enough to tank this idea.
Wireless is shared bandwidth so if there are a lot of people using it, performance becomes absolutely miserable. Even if people flock to the statium to use wireless networking, as opposed to watching the sports, I don't think this is worth the bother. Sure, before the game starts some people might want to use their wireless PDAs to check up on stocks, etc, this isn't going to be used very much. I think the heaviest users are going to be living line of sight to the stadium with Pringles cans pointed that way.
I wonder how this will affect the game. Imagine Barry Bonds steps up to the plate and smacks one out and there are no cheers. Just a bunch of freebies who came to the park to download music and movies.
Going Going Gone... (the cheers)
Opera Watch - An Opera browser blog.
Pretty please?
Actually at Citizen Ball Park, if you buy a $3 beer, the vendor notifies you of a $2 transaction fee, and asks if you want to continue.
Take me out to the ballgame.
Take me out with my chain.
Buy me some wi-fi and garlic fries,
I don't care if I never get back,
I can work, work, work for my company,
At home, at play and on train,
I am here but,
I didn't see a thing
At the old ballgame.
Can't you picture it? :-( :-(
UR TOO kewl!!!!! What seet RU in??
OMG, Im so embarrassed!!!!!!!. Im in da blEEEchers
The CB App. What's your 20?
Absolutely Right. It's just a plot to get geeks outside to lower their programming skills by taking time away from the computer.
Just remember when your friends try to convince you to go to a game by saying there is 802.11 there, the bleachers DO NOT have power strips! Don't go or you'll be trapped in Actual Reality.
... at Turner Field, it's okay with me.
The Giants could be making a huge mistake. MMORPG's are pretty popular among baseball players. Guys like Doug Glanville and Curt Shilling are big time Everquest players, and Star Wars Galaxies is pretty popular as well.
I can see it now. Instead of 7 guys in the bullpen bs'ing around and trying to look interested, you'll have the entire Giant's rotation staring at laptops trying to powerlevel.
"Johnson, get warmed up, you're going in next inning"
"But coach, if I go in, where are the guys gonna get another level 25 human paladin to tank?"
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Better yet, hand out free green cards for the first 10,000 fans.
[Please sign here]
The Baltimore Inner Harbor recently became a wireless hotspot. The Orioles stadium (Oriole Park at Camden Yards) is about 3 blocks from there. I wonder if you could get a wifi antenna to reach from the stadium? The warehouse is really in the way though. I bet some coffee shop or some open home network is closer though. Time to experiment!
As far as baseball being an expense...bah! I live withing walking distance of the stadium, and the O's have a "scalp free" zone inside the stadium. There, you can buy tickets from scalpers legally and under the eye of a Police officer. No worries of paying too much and getting your wallet snagged when you pull it out to pay. I walk up 5 min before the game, buy tickets some guy is dumping cheap and go into the game.
move along, nothing to
They could set up a site where you could order your drinks and food with a credit card and your seat row/number and some lacky will bring it directly to your seat.
--I'm not talking about dance lessons. I'm talking about putting a brick through the other guy's windshield.-
Once sensors like speed, heat, fuel level, mileage, etc get cheap, this would be pretty neat at NASCAR events (while listening to the pit crew).
Will there be special seating areas for the pR0n addicts?
This is dead in the water at that price.
BC
I have two issues here; both having to do with security.
The first is how many of the folks using this will relize that there may be those running air-snort, or whatever the heck it's called, in the park? If I remember, the WEP is easy to crack (may not be real time cracking, but a few hours later on a top end machine back at home after airsnort records a ballpark full of packets on a 20gb drive).
A SBC size stadium full of airsnorted IP packet traffic may have some interesting gold nuggets
(business deals, insider information, credit card numbers, etc) especialy during a business day or evening.
The second is how do they intend to enforce payment? Again, if you have airsnort or airpeek or whatever, can't you find out what the SSID is and then get on?
Even if it has to do some sort of authentication
based on the MAC address before it hands out dhcp, can't someone wait until the guy in the bleacher
next to them is through/goes to the bathroom/goes to the concession stand/takes a nap; then does a man-in-the-middle (assuming both the MAC and the
allready-dhcp'd-ip) and get on? Perhaps, now that they are using someone else's identity; go ahead and PTP a bunch of people's music; or surf kiddie porn; or whatever?
Personally, when I go to events like this, I go totaly empty handed. No laptop, no cellular, no bags, nothing.
Cleara
Are question marks something I would really want to use? Who would actually use question marks while writing? Why use punctuation at all?
Yes, we all know how baseball lends itself to be heavily broken down statistically, but do we really need statistics like:
Ooh, the numbers are staggering.
America's pasttime, my ass.
s'wut i sed.
You need to read up on phased arrays. Basically think of a dish antenna with an incredibly high speed pointing mechanism so you can reposition it for each time slot on the access point. You, in essence, have no cross talk between the users. This is a large part of why David P. Reed is debunking the myth of spectrum scarcity -- an example of which myth is in your phrase "everyone on at most ... one for each non-overlapping channel".
Seastead this.
This could be good for Cricket, a game where nothing happens for hours and hours and hours on end.
Philip
Signatures are broken
First hit is free.
After that it is $7.95 day habit. I predict a rise in crime surrounding Pac Bell Park for all those fans trying to pay for their habit.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
The San Jose Business Journal adds the details that the WiFi access will be called SBC's Freedom Link
GREAT! They can serve some freedom internet to be served with the freedom fries. And maybe freedom peanuts.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
This wi-fi stats service should be included in the price of the tickets.
How much different is this than broadcasting 20 different data only low power FM or AM signals at the park with different data feeds?
Hmmmm....morse code AM signals...receivable for free with anyone with a capable data terminal....rent terminals for $5 each....hmmmmmm
Freedom Link...will cost $7.95
Is EVERYONE trying to feed off of the "cost of freedom" idea?
I've never been to SBC, but if it's a typical stadium, it's the last place I'd take my beloved powerbook.
While I run very well on beer and pizza, the PB runs much better without them.
Add the limited elbow room to the drunken fans and you've got a funny anecdote about the cool G4 you used to have.
"Come for the wifi, stay for the game!"
Better get a hardened laptop to use for a shield just in case Barry Bonds has another bang-up season.
also, you Sox luzers will be able to watch the internet fallout in real-time when you blow it again this fall...and next fall....and the next...
Most of the comments are talking about browsing or otherwise getting infromarmation while sitting in the game. Why not think the other way: stuff going OUT of the park :) Bring a webcam, and you could be sharing the game with others in the world. Heck, pay-per-webcast and you've payed for your ticket with little effort!
I'm not sure what other assets can be sent out of a ballpark, but who knows?
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
This just proves the point: Californian's don't care about baseball! Why on earth would one want to have WiFi at a ball park? If you spend the 20 bucks to see a game, maybe you should, I dunno, WATCH the game?
While this might sound like a good idea to some of the techies out there, this is a nightmare for traditional fans. When I go to see the Giants at Pac Bell I want to see a Ball Game in the most beautiful ballpark in the US, not read my e-mail and surf. Now there are going to be a whole bunch of yuppies on their cell phones and laptops working during the game. I might just have to inadvertantly spill my beer to get them to stop working.
Oh, wait, that's just American piss water "beer" too... too bad the companies that make real beer don't have enough money to buy stadium naming rights.
Rank Presidents by th
At the stadiums here, you are not allowed to bring laptops or coolers or essencially anything but yourself into the stadium due to 911 terrorist concerns and vending sales. How does one access free wi-fi without any electonics equipment?
That's right kids! You get a free hit of WiFi when you come to the park. After that well...I gots to make a living turning you into a junkie, Chester!
Has free "bat night" lost it's appeal?
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
For the record, the Giants play at Pacific Bell Park... http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/teams/stadium?team=s fo
...and the $20/month option is a hell of a lot cheaper than DSL. You can bet your ass I'll be getting an omni-directional antenna and hooking it up to my wifi link to see if I can see this hotspot and what the quality is like. I've always felt that wireless was the way to go rather than rolling DSL out to everyone. I'll be paranoid and use SSL-enabled e-mail and then I should be good to go.
Is this an attempt to attract us geeks to sports? "Come to the ballgame, stay for the Counter-Strike WLAN-party!"
[Please sign here]
"SBC's Freedom Link"
Say freedom, and i think liberty.
Say link and i think a link in a chain. a tether.
If I brought a laptop with Debian, could I get free as in speech and free as in beer?
I mod down pyramid schemes in sigs.
7.95 to do what? Check the score on ESPN?
An architect friend of mine who is working on a several hundred person complex in Hawaii asked for my advice on this very issue- is it feasible to blanket a few city blocks so that hundreds or thousands of people can get WiFi? My answer was no, and I need someone to tell me how the ball park is going to pull this off. Heres my logic: a. We have 11 channels available in the US. 802.11b is good for maybe 25 users per channel. (g is more, but this will not be significant in my argument). b. Wi-Fi broadcasts over 1500 feet, but in my experience 300 feet is about the limit of useful signal strength, even outdoors. However, one access point on the same channel will interfere with another well over 1000 feet, to the point that the channel becomes not reasonably usable c. Therefore, we can only put access points on the same channel every 2000-3000 feet. I sketched out a diagram of a stadium and used my coffee cup to mark individual access points, and I was only able to fit 5 access points on the same channel in one park, and that was squishing them closer together than I would like. This gives me a total of 55 access points in the park, for a total of about 1400 people all on the network. Plus, this is not even dealing with the issue that 7 of the 11 channels will overlap with the neighboring channel and cause interference. So, please tell me, dear slashdotter, what is wrong with this picture? How are they going to place 121 access points in this park?
Root enthusiastically for the home team, or they ship you off to Gitmo.
One comment on the original post: "Its nice to see the staduim sponsor offering more than just the name sake of their business."
Unlike many "Corporate named parks" Pacific Bell Park (as it was originally known) was originally built AS Pacific Bell Park because Pacific Bell was heavily involved in its construction etc. Changing the name to SBC Park was because "The historic merger" (translation "We bought ya'll") essentially sucked PacBell into the Vortex that is SBC.
Now, I do think it's exceptionally cool that they're going to open up a hotspot at the park. But it's really no wonder that they're going to start -charging- for access once the first season is up.
"Job one" for SBC was, when I left PacBell, "Increase shareholder value." Which usually translates into "Charge more. Give less. Stick it to the employees and the customers."
Me. Bitter? Nahhhhh.
Never attribute to malice what can as easily be the result of incompetence...
For those who are unaware, the Bell is one of the most popular (and gorgeous) stadiums in baseball, selling out every game. It is in the heart of downtown, just south of Market, and likewise has a significant number of fans that work in computer/technology fields. It draws a number of fans from the Silicon Valley as well, so of all the major stadiums this one of the better choices for testing the hot spot market. I for one will be using my PDA there all the time, and perhaps my laptop too if I'm allowed to bring my bag. When they move to a pay per use scale, I'll onlu continue if they offer a discount for season pass holders. My biggest hope is that it reaches the bars across the street.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
It looks like SBC Park might already be covered by an SFLAN node. Anyone tried it from inside the stadium?
As someone who RTFA AND lives in the Bay Area AND is a Giants fan, I can see why this is big news.
For those who don't know, SBC Park (nee Pac Bell) is situated south of the heart of San Francisco. This mostly central location makes it easy for many business people during thier lunchbreaks to catch -DAY- games in the sunniest part of SF along with good food, beers, friends, v.v. good views, etc. etc...
Price to a lot of these people is irrelevant.
Despite what Slashdotters think or feel, these people are bringing their laptops in to get some work done, catch a few innings, then cut out early and get back to the office via MUNI.
They have been and will continue to do so in the future. Laptops have always been allowed in Pac Bell park, a bag check at the ticket-takers counter is sufficent.
I know all of this because I have observed such for the last two seasons. I even engaged in the behavior myself and cut from my college classes to see the playoffs and Series games.
This is simply an idea whose time has come. I applaud it.
Estimating peak loads for wifi systems is problematic even with conventional AP technologies. Estimating it with a new technology like phased array is going to be even more difficult. The range figures from Vivato are conspicuously conservative, and I would expect the peak loading estimates to be similarly conservative. A lot of AP technologies, on the other hand, routinely estimate around 100 clients per AP, but that is with the sacrifice of peak-load responsiveness.
Seastead this.
Have any of you actually been to a Giants game? I go to a dozen or so a year. There are a lot of people who really aren't paying attention to the game, more so that any other stadium I've been to. I've never seen so many people talking on their cellphones. A couple game I went to I heard a phone ring at least every inning, if not more so.
This is totally catering to those people who are only there for the scene, entertaining business clients, or are using tixs from work.