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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."
Scoreboard?
Nah, that's just numbers about the current game. "Stats" are things like "earned run average", batting averages for (season/lifetime/since became sober), number of team wins under artificial light at home stadium vs. wins on away games when the pitcher forgot his lucky rabbit's foot, etc. You see, baseball has fairly long stretches where you are waiting for something to happen, so fans have to have something to keep them occupied. That's where stats come in.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Well, if you RTFA you would see that they are offering services with the WiFi, such as live stats, replays, electronic scorecards ...
This isn't about letting people browse around or chat on irc when they get bored of the game, it's giving the fans something more than one of those game book thingies, which typically cost around as much as what they will be charging for WiFi next year.
The connection is the least of their problems. How many people does SBC ballpark seat? According to this it seats 40,800. Assuming a sold out ballpark where 1% of the people use the service that's 408 users. 408 * $7.95 = $3,243.6. I don't know where your from but where I'm from three thousand dollars a month will buy you a pretty fat pipe to the Internet -- let alone three thousand dollars a day.
Furthermore even though I think 1% is probably an overstatement of how many people will use this thing it should scale pretty nicely. If 5% used it that's $16,218 of fees. If you consider that 9 out of 10 of these people will only be using this to check e-mail or lookup game related stats then how much bandwidth do you really think they'll need? A simple set of rules and a good firewall box will either rate-limit the p2p ppl (and really who is going to run massive amounts of p2p at the ballpark? It takes too long to download anything useful to do it at the game) or block them altogether. Besides -- it's being sponsored by SBC -- is bandwidth really an issue for them?
All in all it seems like another nice way for MLB to suck money out of the fans -- if they use it.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
No way in hell am I going to bring my $3,600 baby into [Shea] stadium to have the drunk guy three rows over spill beer on.
:)
No, that guy's in the bleachers in the Bronx.
-Another Mets fan
Unix: Where
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
This deserves an explanation for those who haven't heard the joke...
Busch (or insert your huge American beer merchant here) beer is like having sex in a canoe.
It's fucking close to water.
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.