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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.
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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
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
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).
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
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# Modus Ponens
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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
It would mean more up-to-the-minute online recaps of games in progress. MLB will shut them down.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
...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.
It looks like SBC Park might already be covered by an SFLAN node. Anyone tried it from inside the stadium?