Super Bowl 2020 Infrastructure in Miami, Florida, USA

Superbowl is a big thing in the US and is catching on in other parts of the world. My favorite part is all the trailers for the upcoming movies that gets dropped in the half time. All the US operators spend months getting ready with the infrastructure in the city and the stadium. After all, as an operator, you expect a fantastic feedback from your existing customers and show off the speeds after the game.

Quoting from Verizon news:

Verizon is on the ground in Miami working hand-in-hand with first responders, local and state government agencies to help keep everyone connected during the big game. 

Our work in Miami has been focused on three key areas: network investment, our state-of-the-art Command Center and being embedded at Florida’s Emergency Operations center.

Verizon's network engineers have been hard at work for more than two years to ensure that our network is ready for the big game and all the festivities that go along with it. As part of the preparations, Verizon has invested over $80 million dollars to enhance our to support the Super Bowl in and around the stadium and the greater Miami area.

Other investments include laying more than 230 miles of fiber throughout Miami, adding existing capacity to over 280 existing cell sites, installing 5G nodes to support NFL Super Bowl venues and events, installing close to 30 in-building solutions to enhance performance around the city (i.e. popular hotels and shopping centers), installing 5G at both the Miami and Fort Lauderdale Airports and more.

These are permanent network enhancements that will benefit the Miami residents and visitors for years to come.

In their announcement, AT&T said:

We’ve been working for more than a year – and have invested more than $85 million – to boost our network through a series of both permanent and temporary upgrades in the city. All this is designed to help residents, first responders and fans stay connected wherever they are.

And to keep fans safe at one of the year’s biggest sporting events, the FirstNet team at AT&T and the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority) are working hand-in-hand with dozens of public safety agencies to prepare. This advance work helps ensure first responders have the coverage, capacity and capabilities – network priority and preemption included – that they need to stay connected throughout the festivities.

We’ve upgraded our portion of the in-stadium Distributed Antenna System (DAS) and other network enhancements – like adding 5G+ and Band 14 spectrum – to provide over 300% more LTE capacity than what was available at the start of the football season. That means we’re utilizing the most LTE capacity currently available on any AT&T DAS in the state of Florida.

The DAS, a system of strategically-placed antennas that distribute and actively manage wireless network coverage throughout the stadium, help evenly distribute coverage, creating a better fan experience. This capacity boost helps manage heavy wireless traffic and gives fans and first responders strong wireless coverage throughout game day – from early tailgating to the final trophy presentation.  

We didn’t stop with in-stadium enhancements. Fans and first responders will be able to enjoy improved coverage in hotels, arenas, airports and convention centers, among other venues through a series of network enhancements:

• We now offer extra speed and capacity over 5G+ in parts of 35 cities, including Miami and Miami Gardens.
• We’ve upgraded or installed a new DAS at 29 additional locations throughout the Miami area.
• We’re deploying 6 Cell on Wheels (COWs) to handle expected increased wireless network demands. They will improve reliability and data speeds during the week leading up to and during the Big Game.
• We’re also enhancing network coverage for the 10th annual AT&T TV Super Saturday Night. The deployments will include a Super COW capable of 5G+ at Meridian Island Gardens to enhance coverage for all the fans headed to see Lady Gaga perform the night before the Big Game.

These investments will allow Florida residents, businesses, visitors and attendees at the festivities to celebrate the Big Game over the AT&T network at home, at work or on the go.
  
In addition to these network enhancements, we’ve been making public safety-specific preparations to ensure the FirstNet communications platform is ready for the Big Game:

• We deployed high-quality Band 14 spectrum across the area to provide optimal coverage and capacity for first responders. We look at Band 14 as public safety’s VIP lane. In an emergency, it can be cleared and locked just for FirstNet subscribers, further elevating public safety’s connected experience and emergency response.
• We’ve installed metro cells at numerous local and federal public safety agency centers. These enhancements provide agencies with a direct network connection to the critical information they need.
• We’ll place three FirstNet Satellite Cell on Light Trucks (SatCOLTs) outside of the stadium for extra redundancy and to provide additional coverage to first responders, if needed.
• We’re equipping first responders with FirstNet Ready™ devices to help ensure they have communications across the highly secure FirstNet network core.

Plus, members of the FirstNet team will staff the public safety command posts to support local, state and federal agencies in the week leading up to and through the day of the Big Game. This will help ensure communication needs for public safety officials are met.

In their announcement, T-Mobile said:

Over the last year, T-Mobile permanently boosted network capacity at venues throughout Miami so customers can share their game day moments in real time. T-Mobile and Metro by T-Mobile customers already have the biggest 5G network in Miami.  And now, customers with capable 5G smartphones can get a speed boost from millimeter wave 5G in places like Hard Rock Stadium and Bayfront Park.

With 150,000 people predicted to travel to Miami for Super Bowl LIV events, T-Mobile focused network enhancements where the biggest crowds will be, including Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Beach Convention Center, Bayfront Park, Miami Beach and Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports. And almost all the updates are permanent, so Miami residents and visitors can enjoy the improvements long after the Super Bowl is over.

T-Mobile more than doubled LTE capacity at Hard Rock Stadium so customers can stream, tweet, post and chat about every big moment from the game. To enhance indoor capacity at key venues throughout Miami, T-Mobile built new distributed antenna systems (DAS) and deployed small cells throughout the city to provide additional performance boosts in places that can be difficult for towers to reach.

Almost all of Miami is covered with T-Mobile’s far reaching low-band 5G and fast LTE, so whether customers watch the game from the couch or the beach they’ll be ready to share the action.  In addition to launching broad 5G coverage last month, T-Mobile has newly deployed millimeter wave 5G for customers with capable smartphones in parts of Miami, including nearly all of Bayfront Park and at Hard Rock Stadium in the lower bowl, parking lot and main entrances.

To ensure customers with compatible smartphones know where they can access 5G in Miami, T-Mobile has an interactive map of its nationwide low-band 5G to show where coverage is available down to the neighborhood level and created new millimeter wave maps for the city.

Finally, Sprint, who is the only one to share it's deployment pictures and equipment (shown on the top) said:

As part of our Next-Gen Network build, over the last two years we’ve invested millions of dollars in network infrastructure and upgrades to improve our customers’ wireless experience across Miami.

For the second year in a row, Sprint’s Big Game MVP for increased capacity and faster speeds than before is our innovative Massive MIMO technology. And this year, we’re not only bringing customers a better LTE experience, but we’ve lit up Sprint True Mobile 5G service in some areas of Miami including the stadium, in preparation for this exciting event!

Those who live, work or visit Miami should be fired up because these aren’t temporary fixes. These permanent solutions will benefit Sprint customers for a long time to come.

Based on the huge increase in customers’ data usage last year and in 2018, we’re using two different technologies this year to help meet fans’ demands to stream, download, video chat, text and connect on social.

• In and around the stadium, Sprint’s Massive MIMO radios using our fast 2.5 GHz spectrum and breakthrough “split-mode” feature will enable us to simultaneously deliver our most-advanced LTE service and Sprint 5G for customers attending the showdown in person.
• In addition, we will be providing 4G/5G dual connectivity within the stadium, transmitting 4G over a state-of-the-art distributed antenna system (DAS) with more than 1,800 antennas and 5G through Massive MIMO radios.

Together, these solutions will provide the equivalent of 10 macro cell towers at the stadium. That will give fans the coverage and capacity they need whether they’re in their seats, at the concession stand or tailgating in the parking lot.

With massive crowds expected throughout Miami and the surrounding areas, we extended our network upgrades in Downtown and Midtown Miami and Miami Beach, as well as areas in West Palm Beach and Ft. Lauderdale.

• Several dozen new Massive MIMO radios in high-traffic areas such as Downtown Miami, Midtown Miami, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale Beach and the Palm Beach Convention Center will provide improved capacity and faster LTE speeds than before. Customers on Sprint 5G devices in these areas will automatically connect to even faster speeds on our next-generation wireless network. Sprint’s average 5G download speed of 215 Mbps is over 5X faster than our LTE.*
• Hundreds of new small cells have been installed across the urban and dense areas of the city to “fill in” the network with our 2.5 GHz spectrum. This will result in more capacity in that area and a boost in speed for customers.
• Nearly 300 cell sites throughout the area have been upgraded to use all three of Sprint’s spectrum bands - 800 MHz, 1.9 GHz and 2.5 GHz - for faster, more reliable service than before.
• Dozens of new macro cell sites have also been built in areas including Delray Beach, Doral, Hialeah, Homestead, Miami, Palm Beach Gardens, and Pompano Beach to further expand wireless coverage in the Southeastern, Florida market.

So who won? Well, that depends on who you ask.

On the Speedtest blog, they said:

Sprint’s home team might have won the game, but Verizon triumphed when it came to mobile download speeds, coming in 143.7% faster than second-place T-Mobile when considering Speedtest® results over all technologies. Sprint had the third fastest mean download speed in this category and AT&T came in fourth.

Focusing on their 5G game really helped Verizon take the day when considering overall speeds as T-Mobile had the fastest mean download speed (66.35 Mbps) on LTE. Sprint was second on LTE with a mean download speed of 56.16 Mbps, AT&T third at 39.18 Mbps and Verizon fourth at 30.67 Mbps. We break out 5G speeds for each operator below.

T-Mobile’s mean upload speed over all technologies was far better than competitors’. Upload speed is especially important at big events like this as fans try to share their game day experience with those not in the stadium.

T-Mobile also had the lowest latency, coming in 26.0% faster than second-place AT&T. Sprint was third for latency and Verizon fourth.

For comparison, the mean download speed over mobile in the U.S. in January 2020 was 41.23 Mbps, upload was 10.55 Mbps and latency was 46 ms.

Verizon easily beat T-Mobile and Sprint when it came to mean download speed over 5G during the big game. Verizon came in last, however, for both mean upload speed over 5G and latency. T-Mobile showed the fastest mean upload speed over 5G and Sprint had the best latency on 5G. While we did see 5G Speedtest results for AT&T during the game, there were fewer than 10, the minimum threshold we set for this event.

In 2019, fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta used over 24 TB of data on the stadium Wi-Fi network on game day with an average Wi-Fi download speed of 30.98 Mbps. To get a baseline on the Miami experience, we looked at Wi-Fi performance during the Bengals v. Dolphins matchup on December 22, 2019.

Wi-Fi at the stadium did show some game day stresses yesterday, with a mean download speed 33.7% slower than the December 22 game. Mean upload speed dropped 25.7% and latency was up 28.6%.

Verizon also provided Wi-Fi for their customers during the big game yesterday, and the mean download speed was comparable to that on the stadium’s SSID. Mean upload speed on Verizon’s SSID was 12.1% slower than on the stadium’s, but Verizon’s Wi-Fi latency was also lower, showing a 22.2% improvement over stadium Wi-Fi.

It’s worth noting that mean upload speed in all cases was faster than that on download. This is impressive and helpful to fans trying to livestream their experience for friends back home.

This does not mean that it has stopped T-Mobile in claiming that they were winners.

Verizon Super Bowl Breakdown:
- Spent $80M on 5G for *parts* of the stadium 🔎
- Spent big #SBLIV 💰comparing their 4G to our 5G – (even THEY couldn’t find their 5G signal)
- Finally admitted we’re the REAL network competition. #5GThatWorks pic.twitter.com/btAXcte79f

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) February 4, 2020

You can say that based on the 5G coverage, this was justifiable

Verizon wasn’t joking when they said their 5G was in “parts of stadiums” 👀 #5GThatWorks
pic.twitter.com/uuNYTzzGPv

— Neville (@NevilleRay) February 2, 2020

Hopefully in the next Superbowl, we will see some more concrete deployment pictures along with the marketing spin.

Related Posts:

• Operator Watch Blog: USA has an interesting mix of different types of 5G
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Verizon's got Balls and Small Cells
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Verizon's Small Cells Start Paying Dividends
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: 5G Small Cells on 'Smart Poles' in Denver
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Sprint's Outdoor Small Cells - In Pictures
• Operator Watch Blog: Sprint & HAPSMobile Will Perform 4G Aeriel HAPS Testing
• Operator Watch Blog: US mmWave Spectrum Auction Results in 24 GHz & 28 GHz
• Operator Watch Blog: Sprint Keynote from #B5GS 2019 - Power of Massive MIMO and Band 41 5G NR
• Telecoms Infrastructure Blog: Some pictures of Small Cells from California (USA)

Small Cells and/or WiFi - The confusion continues...

Its been an interesting last few weeks. Depending on which report you read, you will either come to the conclusion that 'WiFi will be killing off Small Cells' or 'Small Cells will be killing off WiFi'

First there was this report that "You might not need a mobile carrier by 2020". It makes this bold statement: In Europe, many cell phone owners have already ditched their wireless carrier. But Wi-Fi isn't quite widespread or robust enough for most Americans to completely ditch their wireless carrier just yet. In all honesty, I have never come across anyone that has ditched their mobile network operator and now relies entirely on Wi-Fi. I certainly know of people who now don't even bother switching on their WiFi because their cellular coverage is extremely good and have flat pricing.

Joe Madden, a respected analyst of small cells, recently said the following: "Even if we exclude homespot deployments, the number of Wi-Fi access points will reach the level of millions for cable operators and public venues during 2015, outstripping the capacity of new LTE base stations. Several large mobile operators have made a gigantic blunder, by ignoring the opportunity to deploy Wi-Fi or utilize Hotspot 2.0 –so cable operators and other service providers are jumping on the opportunity. Homespots add another dimension, with massive crowdsourcing of capacity. The total Wi-Fi capacity deployed by service providers worldwide could match the 'data tsunami' in terms of raw capacity over the next five years, although of course there are obvious limitations in mobility and QoS."

While you may be thinking Wi-Fi '1' and Small Cells '0' a thing to remember is that WiFi still has some way to go to sort out the security stuff. This article highlights how easy it is spoof a WiFi AP, the one you have trusted in the past and easily access personal Info. I strongly suggest that you read this article. One may argue that some of these issues will be gone with HS2.0 and other new security mechanisms these problems will vanish. One has to remember though that since WiFi uses unlicensed bands, and since the technology has been around for ages, its easy to get cheap equipment and it may not exactly be illegal to have equipment running in this band.

Cellular on the other hand relies on licensed spectrum and has a very strong authentication mechanism which may get around such basic insecurity info (though to some extent this can be hacked, depending on operator policies on the UICC/SIM card).

Dr. Kim Larsen, recently did a presentation where he looked at the economics of Small Cell and WiFi and in what situations both of these make sense. His presentation is embedded below.

Some thoughts from Kim on his presentation on Twitter:

• Most Smartphone based WiFi traffic happens at Home, believing this traffic is offloaded is rather foolish!
• WiFi...Why & When to care (at least when you are an mobile operator)
• Why do we like WiFi so much & why cellular have so many challenges matching consumer expectations!
• WiFi has the consumer perception of being 1 Fast, 2 Almost Free & 3 Unlimited...Brilliant Branding!
• Mobile Operator WiFi off-loading strategies should consider mitigating potential & substantial cellular revenue loss!
• When WiFi makes the most sense for a Mobile Operator; 
1. Cellular expansion options have been exhausted!
2. you control fixed & mobile sides of the customer experience & value chain! 
3. Competitive Pressures .. ultimately is likely to be a loss-loss scenario!

Tight, Tighter and Very Tight Integration between LTE and WiFi Networks

For those who are unfamiliar about the trusted and non-trusted access, I strongly recommend reading our whitepaper on Cellular and WiFi Integration here.

The standard and the most popular Integration approach between LTE and Wi-Fi is via the Trusted architecture as shown above.

There is a proposal for RAN level Integration which would result in Even Tighter Integration of WiFi

Now some researchers are proposing a Very Tight coupling between LTE and Wi-Fi which would mean that regardless of the access, the UE can be sent data from the same data stream over WiFi and LTE. Though this is radical, these approaches are already being thought about for '5G'. Whether it will happen in a future release of 4G or 4.5G remains to be seen. Here is the complete paper embedded below:

Very Tight Coupling between LTE and Wi-Fi for Advanced Offloading Procedures from Zahid Ghadialy

Smart ANDSF by NSN

I have blogged about Access Network Discovery and Selection Function (ANDSF) in great detail on the 3G4G blog here. Earlier this week I was hearing from NSN about their Smart ANDSF solution which is the standard ANDSF with enhancements to handle unpredictable load conditions. Here is their presentation from the webinar.

NSN: Grow Capacity from Zahid Ghadialy

Wi-Fi as the preferred cellular access and barriers to roaming

Republic Wireless, a regional carrier in the USA is doing some interesting stuff with Wi-Fi and is possibly going to create some interesting challenges for established cellular carriers. An extract from a recent article in Washington post as follows:

Consider Republic Wireless, a Raleigh-based business that announced this month it would sell Motorola's new flagship phone, the Moto X. Republic enjoys all the traditional advantages of an MVNO — low capital expenditures on infrastructure and spectrum — but it's taken the additional step of cutting out 3G and 4G data use whenever it can. Technically, Republic operates on Sprint's network, but it's more appropriate to think of Sprint as a backup for when a call or message can't be completed over WiFi.

Yes, you read that right: WiFi. Republic's business depends on shunting all of your communications — data, voice, everything — onto the free stuff you get in your office or in coffee shops. What makes this beautiful is that whenever a Republic customer chooses to place a call over WiFi, that saves Republic money. As a result, Republic can offer a $5-a-month plan for unlimited talk, text and data. For another $5 a month, customers get access to Sprint's cellular network (minus 3G). Higher-tier plans provide 3G and 4G Internet on Sprint, though it's almost a joke to call them "higher-tier" when the most expensive plan tops out at just $40 a month. The tiered plan supersedes an old, $19-a-month all-you-can-eat plan.

"The crazy plans at $5 and $10 have never been tried," said CEO David Morken. "That's because we focus on unlicensed spectrum as the primary, and licensed spectrum as the secondary."

This approach can be quite disruptive for the MNO's. With NGH / HS2, soon MVNO's like republic wireless will be able to offer roaming on WiFi, thereby cutting the costs while not in the home market.

WBA released an Industry report recently (embedded below) which had some interesting findings.

Industry bodies, vendors and device manufacturers are working hard to get rid of some of these limitations and barriers. Once these limitations are gone, there is going to be a good business case for offering of global Wi-Fi roaming for example.

Another interesting question in the survey was what would be your preferred means of building Wi-Fi footprint. One of the answers is shown above, a similar question was asked in a webinar and posted in the 3G4G blog post here.

Finally, since the WBA report mentions about Wi-Fi and Small cells data offload, you may find a previous post of interest here.

The complete WBA report as follows:

Wireless Broadband Alliance Industry Report 2013: Global Trends in Public Wi-Fi from Zahid Ghadialy

What are Homespots?

Recently I got introduced to the term 'Homespots'. While I knew what they are, I wasn't aware there was a term for them

The slide above and below are from a recent webinar by Maravedis-Rethink (embedded at the end of the post)

In UK we have BT FON and Openzone which are both Wi-Fi hotspot services. Openzone is actually a hotspot deployed and maintained by them while FON is actually a Homespot, which uses spare capacity from the open Home Hubs deployed in the homes. BT has some details about it here.

Anyfi whitepaper shows (see above pic) some of the technical challenges that need to be kept in mind while deploying Homespots.

Anyway, here is complete presentation from the webinar mentioned above

Video Offload -Six trends you NEED to understand! from Zahid Ghadialy

KDDI Japan, Traffic Offloading Strategy

While going through some KDDI presentations, came across how they planned and perform Offloading. In fact, even before the deployment of LTE, they were aware that the network capacity would not be enough for the savvy Japanese mobile phone users. They had to start planning for how to offload the users as soon as possible. 

au Wi-Fi is their Wi-Fi offloading strategy where they make Wi-Fi hotspots available for the users. They even claim that with Wi-Fi on, the baattery life could be 1.5 times the normal 3G battery life.

UQ WiMAX is another KDDI company that allows users with compatible handsets to offload to WiMAX. KDDI have their own WiMAX branded services as well, see here.

Finally, with the LTE rollout they have different hierarchical cells available that the user could be moved to if one of the layers is congested. 

New opportunities in Carrier Wi-Fi & Wi-Fi offload

Interesting webinar from Maravedis-Rethink exploring the new opportunities with Carrier-WiFi and Offloading. Embedded below is the video and presentation:

Carrier Wi-Fi & Wi-Fi offload from Zahid Ghadialy