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Your data reception at St Marys?


NickG
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Last season I used T-Mobile, I could easily and quickly check score at half time.

 

This season moved to different part of ground, use different phone and GiffGaff and cannot connect at all.

 

Curious if move of seat or network.

 

Where do you sit and can you use internet?

 

Me -

 

Itchen T-Mobile - good

Kingsland giffgaff / O2 - none

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I'm on O2. It's fine until about half an hour before kick off when the stadium starts filling up.

 

It's not a question of poor reception, it's that they can't handle the demand of x,xxx thousand people trying to access their network concurrently from the same transmitter.

 

21st century gadgets - 20th century infrastructure...

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I very rarely get any data connectivity at St Mary's. When we were in L1 and had a half full stadium it was better, but now it's just pointless trying as it just will not connect. Can't even make calls until I'm about 100 yards from the stadium.

 

(Vodafone)

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Basically the issue is there are 32000 people connecting to the closest local cell tower. The tower / networks can't cope.

 

T-Mobile, Orange (and now EE) offer the best Data as their data network is the strongest in the UK (However their voice networks are the worst well except 3 anyway).

 

Not much will be done till the other networks bring our 4g but it's going to be a while.

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Used to be able to check the scores on Orange via WAP when the stadium first opened, then when 3G came along and smartphones and websites got graphically heavy my speed hit a brick wall, and now on O2 I can't get anything at all from kick off until I'm past the King Alfred.

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I've always said it would be nice if the club offered Season Ticket holders free WIFI

 

You can get it around the corporate areas at the back of the stand, or at least could last season - lots of media wifi floating around the back of the Itchen if you can get a code.

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Full signal on GiffGaff, but no data. Unfortunately this is a problem with the Network infrastructure - the operators would need to put more masts in, or pico cells. Problem is that they don't make any money as apart from 19 games a year, the area is not a high use area.

 

WiFi is also not a solution - can you imagine even half of the stadium trying to get connected at once? 15,000 IP address assignments all at once would be a mare to cope with and manage.

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Basically the issue is there are 32000 people connecting to the closest local cell tower. The tower / networks can't cope.

 

T-Mobile, Orange (and now EE) offer the best Data as their data network is the strongest in the UK (However their voice networks are the worst well except 3 anyway).

 

Not much will be done till the other networks bring our 4g but it's going to be a while.

 

What a load of crap, 3 carries more mobile data than all the other networks and has the biggest data pipes.

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Th good news for all of you people who like to sit on your phones during matches is that the leading wireless networking vendors in the world are currently developing a technology which has been named 'connect the crowd', another facet of the BYOD which is all the rage everywhere at the moment. The theory behind it is that it is specialist for large crowds like at the Soccerball, NFL, rugby, cricket, baseball, concerts etc. and will enable clubs to offer scalable WIFI Inside their stadiums, meeting the short but high demand periods of before and after matches and half time, obviously ranging from practically zero use most of the time rising dramatically to 10s of thousands for short bursts on match days.

 

At the moment most vendors architecture, scalability and band steering isn't up to coping with the bursty demands that will be placed on it but its coming, Chelsea trialed Ciscos latest offerimg earlier this season. It's a large investment for a club for some thing whcih is only going to be used for, tops 2 hours a home game though when its fully developed Clubs will also be able to have their matchday programme available on People's own devices as well as a club splash page with people like Betfair advertising on them and people being able to place bets on their phone, on a game, whilst at the game. So if gimps d*cking about on thier phones during games irks you now, it's only going to get worse I'm afraid.

Edited by Turkish
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Th good news for all of you people who like to sit on your phones during matches is that the leading wireless networking vendors in the world are currently developing a technology which has been named 'connect the crowd', another facet of the BYOD which is all the rage everywhere at the moment. The theory behind it is that it is specialist for large crowds like at the Soccerball, NFL, rugby, cricket, baseball, concerts etc. and will enable clubs to offer scalable WIFI Inside their stadiums, meeting the short but high demand periods of before and after matches and half time, obviously ranging from practically zero use most of the time rising dramatically to 10s of thousands for short bursts on match days.

 

At the moment most vendors architecture, scalability and band steering isn't up to coping with the bursty demands that will be placed on it but its coming, Chelsea trialed Ciscos latest offerimg earlier this season. It's a large investment for a club for some thing whcih is only going to be used for, tops 2 hours a home game though when its fully developed Clubs will also be able to have their matchday programme available on People's own devices as well as a club splash page with people like Betfair advertising on them and people being able to place bets on their phone, on a game, whilst at the game. So if gimps d*cking about on thier phones during games irks you now, it's only going to get worse I'm afraid.

 

It's happening at Man City.

 

http://www.mcfc.co.uk/news/club-news/2013/may/etihad-stadium-wifi

 

St Mary's NEEDS this. The signal is crap. Can't even send texts on Vodafone in the Itchen. Crap.

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It's happening at Man City.

 

http://www.mcfc.co.uk/news/club-news/2013/may/etihad-stadium-wifi

 

St Mary's NEEDS this. The signal is crap. Can't even send texts on Vodafone in the Itchen. Crap.

 

I see they've gone with Cisco, good win for them, not the cheapest but arguably the best available at the moment. Will be a very good reference site for them. You say SMS needs it and I don't disagree, but this won't be cheap, as well as the wireless APs and controllers they'll also need to upgrade their wired network and backplane to cope with the hugely increased demand, will cost a lot of money.

Edited by Turkish
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I see they've gone with Cisco, good win for them, not the cheapest but arguably the best available at the moment. Will be a very good reference site for them. You say SMS needs it and I don't disagree, but this won't be cheap, as well as the wireless APs and controllers they'll also need to upgrade their wired network and backplane to cope with the hugely increased demand, will cost a lot of money.

 

Without doubt it would cost an absolute fortune but imagine the marketing possibilities they could do with it. People could buy the programme at the stadium on their phones and take part in polls, watch replays etc, but you could charge fans for access to the wifi / features on the apps. Expensive, yes, but plenty of ways to make money out of it.

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Agree that SMS needs wi-fi. As customers who have shelled out a **** load of money to attend, then that is the least one could expect these days. I am with O2 and don't think that I have ever managed to get a data signal, or rather one that allows to check the scores.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On Vodafone. Got full 3G in the Northam but can't ever connect. The bloke in front of me seems to always be able to get the scores and tables up though.

 

Exactly the same! 3 or 4 bars with 3G, can't access internet, email, texts or phone calls. Nightmare. I've even tried turning 3G off but makes no difference. I'm envious of those round me on O2 etc looking at Twitter, checking the score centre etc.

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