ARLINGTON, Texas — Everything is bigger in Texas so it is no surprise that Cowboys Stadium boasts the largest TV screen in the world, along with a lot of other “boasts,” like retractable roofs that open and close in 12 minutes, not a bad seat in the house since there are no pillars to get in the way of the view and 3,000 IPTVs for the people who don’t want to watch the big screen. But for the wireless industry, the coolest thing about Cowboys Stadium might be its $6.5 million Distributed Antenna System.
During a tour of the football stadium, Bill Haggard, director of enterprise infrastructure for the Cowboys, said the stadium houses nearly 1,000 wireless access points, most of them hidden from viewers. The building features 6 million feet of copper and close to 300 miles of fiber. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has much more than a football team; about 30 businesses use the facility, requiring three data centers, with most of the traffic running over the Cowboys’ private cloud. For example, Jones owns the catering business that serves the luxury suites. (Of course he does!)
Haggard said five operators use the Cowboys’ DAS network – AT&T Mobility, MetroPCS Communications Inc., Sprint Nextel Corp., T-Mobile USA Inc. and Verizon Wireless. The Cowboys charge the operators for network access. Along with consumers using the DAS network to upload photos and videos, send text messages and occasionally make phone calls, public-safety and staff use the network as well.
CommScope Inc. was charged with the heavy task of building out the DAS systems at the stadium. The company built one for inside the building and another DAS network for the outside of the building. The stadium also houses a cell tower, Haggard said. Other teams and sports venues often seek information about the Cowboys’ design as they go forward with their own implementations.
“Today you have to be incredibly efficient with your spectrum,” noted Matt Melester, SVP, Wireless Innovations at CommScope. Simply blasting more RF into buildings no longer works. “What’s signal to one is interference to another.”
As such, stadium owners across the world are demanding more in-building systems, and Melester said he is even seeing a shift in that enterprises want coverage from all operators in their buildings because their customers, suppliers and partners probably all use different operators.
Here is part of our interview with Melester.
And here is Marc Speir’s photo gallery of our stadium tour. (Ironically they wouldn’t let us bring a video camera in the facility.
Finally, here is CommScope’s own video of its work at Cowboys Stadium.
