Etherlive – Event Technology Experts

Light on the Horizon

07 Apr 2016

4G, Events, Festival, Li-Fi, Technology, Wi-Fi

15360051168_4162e2067e_k Sorry to disappoint, but yes our blog last week on Li-Fi at festivals was an April Fool’s joke. The response to it though highlights just how much importance people put on remaining connected whilst at events.

Li-Fi is a real technology and does hold promise but it is practically much more suited to indoor environments and certainly not outdoor lighthouses! As with many technologies theoretical speeds are indeed very fast in the lab but real-world use is some way off, in the meantime Wi-Fi and 3G/4G remain the primary options for keeping connected.

All is not lost though as these technologies continue to develop, and more and more events are deploying infrastructure to improve attendee experience. Wi-Fi has moved a long way from the days of 11Mbps 802.11b, one of the first standards. Modern 802.11ac wireless access points support far more users, offer much higher speeds and contain a raft of technology to create the best user experience. A well designed high-density Wi-Fi deployment using 802.11ac and directional antennas can support thousands of simultaneous users and still provide good speeds.

The rapid deployment of 4G infrastructure by mobile carriers has improved connectivity at smaller events but events attracting more than a few thousand quickly overload cell towers which are limited by spectrum availability and coverage size.

Testing is underway with new technologies which may help – the first is LTE-U (Long Term Evolution Unlicensed) which more simply put is using unlicensed spectrum such as 5 GHz to deliver additional 4G capacity. The challenge is that this technology introduces yet another connectivity method into what is becoming very congested spectrum. It is in effect robbing Peter to pay Paul and therefore the approach has split the industry due to concerns over the impact it may have on Wi-Fi installations.

Another approach in testing, supported by Ruckus and Qualcomm amongst others, is OpenG using shared spectrum at 3.5 GHz in the US. It is not dissimilar to LTE-U but because it uses different shared spectrum does not clash with existing Wi-Fi. With the Ruckus solution the 3.5GHz radio is being integrated into existing dual-band Wi-Fi access points providing a triple radio solution in one unit which can be deployed easily.

Wi-Fi also continues to evolve with 802.11ac now at ‘wave 2’, a fuller implementation of the standard featuring ‘Multi-User MIMO’, a way of better utilising spatial channels across devices giving increased capacity. Then there is 802.11ax, touting speeds of 10 Gbps but we won’t see that any time soon as the standard is unlikely to be ratified until at least 2019 by which time Li-Fi may also be a reality!

Unfortunately, as is typical with these mobile technology evolutions, once testing and approval is complete there is a lag whilst the mobile handset manufacturers catch up with integrating the technology and penetrating the market which can add several years before mass market adoption is reached.

In the meantime, well implemented 802.11ac Wi-Fi remains the best approach for high density connectivity, and that’s certainly what we will be using this summer.

A big week for phones

From the Office

13 Sep 2012

EtherBlog

Comments: 0

4G, Connectivity, Events, iphone, Mobile, Technology

As the summer of sport runs into the sunset suddenly the September of phones is upon us. Two big announcements means this is a really important month (and quarter) for a technology which has become intrinsic to either attending or producing events.

4G is Go? – Wait and See

After more manoeuvring than a telehandler placing toilets (see our previous blog posts) 4G services will finally begin deploying in the UK. The first to market will be Everything Everywhere (a combination of the Orange and T-Mobile networks) which announced on Tuesday networks firing up in London, Birmingham, Cardiff and Bristol within weeks with more cities expected to follow before Christmas. Long Term Evolution (or LTE) brings a number of significant improvements over current 3G networks including download speeds of up to 20Mbps, improved algorithms for handoff between mobile cells (which should mean less dropped calls) and in some cases larger cell sizes meaning better coverage.

It all sounds great, however, there should always be a note of caution when dealing with cellular services which is probably best expressed by matching todays “3G” experience with what happens in the real world. Do you live in a world where your handset always has 3G signal, you haven’t dropped a call in months, data use is reliable, network masts never fail and when you are trying to text or call the box office during a live event with 20,000 other people on site it works first time? – The answer is carriers always sell the dream of the next generation; 4G is exactly the same. In reality what you should expect to start with is what was promised for 3G, meaning OK to good data speeds in cities and calls which rarely drop. Also lest we forget 4G, like 3G before it, is a consumer focussed technology offering which means very little in the way of speed guarantees or service up time.

Pocket-lint.com shows the new iPhone enjoying 4G speeds

Of course unfortunately for events the same problems around delivering reliable service to a remote location with high density usage will continue to be a challenge – not helped by the next big thing in cellular this month…

iPhone 5 – A monster awakes.

You can’t have missed the press, Apple’s latest iPhone 5 was announced last night. Those in the know will point out that even with this latest incarnation Apples crown has slipped slightly with handsets from Samsung and Blackberry winning in the specification war but that’s missing two crucial factors which need to be considered when dealing with anything from Cupertino. The first is the tidal surge of press and activity that follows anything iNew generating floods of new apps and ways to use the device, many of which rely on the iPhones killer selling point; the lack of learning curve. The second is the new technology which is bound up in this latest generation which includes the ability to operate with the new 4G networks, a new screen to show that high definition content even clearer (which means larger network downloads and faster streams required) and an all new software pack which further integrates social networking and always on connectivity. In addition Apple has given the iPhone one of the best features of the iPad which is its ability to work on both 2.4Ghz networks and 5Ghz which makes getting a good Wi-Fi signal, and keeping it, even easier.

That reliance on faster and always on connectivity will continue to keep demand growing for events who can deliver apps which enjoy video and interactive content at events.

Where Apple has missed a trick perhaps is the lack of contactless payment function others (such as Samsung and Blackberry) have started to deploy this latest technology which will put pressure on retailers of all sorts to start supporting the quick payment method. Apple is probably waiting for the market to settle before setting out it’s stall (and – knowing Apple – where it’s revenue stream is going to come from) but those early adopters will expect to be using their contactless payment methods this summer – we have another blog in a few weeks on this and our activity over the summer.

4 Thoughts on 4G for Events

From the Office

24 Nov 2011

EtherBlog

Comments: 0

4G, Cellular, Cellular Offload, Event, Festival, IT, OFCOM, WiFi

What does it say about society that a report on two UK 4G trials hits prime time nine o’clock news on the BBC? Probably that everyone still can’t get their heads around billions of Euros being thrown about and is looking for a little good news or at worse a new topic.

I thought the report, which had to address a rather wide 9pm audience, was good. In summary, 4G is coming and the speed and performance look great. A quick Google search finds that Gizmo has been using the O2 London-based trial for a week and is giving it rave reviews.

So with that good news ringing in our ears, we may think the battle of mobile data is done, but unfortunately wars are never that straight forward.

I would highlight to the event world that, whilst 4G will help tremendously with getting data access where we want it, it won’t address the primary challenges.

The march of progress: when 3G was starting to hit the market in 2003, it was to be the fastest, most reliable service in the world. At that time, most people in the UK used GPRS services on their devices, which delivered a speed of 9 kbps (pioneers at the time were using data cards with their laptops); compared to that, the theoretical throughput speed jump of 3G (2048 kbps) was immense. 3G was released and what happened? Firstly, deployment was slow and the real world speeds were much slower than the hype. Nearly 10 years on, coverage is still patchy and performance erratic.

Then we all got smartphones. So now not only do we want access to web sites, but we also want to watch iPlayer. We don’t make calls any more: we want to use face time. You get the picture (no pun intended). These developments are brilliant and make us more productive, keep us in touch with our families, etc. but what we continue to do is increase our data demand exponentially. That demand will not stop; 4G will just catch up, arguably to behind the demand curve when it eventually comes to market.

All mobile networks end with a cable somewhere

Law and order; OFCOM controls all licenced wireless broadcasts in the UK. For any UK carrier to broadcast on a 4G frequency and therefore offer services they must buy the licence. The sales of those licences has just been pushed back until the back end of 2012. So first not only do the carriers have to buy the licence (a massive investment which even for the largest carriers is a significant spend) but then they have to actually start to pay to upgrade their base stations to 4G just like they have with 3G. Have they finished upgrading all base stations with 3G yet? Ah. Good point.

The density spike; a key point for our event customers. 4G fundamentally operates in the same way as all GSM technologies in that it’s designed to be broadcast from several central points to cover a town. The design relies on relatively consistent demand. Throughput is constrained by the amount of spectrum each company has purchased from OFCOM and not solely on the amount of hardware deployed. Therefore when that bandwidth is fully utilised during abnormal spikes of activity there is not much that can be done to improve service. You can’t deploy 30 base stations around a site however much you wanted as you can’t service any more customers than you can with say 4. Service can be cleverly deployed using the topography of the site but in reality you are designing around the limitations of the way the system is designed. Here Wi-Fi has the edge since each ‘cell’ is much smaller and can be deployed all over an event site.

The cost; as always this is the million pound question. The carriers learnt from a lot of mistakes when they deployed 3G – and we should all sympathise. They purchased the licence from OFCOM for billions (Vodafone paid £5.9 billion for the rights to some 3G spectrum in 2000) and then tried to charge per MB but no one bought it because they found themselves operating in a world where customers want unlimited tariffs just like their home internet. Now they have to pay again for 4G licences. How will the charging model work? People want data ‘free’ but there is a huge infrastructure cost at a time when chargeable call volumes are dropping.

Just a little food for thought, it will be interesting to see how the trial in Cornwall, which is looking at how 4G can be used to help get internet access to remote locations (a great application) goes over the next few months and how manufactures start to line up devices for us to enjoy this need for speed with.