If you have ever been to a large sporting event you know what I’m talking about. You try to post that awesome selfie or video of a great play on social media and it takes a very long time to upload because 60,000 other people are trying to do the same.
I was at the 100th Indianapolis 500 last year and if you thought trying to upload a pic was bad in a 60,000 seat stadium, try doing it at a racetrack with 400,000 people. Yeah, I took a lot of pics and videos on my Verizon phone but I didn’t get to post much until I got back to the hotel after the race. And while it would be unfair to complain about mobile performance within a 2.5 mile track that consisted of the population equal to New Orleans, that’s not exactly a good look for a series that’s sponsored by Verizon.
So for the 101st race, Verizon has improved performance at the track by installing masting balls around the facility. These big white balls (phrasing) are all around the track and contain anywhere between 36 and 60 antennas for each of the five masting balls. As a result, it’s expected to increase performance by 333% in the turn 3 area. And considering fans used 20.8 terabytes of data at the Indy 500, it’s important to make things easier for people to post.
This has become an issue at most sports facilities. With technology evolving at an incredibly rapid pace, it could be tough to keep up. Racetracks can be some of the toughest places to get a good signal. For one thing, most NASCAR and IndyCar tracks are much bigger than an NFL stadium and many times have more fans. While the Indy 500 reached 400k fans last year, the Daytona 500 sold out its 101,000 seats this year. The topic of increased technology at NASCAR tracks has come up in recent weeks from Dale Earnhardt Jr. And he’s right, increased wifi technology will improve the experience as well as attract younger fans and even fans of all ages. We’ll see if this helps at the Indy 500.
[IndyStar/Photo: Verizon]
