The use of smartphones and tablet computers has
exploded over the past three to five years. With it, the strain
on the wireless Internet infrastructure of convention centers,
hotel meetings facilities, and other venues continues to grow.
The Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas is responding
to that pressure by completely replacing its Wi-Fi network. The
1.2-million-square-foot convention center has some big
competition in town, notably the nearly 1.7-million-square-foot
Mandalay Bay Convention Center and 2.1-million-square-foot Las
Vegas Convention Center. Increasingly, Wi-Fi quality is
becoming a key factor in the Sands Expo's ability to attract
business, says Justin Herrman, the facility's IT director.
"Our clients are large event producers, and their clients are
their attendees and exhibitors," he says. "They need to stay
cutting-edge and competitive. To do that, they need to enable
sophisticated wireless applications, deliver an always-on
wireless experience, provide mobile location services, and
deliver any service with essentially real-time responsiveness."
To ensure it can meet these needs, the Sands Expo turned to
Xirrus to replace its Wi-Fi infrastructure as part of a larger
renovation project. In 2004, a year before Apple's release of
the incredibly popular iPhone, Xirrus was founded to start
"developing infrastructure for wireless that can scale to
high-performance in high densities, and ultimately replace
wired connections," says Bruce Miller, vice president of
product marketing for Thousand Oaks, CA-based Xirrus. "In 2004
that was down the road, and a lot of money was going in to
developing the smartphones and tablets and everything else,
without a lot of forward thinking with respect to the
infrastructure."
Xirrus now specializes in rewiring venues where a lot of people
are packed in together and using their mobile devices, such as
schools, stadiums, and convention centers. Last year, temporary
Xirrus Arrays were brought in for densely packed venues at the
South by Southwest festival in Austin. The company's biggest
selling point, Miller says, is that its array technology can
provide bandwidth with a fraction of the hardware as its
competitors. "What Xirrus can do with one array, a competitor
requires 10, 20, or even 30 [Wi-Fi] access points to do," says
Herrman.
But the Sands Expo plans to provide more than just Wi-Fi,
Miller says. "What the Sands is doing that is interesting and
forward-thinking is providing services on top of that," he
says. The Wi-Fi system can act like an indoor version of GPS,
"and you can find out where a user is located and, based on
that, push specific advertising or information to him or her."
This can include directions in the massive facility -
essentially mapping where she is and directing her to another
exhibition booth, rather than making her look up each one on a
map. It can also allow organizers to push custom content tothe
user when she enters a specific booth or area, as well as
tracking attendees at learning sessions for professional
certification credits.
It can also push location-based ads. "It can be something
specific to the venue like, 'come back and buy tickets for the
next [sporting] event.' It could be a coupon - a barcode or QR
code - that you can scan at the refreshment stand to get food
or drinks," Miller says. "That interaction is captive because
the user is connecting through [the venue's]
device."