$4 million Wi-Fi project planned at EverBank Field

[KenFSU]

Link to full (paid) article:

http://members.jacksonville.com/news/metro/2014-06-18/story/4-million-wi-fi-project-planned-everbank-field

The Jaguars are asking the city to split the cost... About $1.2 million would come from the city's banking fund and another $650,000 would come from projected savings the city would recover from ongoing work at the stadium... The football team is managing the stadium work and would be on the hook for that savings if it didn't materialize.... The deal is expected to be brought to the council as an emergency next week with the hope of getting the measure approved that night and work at the stadium started in coming weeks...

The Jags want to have the upgrades, which the NFL requires of all teams by next season, ready to go by the Fulham/Carrie Underwood event.

[coredumped]

I don't see this as very useful. People bring their phones (which are already connected) to jaguars games, not their laptops.
If there's going to be open wifi it would be better served around bay street, adams street, laura, etc. Where people are more likely to have a coffee/meal and their laptop/tablet.

[spuwho]

I don't see this as very useful. People bring their phones (which are already connected) to jaguars games, not their laptops.
If there's going to be open wifi it would be better served around bay street, adams street, laura, etc. Where people are more likely to have a coffee/meal and their laptop/tablet.

Wireless analytics is becoming a huge thing now. NFL wants to collect what fans are doing with their phones during a game. What better way to do that then provide free wifi?

There was a previous post/discussion on MJ about this when Extreme bid on the project.

[carpnter]

Actually this can be very useful.  When you have 60K+people crammed into a stadium, the phone data networks can easily become saturated.  The wifi can take some of that load off of the phone networks in the area when people connect to the wifi network in the stadium.

[pierre]

I don't see this as very useful. People bring their phones (which are already connected) to jaguars games, not their laptops.
If there's going to be open wifi it would be better served around bay street, adams street, laura, etc. Where people are more likely to have a coffee/meal and their laptop/tablet.

Ever tried to use your phone during a game? Good luck.

[JBTripper]

I don't see this as very useful. People bring their phones (which are already connected) to jaguars games, not their laptops.
If there's going to be open wifi it would be better served around bay street, adams street, laura, etc. Where people are more likely to have a coffee/meal and their laptop/tablet.

You ever tried to check a score or make a call from the stadium on game day? With that many people in that confined space, your phone will not work at all. Wifi would be a tremendous improvement to the game day experience.

[IrvAdams]

^^Yes, it's impossible to access the signal with that many people, and a very high percentage of them have mobile devices going at once. A logical upgrade.

[Rob68]

Im sure there are much better uses of money like that in this city. If the nfl requires it than let mister shad pay for it..its part of him running his business...itll be a write off...with so much need..but unfortunately our counsel will probably give it up.

[fsujax]

Good. I get tired of having no or very slow internet service when at the stadium.

[jaxjaguar]

The load this will free up from the cell towers should be a huge boost for all events at the stadium. I'm glad to see this is finally happening. It sucks when you can't find your friends / family because one of you doesn't have signal due to the extreme tower overload. This will also help improve the overall game experience / value of the venue for other non-football events!

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

...and another $650,000 would come from projected savings the city would recover from ongoing work at the stadium... The football team is managing the stadium work and would be on the hook for that savings if it didn't materialize....

I guess it's a good thing that the city wasn't in charge of bidding/supervising this project.

[coredumped]

The load this will free up from the cell towers should be a huge boost for all events at the stadium.

I've never heard someone say "Nah, I'm not going to the jags game, the cell reception sucks."

Judging by the comments in this thread though, I'm alone. I'm one of those people who go out w/friends or to events and don't sit on my phone/facebook:)

[edjax]

I know I was trying to text friends who were also in the stadium for the soccer match on where to meet up after the contest and could not even get texts to send.

[edjax]

Im sure there are much better uses of money like that in this city. If the nfl requires it than let mister shad pay for it..its part of him running his business...itll be a write off...with so much need..but unfortunately our counsel will probably give it up.

If the team would pay for it would you be ok if they turned it off for non Jags events at the stadium?

[coredumped]

I know I was trying to text friends who were also in the stadium for the soccer match on where to meet up after the contest and could not even get texts to send.

If this is the issue, you're still out of luck. In fact, if your complaint is you can't make a call or text you're out of luck. Adding wifi won't ease congestion on the network. The same amount of phones will still be connected to the towers. Phone calls won't go through wifi (unless you're on tmobile) and text won't go through wifi at all.
The only thing this will do is allow for better internet. Texting and phone (again, unless on tmobile because they allow wifi calling) will remain the same.

Now, you could use facebook messenger or google hangouts to text.