JMA Wireless and the Sacramento Kings celebrate their work building the most connected arena in the world.
JMA Wireless worked with system integration partner, DAS Group Professionals (DGP), on the world’s first ever deployment of a multi-band, multi-carrier distributed antenna system at the Sacramento Kings’ new Golden 1 Center sports and entertainment venue.
“We are proud that our technology is making its debut at Golden 1 Center, the most connected indoor sports and entertainment venue in the world,” declared Todd Landry, Corporate Vice President of Product and Market Strategy at JMA Wireless. “Our innovative DAS platform is ensuring seamless wireless coverage in the stadium as well as throughout the outdoor plaza surrounding it.”
The TEKO DAS provides over one million square feet of wireless coverage – more than the Transamerica building. Combined with the arena’s blazing fast wireless connectivity, these antennas can allow a capacity-filled arena of 17,600 fans to make phones calls, surf the web, send over 225,000 Instagram photos, and create over 500,000 Snapchat posts per second without any lag.
“When we set out to build Golden 1 Center, we wanted to build a seamless experience for fans that took advantage of the best available technology today and was future-proofed for the technology of tomorrow,” said Ryan Montoya, Chief Technology Officer for the Sacramento Kings. “The connectivity at Golden 1 Center is simply unparalleled, and that would not be possible without JMA Wireless and DAS.”
“We chose JMA Wireless’ TEKO DAS for the coverage needs at Golden 1 Center because it provides the coverage, flexibility and reliability required to connect the arena of the future with the data-hungry fans who expect seamless connectivity wherever they go,” stated Martin Hevezi, Senior Radio Frequency Engineer – DAS at DAS Group Professionals, Inc.
These units can accommodate four cellular networks and are future-proofed to accommodate the 700L, 700H, 850, 800S, 1900, and AWS cellphone radio bands. Currently, the wireless network supports thirteen active sectors, but it is anticipated that in the near future it will expand to twenty. Cellular coverage is provided by 136 five-band low power remote units (RUs). Six remote units are dedicated just to the 700/800 public safety bands while the remaining 130 RUs enable coverage for spectators and employees.
The remote units are mainly located inside the facility, but a few are deployed outside on the surrounding plaza. Due to their small footprint, they are concealed readily under metal rock like structures, which blend into the outdoor environment. Furthermore, the wireless network is comprised of a mixture of 213 directional and omni-directional antennas supporting either 2X2 or 1X2 MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) coverage.
The TEKO DAS platform provides this robust cellular coverage and capacity for a relatively low cost. Only a single fiber per remote unit was used to connect it to the master unit (MU). Up to six bands can be delivered over each fiber. All remote units were configured easily from a single administrative interface at the master unit. Furthermore, firmware upgrades in the future can be applied using this same administrative interface. Overall, installation costs are as much as 50 percent less than competitive offerings.
