SCIENCE

Ruckus Wireless has said that the first large-scale, high-speed public Wi-Fi network that was deployed at this year’s Sundance Film Festival offloaded terabytes of data from local cellular networks, delivering high capacity broadband access to Sundance moviegoers.

“Having some 50,000 people converge on this little mountain town over a week and a half creates huge problems for anyone trying to get reliable broadband access,” said Justin Simmons, associate director of IT at Sundance. “Last year it was nearly impossible to even make a cell phone call. This year, we took matters into our own hands using the best Wi-Fi we could find.”

For the first time this year, the Sundance Film Festival deployed and featured an advanced public Wi-Fi network, based on patented Smart Wi-Fi technology from Ruckus Wireless to provide broadband access to the thousands of festival-goers equipped with smartphones and mobile devices. The Ruckus ZoneFlex dual-band 802.11n network provided indoor/outdoor coverage to nearly 15,000 mobile device users in over a dozen remote venues over the 10-day event.

“Offloading mobile data traffic from cellular networks isn’t just of interest to operators,” said Selina Lo, president and CEO of Ruckus Wireless. “To deliver predictable performance and high capacity connectivity to essential applications, many enterprises and organizations, such as Sundance, will take control when predictable application connectivity and performance is essential.”

According to Sundance Institute representatives, in previous years the absence of a Wi-Fi network posed major problems for local 3G networks, which quickly became over-burdened with the high volume of mobile data traffic, resulting in a poor experience for festival patrons, film industry representatives and members of the press. To ensure this wouldn’t happen again, Sundance installed its own Wi-Fi network across nearly all of its sites servicing the festival.

With Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi systems and technology in place, the wireless network delivered an award-winning performance, easing congestion on cellular networks and delivering always-on access to thousands of visitors equipped with iPads, iPhones, laptops and other mobile devices.

Highlights of the “Smart Wi-Fi” network’s performance include:

• Supported 15,000 users and 2.5 terabytes of data over 10-day period, with an average of 1,480 users per day
• Offloaded an average 220 GB of data from the 3G network each day
• Handled 300+ GB during peak traffic times, which lasted several hours each day
• 90% of traffic utilized the more challenging 2.4 GHz frequency, showing a high proportion of smartphone users
• Provided an average daily consumption of 170.18 MB per user throughout the festival
• Provided 99.999% availability throughout the 10-day festival

“The Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi system went beyond our expectations and achieved our fundamental goal of enhancing the experience of our festival for moviegoers,” said Jared Griffith, president of Cinergy Wi-Fi, the systems integrator that managed the Sundance Wi-Fi infrastructure. “The network achieved the coveted five nines of availability and handled the high volumes of traffic with ease – even during peak traffic times, which lasted from morning till night.”

Sundance Institute IT staff selected the Ruckus “Smart Wi-Fi” system because of its unique ability to support high-density user environments and deliver more reliable wireless connectivity at longer ranges. This is achieved through adaptive antenna technology that automatically forms and directs Wi-Fi signals, constantly picking the fastest transmission path for each client while steering Wi-Fi signals around interference, which often causes connection problems.

The large-scale, multi-site Wi-Fi infrastructure, installed and managed by the Sundance Festival’s integration partner Cinergy Wi-Fi, covered 12 indoor and outdoor venues, and was used by festival patrons to access the festival’s iPhone application for event schedules, film descriptions, videos and more. Staff and operations personnel also used the Wi-Fi network for a variety of administrative purposes.

“Once people got on the Wi-Fi network, they stayed there for hours at a time,” said Griffith. “The experience of coming to an event like Sundance is something people want to share with their friends and family back home, and they used their mobile devices incessantly to post items to Facebook and Twitter, upload videos to YouTube and generally show everyone what an amazing time they were having. The Ruckus Wi-Fi system was essential in enhancing the experience for Sundance patrons.”