Like all sports teams these days, Bath Rugby has found that providing state-of-the-art connectivity is part and parcel of the modern experience, and looking to elevate matchday mobile for its fans, the club has announced the successful deployment of an Antevia Networks 5G Shift end-to-end private network at its Recreation Ground stadium.
The current Premiership Rugby Champions, Bath first began life as a rugby club in 1865, and played its first game at the historic stadium in 1894. The iconic and idiosyncratically designed stadium holds as many as 14,500 spectators for each home game. It is set deep in the heart of the city that is famous for its Georgian architecture and Roman baths, almost 100 miles west of London.
From a connectivity perspective, Bath Rugby had previously experienced severe congestion on its legacy public Wi-Fi and macro cellular networks, which would cause point-of-sale terminals to fail, slowing service and impacting revenue. What began as a project to stabilise this retail connectivity was expanded to support a growing set of use cases throughout the matchday experience, leading to increased return on investment.
Antevia Networks says that through its technology it can change the economics of 5G private networks. The company believes their roll-out has been held back by high-cost and slow, complex installation cycles typically involving major suppliers and telecoms domain expert integrators.
Addressing these concerns, the 5G private network at the Recreation Ground is said to be able to deliver predictable, low-latency connectivity across the entire stadium and surrounding fan zones on match days. In addition, it has been built to support a range of operational and commercial use cases, including point-of-sale transactions, mission-critical staff communications, CCTV and body-worn cameras, media connectivity, and digital signage.
Designed to overcome traditional limitations and provide better performance than legacy Wi-Fi and congested public mobile networks, 5G Shift is described as being able to provide “unbroken” coverage using a fraction of the access points, “dramatically” reducing the cost and complexity traditionally associated with cellular deployments.
Powered by patented multiplexing and shared cell technologies, the network requires no RF planning, can be deployed rapidly and is managed like enterprise Wi-Fi by the club’s existing IT team. 5G Shift uses a cloud-based virtualised RAN architecture built on O-RAN standards and COTS hardware. The patented multiplexing technology enables all radios to appear as a single shared 5G cell to eliminate handover issues, and reduces the number of access points required. In deployments to date, Antevia says it has required less than 10% of the access points required for Wi-Fi.
As a result of deployment, Bath Rugby uses the network to connect mission-critical and high-value applications including point-of-sale terminals for food, beverage and club-shop transactions; push-to-talk communications for medical teams and match-day operations; CCTV and body-worn cameras for crowd safety and control; and digital signage across fan areas delivering real-time interviews, replays and information. It can also see use in providing temporary connectivity for VIP hospitality areas and high-speed media access for journalists filing live reports.
“Bath Rugby’s Recreation Ground is a perfect example of how simple, scalable and cost-effective private 5G can deliver real-world value,” said Antevia Networks CEO Simon Cosgrove. “5G Shift gives organisations comprehensive coverage with ultra-low latency at a low price point, without the complexities and heavy engineering normally associated with the deployment of private cellular.
“We’re proud to be supporting Bath Rugby with a network that stands up, even when the stadium is at full capacity, and we’re excited to keep expanding the use cases that can help deliver operational and commercial benefits for the club.”
For the deployment, Bath Rugby and Antevia worked with local enterprise resilient wireless services firm Spry Fox Networks.
