Revolutionizing the Stadium Experience: Olympiastadion Berlin and Extreme Networks Forge a New Era in Sports Technology

The Olympic city of Berlin is something very special. It was built from 1934 to 1936 and therefore has an eventful history. The stadium, like many stadiums in Germany, got a makeover for the 2006 Fifa World Cup, including the iconic roof and blue running track. And I think that the soul of the stadium, however, during that time was always ultimately the fans who animated this stadium. And, of course, the outstanding performances that happened on the field. Because without them, no fan would come here. So the building itself is a contemporary witness, but also living proof of how a sports facility can evolve through the decades and ultimately remain to this day for Berliners what it is for Britain perhaps. Wembley is a German Wembley, so to speak. Nowadays it is the home of Hertha BSC. And we have the DFB Pokal men's final here and that of course makes it something very special in Germany. In general, operating a stadium is always a challenge in the technological field. If at some point X a stadium is completely renovated or redone, it may be that ten years later the technology is already obsolete again. This means that you have to have the courage to improve technology at certain points in time or even to install new technology. Network technology has been increasingly used in German stadiums in recent years and has been installed with a wide variety of partners. In the process, one has very often found that one reaches one's limits. They say 20,000 people can go online at the same time, 40.000 or, as in our case, up to 70.000. That's where any network or came to its limits. In total, we have about 2 million visitors per year during the events, but also between the events as tourists. Before we had Ekxtreme as a partner, we had no WLAN in this stadium. So then we looked for the best partner in the market, with the best technology and with a good approach that is not only technological but also creative. It was also very important that we take monument protection into account here at the Olympic Stadium. You can't drill into every wall, you can't install equipment everywhere. We have solved this very well together with Extreme and we believe that we are now future-proof, with Extreme. All the peripherals, all the tools you need, we now have here on site. And all of our organizers can build on that with their applications or with their experiences that they plan for the visitors. We have not only aligned the WLAN for the fans but for the entire technical processes here in the stadium. With the new Extreme network technology and WLAN six, we naturally have much better and many other possibilities to present ourselves accordingly. And also in the area of management system, we have great advantages that we can really see live, for example: how many users that are logged on We have a management network where we can see, which switch is not in function and where there are disturbances. Each individual access point can be controlled directly. There are malfunction messages and that makes it much easier for us in the operation of course. The new WLAN six is of course the basis for all processes, for all features that continue here. With the WLAN, we were able to network the visually impaired, for example, who can then experience the stadium experience here with their terminal device, so to speak, and thus of course also created a great added value in the area of inclusion. We also have many other technical improvement processes, for example, the connection of the press box, the players' benches, the photographers, Have we now created a framework there that meets all needs For us, it was first of all a very big step in terms of our company and also the public's perception that we got a holistic WLAN in this stadium. And that is very important for the future, because it will always be the case that large associations such as UEFA, FIFA, the DFB, athletics, and umbrella organizations have specifications that require such a high-performance WLAN. And in this respect, we are well advised to have installed this WLAN here for the time being and what exactly it has to be able to do then has to be agreed with the respective organizer accordingly. There are, of course, various possibilities. Just the possibility of creating dedicated networks where different work groups can work, such as photographers or organizational units that want to have a closed WLAN for themselves. You can display all this with this WLAN. And of course we always have to think from the fan direction, we can only solve this together with Hertha BSC, the DFB and UEFA and tailor it to the event in question. The important thing is that we have the technology in-house and there is currently no reliable and faster WLAN in a German stadium.