Premiership football club Fulham has implemented a wireless network at its Craven Cottage stadium as part of an overhaul of its IT infrastructure.
The club has installed 40 wireless access points in the stadium to enable ground stewards to instantly access ticket information from handheld devices.
The club has also introduced a leased line to improve internet access speed and connect its stadium, training ground, community department and club shop.
Fulham IT support manager Spencer Haywood says migration of systems such as phone lines to the new network will take place in the coming year.
‘Previously, internet access was provided via the corporate network from our head office at Motspur Park,’ he said. ‘This made the connection cumbersome and slow, particularly for press and photographers reporting live from matches.’
The network is supporting new PDAs that were introduced at the beginning of the season along with smartcard ticketing technology (Computing, 17 August).
‘Fans can now approach a steward with their smartcard and get seat and ticketing information,’ said Haywood. ‘Bluetooth printers are also linked to 10 of the 25 PDAs so tickets can be printed.’
ISP Pipex has provided the wireless network as well as the leased line to connect Fulham’s sites and improve corporate communications. A back-up line provides additional resilience to avoid communication problems on match days.
Pipex is also hosting the club web site, fulhamfc.com, on two load-balanced servers, and its online megastore on a third database server.
Butler Group analyst Mark Blowers says a football stadium is an ideal environment for wireless because staff do not have time to log into a PC on busy match days.
‘Staff can use the devices to send and receive information to head office in real time while moving around the ground,’ he said. ‘It also opens up the possibility of introducing voice-over IP while freeing up the corporate network.’
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