The home of the National Football League’s Buffalo Bills, “The Ralph” is located in Orchard Park, NY with a seating capacity of 71,870 seats. Now called New Era Field "The Cap."

Overview

The electrical contractor responsible for massive renovations at Ralph Wilson Stadium was seeking a company that could implement both a wired and wireless solution throughout this high volume facility.  Ronco successfully won the bid.  The parameters of the bid called for robust and resilient solutions.  This was especially important for the outdoor gate scanning equipment that needed to be both “Buffalo weatherproof” and able to accommodate the influx of over 60,000 ticket holders on game day for ticket tracking back to Ticketmaster.

This project also required the implementation of a secure, reliable, networking infrastructure intensive enough to support and efficiently manage the operations of the facility.  This includes various vendor POS Systems, the ability to support the live streaming requirements of the IPTV in stadium, press box demands, audio and video streaming to both the jumbotron, and multi array speakers driving the fan-demonium of the crowd.  With over 60,000 tickets scanned for each game, managing these high volumes required increasing the security monitoring systems.  This system is the foundation for a restoration stadium improvement initiative intended to provide new features and capabilities.

Solution

Numerous stacks of Cisco switches were required to provide interwoven coverage between wired and wireless on a single platform. Installed within 20 wiring closets located throughout the stadium these switches up-link to a robust Nexus Core.  Over 100 indoor and outdoor Cisco Aironet Access Points were installed throughout the facility to create a reliable wireless high-density network. Redundant Cisco ASA Firewalls safeguard the high-volume of Internet traffic.  The wired network with redundant Controllers is configured with many VLAN's supporting IP Cameras, IP Video and Internet access for staff and press plus back haul of the wireless traffic.  All Cisco products are managed from the customer’s data center supported by Cisco Prime to increase operational efficiency.

Ronco’s efforts have provided a more secure and efficient service for the stadiums mission-critical infrastructure needs.

Deliverables

Cisco Nexus

Wireless Aironet

ASA Wireless Routers

Cisco Prime