Fans attending games or events at Xcel Energy Center this season should see improved cellular connectivity thanks to a new distributed antenna system (DAS) deployed by American Tower, using gear from MatSing and CommScope.
The 20,554-seat arena, home of the NHL’s Minnesota Wild, recently went through a full rip and replace upgrade of its legacy DAS, according to American Tower. By using CommScope’s ERA DAS infrastructure platform and lens antennas from MatSing, American Tower was able to build a brand-new mid-band 5G network that all three major wireless carriers have committed to join.
Like other arenas and stadiums that have upgraded their DAS installations recently, American Tower said using the unique MatSing antennas allowed for a network design that provided comprehensive and expandable coverage, while minimizing the number of antennas needed.
“With MatSing’s features, engineers were able to customize the coverage contours in accordance with the geometry of the bowl,” said Amit Shah, vice president, technology solutions and engineering at American Tower, in an email interview. “The MatSing antennas offered great specs in terms of gain, sidelobe suppression, front-to-back ratio, port-to-port isolation, and beam-to-beam separation for achieving good SINR [signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio].”
The MatSing antennas used at Xcel Energy Center are the MS-MBA 4.4.2 lens antenna, which has a form factor that is an elongated box enclosure with a curved front (see photo). According to MatSing, the DAS deployment only needed nine of the antennas to complete the overhead coverage design.
American Tower said the full construction took five months to complete, and now includes coverage of the main skyway walkway to the arena for the first time. The network was scheduled to be live ahead of the Wild’s recent preseason home games, according to American Tower.
