Road To Championship—Via CommScope?

If you think I’m blogging just to brag about the University of Kentucky Wildcats—you’re partially correct!  I confess to being a huge fan of my alma mater’s basketball team and am proud as can be about their success in this year’s NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.

Their victorious run through the tournament was made doubly exciting for me because of where their games were staged.  You see, I lead the CommScope business responsible for providing distributed coverage and capacity solutions within facilities that need specialized help in providing the wireless signals that people need when they visit places such as airports, skyscrapers, shopping malls, train stations and convention centers.  For example, CommScope has implemented coverage and capacity systems:

• in the world’s longest tunnel,
• along the world’s longest railway bridge,
• inside the world’s tallest building,
• at the world’s greatest assembly of athletes,
• in one of the world’s busiest metros,
• in the world’s longest undersea tunnel and
• at some of the world’s biggest airports. 

On top of all these signature projects, the global CommScope team has been busy over the past few years with work in many of the world’s leading sporting arenas and stadiums, such as the world’s largest indoor stadium (Dallas Cowboys Stadium), the Americas’ most famous sports venue (Madison Square Garden in New York) and the stadiums that hosted the world’s most popular sports tournament, the FIFA World Cup, in South Africa. 

How does this relate to my Wildcats?  Well, they played at three different venues during their NCAA championship run—the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Ky., the Georgia Dome in Atlanta and the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.  What do all three have in common—other than Kentucky won all their games at each arena?  Each arena features an in-building wireless network provided by CommScope!  So while the Wildcats were winning, the tens of thousands of fans in attendance were enjoying the additional wireless network capacity that enabled them to share photos, videos, texts and calls with each other and their friends elsewhere around the world. 

CommScope has done similar projects in scores of arenas and stadiums all over the world.  I can’t legitimately make the claim that having CommScope install an advanced in-building wireless network is the key to any team’s chance of victory.  But as I revel in the Wildcats’ championship, I can’t help thinking that some people have gone to greater extremes to give their teams an advantage.  

Post originally appeared on the CommScope Blog.