Comcast Business will partner with Extreme Networks to make  Oracle Park the first 100% Wi-Fi 6E-ready professional sports venue.

The home of baseball’s San Francisco Giants will be equipped with around 900 of Extreme’s WiFi 6E access points placed overhead and under seats to provide connectivity for fans and back-of-house applications. The installation is expected to be completed this month.

“In this day and age, when fans come to the park they expect the experience off the field to match what they see on the field. With the backbone of a high-bandwidth, high-performing, superhighway network, the Giants have laid the foundation for next-generation services like streaming and biometrics,” Extreme Networks VP John Brams noted in an announcement.

The wireless network will be managed by Comcast and the San Francisco Giants through the ExtremeCloudIQ platform, which includes visibility capabilities like anomaly detection. ExtremeAnalytics will provide additional insights and visibility into the network, enabling network management teams to pinpoint network issues, identify bottlenecks in venue foot traffic and determine when to redeploy resources at busy concession stands.

These analytics will help understand fan behavior and interests, Comcast Business noted in the announcement. Additionally, the provider pointed out that the new network will power business functions like point-of-sale and ticketing, and will enable quick deployment of wireless infrastructure for temporary events on the field or outside the ballpark.

“It is so important for ballparks like Oracle Park to be adaptable,” added Scott Cohen, executive director at Comcast Business. “Fans attend Giants games for monumental moments and unforgettable experiences. Having a strong and adaptable network infrastructure is how these fans, and the vendors that serve them, achieve those unforgettable experiences. And, with these new network upgrades, the game-day experience at Oracle Park will be prepared for years to come.”

Wi-Fi 6E is the evolution of the Wi-Fi 6 standard that was introduced in 2019. Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) operates at 2.4 and 5 GHz, while Wi-Fi 6E (802.11ax 6 GHz) is still a draft standard and operates in the less crowded 6 GHz spectrum band.

Gartner Analyst Tim Zimmerman told SDxCentral this year that despite growing enterprise investment in Wi-Fi 6E infrastructure, most end-user devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones are still limited to 802.11ac and 802.11ax, and cannot yet use the 6 GHz spectrum.

Zimmerman said he does expect that the 6 GHz spectrum will become “more of a capable spectrum” in the next several years, when the 802.11 generation is ratified as part of the IEEE standard. However, he has yet to secure a “commitment from any vendor to move from a Wi-Fi 6E to a standards-based implementation within the 6 GHz space,” which has led to customers investing in Wi-Fi 6E before it’s actually usable.