London Stadium wide ‘High-density Wi-Fi’ is currently being installed by O2 and a testing phase is due to commence soon telecoms industry insiders have revealed to Claret and Hugh. Stadium owners E20 signed a contract with mobile company O2 last month to fund the long-overdue ‘Connected Stadium’ project.
Free Wi-Fi is scheduled to be made available to all stadium users this season with a date yet to be agreed and announced by the stadium owners.
O2 have rolled out the same Wi-Fi technology across Manchester City’s Etihad stadium, Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu, Twickenham rugby stadium and the London Eye.
O2 has re-used much of the infrastructure left in the ground from the London 2012 Olympics as well as the existing fibre network but has installed a new mesh of Wi-Fi access points to allow a crowd of up to 60,000 to enjoy fast download speeds of up to 30Mb/s.
Claret and Hugh understand that the multi-million O2 contract does not include any sponsorship so the London Stadium will not be renamed the O2 Stadium or the London Stadium powered by O2.
However, stadium owners may be looking for other sponsors to help absorb the cost of installing and the ongoing upkeep of the Wi-Fi going forward.