Cox Business has entered into a multi-year collaboration with the BOK Center in downtown Tulsa, OK, as the Official Technology Communications provider for the 19,199-seat arena. The BOK Center, which recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary, is home to the ECHL Tulsa Oilers and was designed to host major concerts, family shows, ice shows, and other entertainment.
Cox Business will install nearly 300 WiFi access points (APs) throughout the facility. The new APs will be connected by an additional two miles of Ethernet and one mile of fiber-optic cable.
As the exclusive technology integration sponsor, Cox Business worked with BOK Center on an upgrade to the arena's technology infrastructure. Cox Business will offer telecommunications services delivered through fiber-optic cable including Internet, cable TV, voice services, public and private WiFi, as well as network infrastructure.
BOK Center worked with Cox Business' Hospitality Network division to strategically place the WiFi access points at critical traffic points in the arena.
"WiFi is no longer viewed as a perk when you visit places. Instead, it has become expected. Our former system at BOK Center did not allow us to have 19,000+ people concurrently on our WiFi," said BOK Center General Manager Casey Sparks. "We know how important it is to our guests that they are able to share their experiences when attending events here. Now, we are able to meet that demand through our partnership with Cox Business, who has been an incredible partner to us over the last decade."
"We're absolutely thrilled to bring enhanced WiFi capabilities for the enjoyment of and use by BOK Center attendees and entertainers," said Jason Ludwig, director, Cox Business. "A customized WiFi installation, combined with a new gigabit backbone, ensures BOK Center is on the forefront of the connected guest experience."
On Jan. 18, the new network was tested with a sold-out crowd at the Metallica concert to confirm the new WiFi networks capabilities. Within minutes, 2,400 devices connected to the BOK Center WiFi network without any significant buffering or latency. More than 2 TB of data were consumed at nearly 1 GBps.
Concurrently with the installation, Cox Communications extended its status as a founding partner of BOK Center for an additional five years, committing to various marketing elements inside BOK Center, which include a future augmented reality fan engagement experience and social media promotions and contests to win tickets to upcoming events, on top of in-arena branding.