Case Study: HSV (Hamburger Sport Verein / Imtech Arena) achieves stable, carrier-grade Wi‑Fi and 3G offload with RUCKUS Networks ZoneFlex

HSV and T-Mobile Team to Turn Imtech Arena into a Stable and Reliable Wi-Fi Wonderland

Imtech Arena, the 57,000-seat stadium in Hamburg owned by HSV, needed a carrier-class Wi‑Fi solution to support Deutsche Telekom/T‑Mobile’s hotspot service for press, VIPs and visitors. The stadium required seamless indoor/outdoor 802.11n coverage that could be centrally managed, automatically steer 5GHz-capable devices, provide reliable meshing where cabling wasn’t possible, and offload growing smartphone data traffic from the 3G cellular network amid a highly dynamic, RF-congested event environment.

HSV and DT deployed a Ruckus ZoneFlex system—seven ZoneFlex 7762 outdoor APs, 21 ZoneFlex 7962 indoor APs and redundant ZoneDirector 1050 controllers—using adaptive meshing, beamforming, bandsteering and centralized management. The rollout delivered stable Wi‑Fi, supported hundreds (500+ at peak events) of concurrent users with no performance issues, enabled effective 3G offload, simplified deployment and management, and allowed on-demand capacity expansion with lower total cost of ownership.

HSV

Steffen Becker

IT Manager