Case study · Chicago, USA
Convention center Wi-Fi for more than 20,000 users at McCormick Place in Chicago. Prepaid exhibitor access, credit-card visitor access and tiered bandwidth control, managed centrally with ANTlabs SG5 and ASP.
Overview
McCormick Place is a lakefront convention center in Chicago. Its own website describes four buildings with 2.6 million square feet of exhibit halls, 1.2 million of them on a single level, plus 170 meeting rooms and the 4,188-seat Arie Crown Theater. A venue of this size serves exhibitors, organizers and public visitors at the same time, each with different connectivity needs.
McCormick Place documents prepaid charged access for exhibitors, credit-card purchase for public users and a return on investment of less than six months.
Supporting more than 20,000 users in a large convention environment.
Providing differentiated access for exhibitors and public visitors.
Enabling paid internet services while preserving a practical onboarding experience.
Allocating bandwidth fairly across service tiers during large events.
The solution
At McCormick Place, ANTlabs SG5 and ASP work together as one platform. SG5 is the high-capacity gateway positioned for scalable large-venue visitor access and peak traffic, and ASP is the centralized platform that manages portals, accounts, service plans, monitoring and reporting. Prepaid packages support differentiated, chargeable access for exhibitors, and a credit-card purchase flow supports paid public access where the payment integration is in place. Advanced QoS separates guaranteed, premium and basic service tiers so bandwidth is shared fairly, and event analytics reports usage, users and sessions.
| ANTlabs solution | How it addresses the requirement |
|---|---|
| SG5 high-capacity gateway positioning | Provides the current ANTlabs platform direction for scalable large-venue visitor access and peak traffic handling. |
| ASP centralized management | Centralizes portal, account, service-plan, monitoring and reporting functions. |
| Prepaid exhibitor access | Supports differentiated, chargeable connectivity packages for exhibitors. |
| Credit-card purchase flow | Supports paid public access when implemented with the applicable payment integration. |
| Advanced QoS | Separates guaranteed, premium and basic service tiers and manages bandwidth by user, group and application. |
| Event analytics | Provides operational reporting for usage, users and sessions. |
The impact
Connectivity positioned for very large event populations.
Differentiated services for exhibitors and public users.
A documented monetization model with prepaid and credit-card access.
Centralized service management and improved bandwidth control.
Next step
Every convention center has a different mix of halls, exhibitors and event formats. Tell us about yours and we will map it against the capabilities your events need.
