UC on deck for new Mets park

Wi-Fi coverage and wireless ticket scanning are becoming increasingly common at sports stadiums, especially the newest arenas built within the last few year. Now, Citi Field, the new home of the New York Mets after they finish their last season in Shea Stadium this year, will have all that plus unified communications applications supported by Nortel Networks. The team's data center operations were recently moved from Shea to the new ballpark next door, and about 200 team employees are getting access to UC features such as voicemail and fax conversion to e-mail, flexible conferencing and VoIP.

Many of the team's ticket agents will be using VoIP gear for ticket sales, though the organization also will keep some agents on circuit-switched facilities as a back-up to VoIP. The Wi-Fi gear, also supplied by Nortel, also will allow concession orders to be placed by fans from their seats. Curiously, it doesn't look like the crosstown Yankees have said much about telecom-related amenities going into their new stadium. Maybe that money went toward A-Rod's salary.

For more:
- see this story at Computerworld

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Nortel recently acquired Pingtel in a UC-related deal