One growing area of that market is managing multiple frequency groups in large buildings and campuses in diverse verticals, including colleges and medical facilities. Among those facilities are the large sports arenas that have hosted the last three Super Bowls, such as Jacksonville's 74,000-seat ALLTEL Stadium, home of the Jacksonville Jaguars and host of Super Bowl XXXIX.

"All the metal in the walls of a stadium like ours blocks wireless signals from outside the facility," says Nick Dornford, IT manager at SMG, which runs the former Gator Bowl. This cuts off vendors, the media and potentially first responders in the event of an emergency from the wireless communications they depend on. The problem is that one technology -- for instance, a wireless telephone microcell or a Wi-Fi network -- would only meet part of the need. And installing and managing three or four different wireless networks becomes prohibitive in both cost and complexity.

For an answer, ALLTEL Stadium and the stadiums for Super Bowl XXXIIX and XXXX turned to Gulf Coast Real Estate in New Orleans, which installed integrated wireless systems from MobileAccess Inc. in Vienna, Va. The wireless system is designed to support all these wireless technologies off a single antenna structure, with central management and security and a combined, fiber-based backhaul.

ALLTEL Stadium installed the system before the Super Bowl and, says Dornford, "proved to be a pleasant surprise for everyone." Its impact was demonstrated inadvertently when the new system was shut off briefly for testing during a media briefing a few days before the game. "Suddenly everybody was rushing for the concourses, because they couldn't get cell phone signals in the building," he said.

And the media weren't the only ones that loved the new wireless capability. "The Jacksonville police and fire love it, because they can use their Nextel phones in the facility for instant communications," Dornford says. The network also supports their two-way radio frequencies, giving them dual-communications capabilities. And vendors quickly discovered the advantage of both cell and high-speed wireless Internet linkages for their business communications.