April 2, 2008
Denver International Airport's ad-suported wi-fi service gets a big performance boost and cuts its ad-serving costs to near zero.
Ultramercial and FreeFi Networks introduce a local cache solution that could become the standard for Wi-Fi ad delivery.
Los Angeles, CA. April 2, 2008/UM Newswire/ -- When Free-Fi Networks launched its free Wi-Fi service at Denver International Airport back in November 2007, they selected Ultramercial’s patented attention-as-payment ad format to grant travelers Internet access.
“Ultramercial’s brief 30-second format asks our audience to start, engage and finish the commercial. This guarantee of viewer involvement provides our sponsors with very high value,” said Lawrence Laffer, FreeFi’s executive director of sales and marketing.
Switching from a $7.95 paid model to free ad-supported access has been a resounding success at Denver. They now have over 6,000 connections to the Internet per day, versus the 500 to 600 a day that paid for access.
With this success came an unexpected challenge. The large high-resolution video files that are part of the commercial were consuming nearly one-third of the total bandwidth coming into DIA. Additionally, since so many travelers were watching the ad simultaneously, this raised performance issues unique to large-scale Wi-Fi systems.
The solution? Place a fast local server inside the DIA facility, with a complete cache of the commercials being run.
“The results were immediate and very positive,” said Emmett Culley, FreeFi’s lead technologist. “We are already seeing dramatic cost savings and near-zero latency.”
“No one wants to wait for a commercial, especially when that commercial is acting as payment to gain access,” added Jim Smith, Ultramercial’s chief technology officer. “Because everything that people see is now already inside of the airport, there is no wait for the viewer and there are no bandwidth costs. This lets us stream video and other rich interactive media in a way that nobody else can.”
This is not the first time Ultramercial has used the technology. They already use Mirror Image and Akamai content distribution networks to improve content delivery experiences on the open Internet. But a local cache for the commercials that underwrite the cost of free Wi-Fi access brings dramatically reduced bandwidth costs. This can often spell the difference in a profitable deployment.
“We’re now planning to roll out this solution to our other high-traffic Wi-Fi locations at other airports and hotels,” said Paul Grusche, Ultramercial’s senior vice president of sales. “Not only will we provide a superior experience for viewers, we’ll bring the cost of ad-serving down to near-zero for our Wi-Fi partners.”
Denver International Airport's ad-suported wi-fi service gets a big performance boost and cuts its ad-serving costs to near zero.
Ultramercial and FreeFi Networks introduce a local cache solution that could become the standard for Wi-Fi ad delivery.
Los Angeles, CA. April 2, 2008/UM Newswire/ -- When Free-Fi Networks launched its free Wi-Fi service at Denver International Airport back in November 2007, they selected Ultramercial’s patented attention-as-payment ad format to grant travelers Internet access.
“Ultramercial’s brief 30-second format asks our audience to start, engage and finish the commercial. This guarantee of viewer involvement provides our sponsors with very high value,” said Lawrence Laffer, FreeFi’s executive director of sales and marketing.
Switching from a $7.95 paid model to free ad-supported access has been a resounding success at Denver. They now have over 6,000 connections to the Internet per day, versus the 500 to 600 a day that paid for access.
With this success came an unexpected challenge. The large high-resolution video files that are part of the commercial were consuming nearly one-third of the total bandwidth coming into DIA. Additionally, since so many travelers were watching the ad simultaneously, this raised performance issues unique to large-scale Wi-Fi systems.
The solution? Place a fast local server inside the DIA facility, with a complete cache of the commercials being run.
“The results were immediate and very positive,” said Emmett Culley, FreeFi’s lead technologist. “We are already seeing dramatic cost savings and near-zero latency.”
“No one wants to wait for a commercial, especially when that commercial is acting as payment to gain access,” added Jim Smith, Ultramercial’s chief technology officer. “Because everything that people see is now already inside of the airport, there is no wait for the viewer and there are no bandwidth costs. This lets us stream video and other rich interactive media in a way that nobody else can.”
This is not the first time Ultramercial has used the technology. They already use Mirror Image and Akamai content distribution networks to improve content delivery experiences on the open Internet. But a local cache for the commercials that underwrite the cost of free Wi-Fi access brings dramatically reduced bandwidth costs. This can often spell the difference in a profitable deployment.
“We’re now planning to roll out this solution to our other high-traffic Wi-Fi locations at other airports and hotels,” said Paul Grusche, Ultramercial’s senior vice president of sales. “Not only will we provide a superior experience for viewers, we’ll bring the cost of ad-serving down to near-zero for our Wi-Fi partners.”