Mimosa Blankets Triple Canopy Ranch with High-Speed Internet

Introduction

Providing high-speed internet access for vendors and attendees at the CountryFlo Music and Camping Festival required careful planning. With country music stars like Chris Stapleton, Jana Kramer and Thomas Rhett performing, the high-profile event had a lot riding on its inaugural festival.

Fortunately, entrepreneur Robert Muller and his company, Fast Network, were uniquely prepared for the task. Having a vast knowledge of the wireless equipment market and his own successful internet service provider, Reallyfast.net, Muller quickly formulated a plan and went to work.

The festival took place at Triple Canopy Ranch in Lake Wales, Florida, a venue custom-built for outdoor festivals like CountryFlo. With features like tiki huts, lakes, islands, palm trees, bridges and miles of all-weather roads, the 420-acre ranch is ideal for hosting thousands of people for a three-day camping and music festival.

In addition to blanketing the ranch with high-speed access for event management and attendee access, event organizers wanted to give vendors dedicated Wi-Fi hotspots to allow for Point of Sale transactions. With over 10,000 attendees and 25 vendors, Muller turned to Mimosa devices for his wireless needs. “I am a big fan of Mimosa - they are very customer-focused, and I appreciate technology that is reliable and painless to use.”

Muller initially deployed a portable 120-foot tower and used it to bring in gigabit internet from another tower 18 miles away. He then deployed two Mimosa A5 access devices, one for vendors and one for attendees, along with Mimosa C5 client devices. He also used third-party access point injectors to facilitate the vendor Wi-Fi hotspots.

Muller is also a fan of the Quantenna chipsets used in Mimosa products. “I’ve been following the industry for years and really believe Mimosa’s partnership with Quantenna sets them apart.” Mimosa’s A5 access devices use Quantenna chipsets to power its quad-panel MIMO technology, delivering superior performance for high-density, short-range multipoint broadband applications like music venues. The Mimosa A5 90° panels transmit MIMO streams only in the direction of a desired client, so the access point is freed up to simultaneously transmit to an additional client in a different direction using Multi-User MIMO technology.

Muller had the network up and running quickly and was able to complete all testing before the vendors and attendees arrived. “The installation was a breeze,” said Muller. “I made good use of the management tool which allowed me to plan and visualize the network, and alerted me to any potential problems.

“I am a big fan of Mimosa - they are very customer-focused, and I appreciate technology that is reliable and painless to use.”

Feedback from the event organizers was overwhelmingly positive. Event management was able to handle social media and ticket sales, the vendors were able to conduct business during the event, and attendees had free, reliable Wi-Fi. This year, Triple Canopy Ranch not only plans to host CountryFlo again, but will add a new event called SonicFlo, a multi-genre electronic, jam band and hip hop event. “It all worked out the way we planned thanks to the powerful Mimosa solution,” said Muller.