Winning with Wi-Fi at Mall of America

Many of the roughly 100,000 average daily visitors to the Mall of America arrive with an expectation of being able to access the Internet via a fast and free Wi-Fi network. Living up to that expectation required the expansive property to rely on several key partners.



When Mall of America decided it was time to offer free Wi-Fi for its 40 million annual guests, it turned to Garland, Texas-based AmpThink to design, build and manage the high density wireless network running on Cisco hardware throughout the 5.6 million square foot mall.



Since the Wi-Fi network went live in advance of the 2015 holiday season it has supported 319,995 unique users and 793,750 total wireless sessions and handled more than than 486 terabytes of data traffic, according to AmpThink. To put those figures in perspective, that volume of traffic exceeds the total amount of the last five Super Bowls combined. Availability of Wi-Fi also helps extends the time of the average mall visit to three and a half hours.



“The Wi-Fi network we built for the mall is not just big, but complex,” said Bill Anderson, president of AmpThink. “Our Radio Frequency engineers were challenged to develop new methods to calibrate frequencies in order to optimize performance for shoppers as they move in a massive space that has four distinct shopping levels and a large administrative level.”



Wiring a property as expansive as the Mall of America is no easy feat. To ensure the network delivers an optimal user experience, there are more than 600 access points connected with 236,600 feet of CAT6 cable and nearly 8,000 feet of fiber optic cable. That’s roughly 46 miles of cable.



The AmpThink designed network is running on Cisco hardware that enables the Mall to use location data for customer engagement and analytic insights. In addition, AmpThink also deployed Cisco’s Stadium Vision solution inside the Mall. Stadium Vision is a video and digital content distribution solution that allows the Mall to centrally manage and target delivery of customized video, sponsor promotions, and relevant event information to any combination of monitors throughout the Mall.



AmpThink is a five year old company that has primarily focused on high density sports venues with installations in 50 North American venues.



“Their industry experience and relationships were instrumental for our Wi-Fi installation, and we look forward to additional growth in innovation and a continued partnership with their team,” said Jill Renslow, SVP of marketing and business development at Mall of America.