Taara, a graduate of X, Google’s Moonshot Factory, and a leader in high-speed, high-capacity wireless optical communications, today announced its deployment at Parsons Sports Ranch, a fast growing Texas-based sports complex in Bosque County.

The initial fiber proposal to connect the venue put construction costs at approximately $300,000–$500,000, with a lead time exceeding 12 months. Rountree, a Texas-based communications infrastructure specialist, instead deployed Taara Lightbridge between the ranch and a tower approximately seven miles away, supplying a 10 Gbps symmetrical connection within a single day, without digging or trenching. Taara Lightbridge delivers high-capacity connectivity through the air, using narrow, invisible beams of light operating in the unlicensed optical spectrum.

Based on this new backbone capacity, Parsons Sports Ranch quickly expanded their business. The sports complex now provides guest Wi-Fi, security cameras, point-of-sale transactions, and live game broadcasts. The capacity also extends connectivity to several other connection points in the community, including the local event venue, marina and restaurant, and lakeside ranch.

Construction is already underway to expand the complex from four competition fields to eight, while plans for advanced sports tracking will place further demands on the network. The project, among the first of its kind in this sector, may signal a new path forward for America’s sports and entertainment infrastructure, which often includes remote venues away from urban centers.

Parsons Sports Ranch in Bosque County, Texas.

A rural venue with a broadcast-sized appetite

According to the sports events and tourism association, Sports ETA, sports tourism has evolved into a $274.5 billion industry in the US. Participatory sports tourism, driven primarily by youth and amateur events such as those hosted at Parsons Sports Ranch, generate over $60 billion in direct spending and $149 billion in total economic impact. Connectivity is a key enabler. However, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), puts rural availability of high speed wired connectivity (100 Mbps download / 20 Mbps upload) at 75%, compared with 99% in urban areas. Availability does not equal connection, so the actual number of sites connected to high speed wired connectivity remains even lower, showing how uneven access to connectivity can limit remote venues’ ability to compete for tournaments, reach broader audiences, and build new revenue streams.

For rural businesses and enterprises in particular, the distance to existing infrastructure can determine which services they can offer and how quickly they can grow. Extending fiber to its location, however, can involve miles of construction, rights-of-way negotiations, and a wait of months or even years.

For high-capacity rural destinations, the deployment has set a precedent for the sports and entertainment sector. We are excited to expand access for high speed enterprise connectivity to fast-growing businesses in Texas, where extending existing networks through the air can bring timelines forward and allow enterprises, regardless of location, to expand quickly.
— Mahesh Krishnaswamy, Founder and CEO, Taara

Rountree installed the optical backbone, and integrated the network serving the venue. Separate network segments support staff, broadcast, and guest traffic, helping manage the demands of a busy tournament weekend.

The challenge was getting serious capacity to a location where the conventional construction schedule didn’t quite match our ambitious schedule. Taara gave us a way to bridge the connectivity gaps quickly, allowing us to build the network around what the ranch needed to operate, broadcast, and expand.
— Mike Rountree, CEO of Rountree

Capacity that creates room to grow

Parsons Sports Ranch, with its valuation measured well into the millions, hosts regular tournament weekends drawing 34 teams and more than 3,000 attendees per tournament weekend. Alongside the demands of visitors and vendors, the venue needed enough upload capacity to stream games to families watching from elsewhere.

We wanted families to come here and enjoy a great day of sports, and for relatives who couldn’t make the trip to still watch the games. Once we had the connectivity, we could do more with the venue. Now we’re adding fields and exploring technology that gives players, coaches, and visitors far more from every game.
— Stuart Parsons, owner of Parsons Sports Ranch

Its four convertible competition fields – soon to be eight – already has batting cages for baseball and softball, with configurations for soccer and flag football. The multi-sports facility is now expanding to host volleyball, indoor soccer, basketball, and other sports.

More recently, Parsons Sports Ranch has reached an agreement to introduce WIN Reality’s SmartPark technology, with planned capabilities including automated ball-strike calling and detailed ball-flight data for broadcasts and player developments.

The ranch has also contracted a direct fiber build to add a second connectivity path. The optical deployment allowed it to begin offering connected services while surrounding infrastructure developed, illustrating how light-based links can complement fiber as business requirements grow.

Rountree is currently in discussions to bring high speed, high capacity connectivity with Taara Lightbridge to additional sports complexes, youth camps, data center construction sites, oil and gas companies, and other internet service providers serving remote sites in Texas.

Beyond Taara Lightbridge, the system deployed at Parsons Sports Ranch, Taara’s latest leap in photonics innovation is now integrating the core functionality of Taara Lightbridge into a small photonic module. This integrated photonics platform, Taara Photonics, is based on a technology called the optical phased array, which steers, tracks, and corrects for the Earth’s atmosphere with extraordinary precision using thousands of tiny, software controlled light emitters. Taara enables smaller, lighter, and more flexible ways to move high-speed data through spaces.

To learn more about Taara for event venues, please reach out to info@taaraconnect.com.