Ohio State University football fans looking forward to seamlessly tweeting scores and sharing selfies will have to wait at least one more season for Wi-Fi in Ohio Stadium.

Ohio State University football fans looking forward to seamlessly tweeting scores and sharing selfies will have to wait at least one more season for Wi-Fi in Ohio Stadium.

Plans to bring Wi-Fi to the Horseshoe by this fall have been shelved after the university decided to prioritize funding for concrete repairs, said Gene Smith, Ohio State vice president and athletic director.

That restoration is part of a $42 million, multi-phase stadium renovation project expected to begin next year.

�We�re really focused on that infrastructure,� he said. �Hopefully, we can look at Wi-Fi in 2017.�

Smith said the university also is considering whether full-blanket or partial Wi-Fi coverage would be best for the 105,000-seat stadium. That made costs for the project difficult to pin down, with estimates as high as $4 million, he said.

Student sections will more than likely be prioritized if the university decides to phase in Wi-Fi coverage, said Jim Null, chief information officer of Athletics and Business Advancement.

�They would be the biggest consumers of Wi-Fi right out of the gate,� Null said.

Smith said that, after determining the breadth of coverage, hundreds of antennae likely would have to be installed in a way that would retain stadium aesthetics.

The stadium�s Distributed Antenna System, which enhanced cellular-network coverage in the stadium, has 370 antennae equivalent to eight or nine cell towers, Null said.

�If you�re trying to play a video in Ohio Stadium, you�re going to get some pretty choppy results," he said. "But if you�re trying to text or check in on Facebook, it has improved dramatically since we installed the DAS.�

Wi-Fi is available to some workers, suites and press boxes. But the 94-year-old stadium�s concrete and rebar structure impedes the flow of incoming and outgoing data signals.

The ultimate goal for Wi-Fi coverage, Null said, is to provide visitors to the Horseshoe similar data accessibility as is available to Ohio State's students and faculty and staff members through the university's wireless service.

Smith said that bringing widely accessible Wi-Fi to the stadium has been discussed for several years. Still, he doesn�t want to hastily alter the iconic stadium.

�It is a balance,� he said. �So we just have to be really careful moving forward.�

mhuson@dispatch.com

@Mike_Huson