"Would you not like to be sitting on top of the world with your legs hanging free?" the lyrics ring out as the Dave Matthews Band performs at one of the final shows of the tour to promote its "Everyday" album. And the band certainly is on top of the world with its legs hanging free, having completed its strongest and most finely-crafted album to date and a sold-out tour that earned them the title of top-grossing tour band in the United States in the year 2000.

But the Dave Matthews Band is not stopping here. The show must go on and it certainly does - and on, and on, and on … and the Dave Matthews Band is making its life on the road much easier with a wireless network from Agere Systems ORiNOCO™. The wireless network serves as a mobile office that gives the band, its crew, and administrative personnel the freedom to work when they want, where they want while they are on the road. Plus, it cuts set-up time in half and saves money.

The Dave Matthews Band began its whirlwind ride to the top on May 11, 1991, when lead vocalist and guitarist Dave Matthews, drummer Carter Beauford, saxophonist LeRoi Moore, bassist Stefan Lessard, and keyboard player Peter Griesar pooled their talents and entertained guests at a private rooftop party in their hometown of Charlottesville, VA. Since then, the band has released over five albums, several of which have been certified platinum numerous times, and developed a loyal fan-base that continues to grow with its musical repertoire.

Since 1998, the Dave Matthews Band has been traveling with a hard-wired network so that its accounting, production, and management information system (M.I.S) departments could maintain business as usual while on the road. The network enabled Dave Matthews Band staff and crew to literally take their office on tour with them. This way, Dave Matthews Band accounting, M.I.S., and production offices can maintain administrative operations while on tour, and everyone (including the band and crew) can use the network for checking personal e-mails, paying bills, and personal banking.

However, as the Dave Matthews Band began to play stadiums, the wired network grew to include more stations and tasks. This meant more equipment to unload from trucks at concert venues, and more hours spent setting the network up and tearing it down.

To help improve efficiency, Dave Matthews Band Information Technology Manager Rudy Arias tested some ORiNOCO wireless networking equipment from Agere Systems on the Yahoo! "Out Loud" tour with Luscious Jackson and Smash Mouth in the Fall of 1999, as well as Third Eye Blind's Astronauts & Dragons" tour in the spring of 2000. Arias preferred ORiNOCO 's performance to other wireless equipment so much that he designed a similar wireless network for the Dave Matthews Band's summer 2000 tour.

The ORiNOCO wireless network is Wi-Fi compliant, works at the 2.4 GHz frequency range and provides a bandwidth of up to 11 Mbit/s, similar in performance to a standard 10BaseT wired network. ORiNOCO works with Windows, Macintosh and Linux operating systems and enables users to run all their familiar applications, but without the restrictions of wires or fixed computer stations.

"I certainly like the freedom and mobility that the wireless network offers," said Arias. "But the main thing for me is we have less equipment to unload and less cable to install. You can't beat that."

Arias worked with Brian Dunlap, Director of Engineering at Wireless Information Networks, to develop and build what he calls portable "droids" that are positioned at concerts outside dressing rooms, the crew room, the stage, and the accounting, production, and M.I.S. offices and outside the loading dock area for the band and crew buses. Arias positions one droid outside each of these areas to wirelessly connect the hubs, printers, desktop and laptop PCs that are networked to each other with wires within each area. Each of these six areas functions as an independent work group and the wireless droids connect them all together.

Six droids are used as a wireless backbone to the hard-wired network at arena and outdoor venues, and up to ten droids are used at larger stadium events. Many of these droids are placed strategically throughout the backstage and parking lot areas where the band and crew can use the wireless connectivity from their tour buses and trucks.

All of the droids Arias uses at concerts have an Agere ORiNOCO Access Point (AP-1000, formerly known as Lucent WavePoint II Access Points). AirPort access points and a couple of Agere AP-1000s (with single radio cards) are used for wireless roaming (providing cross platform wireless network access). Each Agere ORiNOCO AP-1000 has two radio card slots and connects to the hard-wired network within each area via its built-in 10-base T Ethernet port. The two radio cards in the AP-1000 allow it to carry the network signal to the other five droids throughout the backstage area. One droid positioned near the IT office has a special roaming card on it that starts the point-to-point wireless connection around the concert venue.

To help set up the network at each show, Arias uses a hand-held device called a "Grasshopper Spectrum Analyzer". The Grasshopper analyzes the radio spectrum and tells Arias what and where possible interference issues are going to be. To maximize the performance of the wireless network, Arias can switch channels, move access points more closely to each other, position wireless range extender antennas above the crowds' heads to help focus the radio signal to where it needs to be.

The ORiNOCO wireless network enables the Dave Matthews Band crew, accounting, and M.I.S. departments to conduct business as usual while on tour. A FileMaker Pro server (an easy-to-use database application that also serves web pages) is used on the road to maintain the band's song cues, set lists, itinerary, guest lists and archiving databases. Accounting and administrative personnel use a web browser to remotely access administrative documents and databases housed on SQL servers located back home in Charlottesville, VA.

What Arias likes best is that he and the Dave Matthews Band crew no longer have to unload a ton of equipment or install 3,800 feet of networking cable every time they arrive at a new concert venue. "I'm not tying-up as many crew personnel as I used to when we arrive at a concert venue," said Arias. "We load-in at 7 or 8:00 in the morning and it used to take until early afternoon before we were up and running on our network. Now, we load-in at 7am and accounting is ready to go at 9:30. The wireless network has more than cut our set-up time in half!"

And with that, Arias and the Dave Matthews Band and crew continue to ride the top of the world with their ORiNOCO wireless network from Agere Systems . They spend less and less time setting-up at new concert venues, and the crew is happy because they have much less equipment to unload from the trucks every day. The wireless network also enables them to stay connected to the rest of the world while they are on tour. The Agere ORiNOCO wireless network has helped make the Dave Matthews Band's sold-out Everyday tour a hit both behind and in front of the stage.