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Author
Matt Melester
The Houston Chronicle ran an online story Sunday night about mobile phone users being frustrated with inaccessible or slow wireless services inside Reliant Stadium in Houston. I was happy to get a call to comment on the technology side of the issue, explaining how distributed antennas systems (DAS) work and the many challenges associated with keeping up with ever-increasing capacity demands inside arenas and stadiums.
While I personally am not familiar with any issues with coverage or capacity within Reliant, I know that the customers we are working with—including the biggest U.S. carriers—all consider stadiums, airports, and other large public venues to be strategically important places to support customers.
The main problem as I suggest in the article is that as soon as operators add more capacity to their networks, it gets used. The amount of bandwidth capacity that data services consume via smartphones is enormous. Many of the operators continue to work on adding more capacity, but demand is outpacing them. That said, no operator wants their customers to not be able to access basic voice and text services—not to mention advanced applications such as video—at any stadium. So those kinds of problems need to be remedied whenever they occur.
It is a hot issue among wireless operators, and one we are experts at addressing, such as at the South African World Cup stadiums and Dallas Cowboys stadium. I’d like to know what you think though.
How big of a gap is there between user expectations and what the operators are currently able to provide in a stadium near you?
What services specifically are you trying to use?
