CTS 123: Design Principles for Stadium Wi-Fi

What goes into designing Wi-Fi for a large public venue such as stadiums? What are important considerations when designing Wi-Fi for very high density environment such as stadium? Of course the tools come to mind such as Andrew Von Nagy’s Capacity Planner and Ekahau Site Survey Pro.

In the initial design, there are different types spaces in stadiums to consider such as bowl, concourse, suites, office space, and event space. The details are discussed in the episode.

Fundamentals are always important. But they are often missed in many deployments. Things such as getting the AP as close to the client as possible, minimizing co-channel contention, transmit power, attenuation, etc. Another consideration, but often difficult to plan for in stadiums, are client devices.

An challenging aspect of stadium Wi-Fi design is AP placement. There are different ways to approach this such as overhead, railing, and underseat. Which one is best for the design and what the pros and cons.

[ArguileSoques]

Wow, this was an awesome listen. Thank you for sharing. I am doing my first huge client load event and I am looking at stadium quality access points. Is there a good rule of thumb for client load? The specs say 500-1000 clients but I am guessing we want to go more AP's to clients than that. Thanks again.