A clear trend toward greater Wi-Fi and DAS deployments is the main point our “State of the Stadium” research tells us this year, especially with Wi-Fi, where now more than half of the venues surveyed said they have fan-facing Wi-Fi services to all seating areas.
To be precise, a full 65 percent of our respondents said they now have full-seating Wi-Fi services in their venues – a huge increase from the 35 percent number we saw in last year’s survey. Full-stadium DAS deployments increased as well, with 80 percent of respondents claiming stadium-wide DAS deployments this year, up from 71 percent in the 2014 survey.
Input for the survey came from more than 100 respondents representing arenas that host the top U.S. professional league teams, including the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, the NHL, as well as top U.S. university facilities for basketball and football, European and U.S. professional soccer teams, professional golf and car-racing venues. The data provide a clear snapshot of how teams are deploying technology to both improve the fan experience while helping increase business opportunities.
And thanks to a sponsorship from Mobilitie, the entire report can be downloaded for free from our website.
Why more Wi-Fi?
Why the sudden shift to more Wi-Fi deployments? Most likely it was the maturation of plans that had been in the works for several years, speeded up no doubt by the ever increasing demands for mobile data connectivity. Even facilities that have had Wi-Fi services for years noticed that over the past year data usage has climbed even as the number of connected users plateaued; what that tells us is that the trend of devices and apps to stay well ahead of the networks’ ability to keep up still has legs, and will likely keep climbing for the near future.
For more analysis and a breakdown for each category, download the report now to get the only independent, numbers-based research available for the stadium technology marketplace.
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