On the performance of stadium high density carrier Wi-Fi enabled LTE small cell deployments

Offering good Quality of Experience (QoE) in stadiums poses unprecedented challenges to Wireless Operators, due to extreme traffic conditions. During popular sporting events, there could be tens of thousands of active users present in a relatively small area, downloading/uploading pictures and video clips through smart phone applications. This results in a large traffic density and drives requirements for high capacity, and yet economically feasible solutions for stadiums. Ensuring high capacity required in such open and heavily interfered environments is a daunting task. Small cells offer promising advantages to increase the spectral efficiency of wireless systems, thanks to their small frequency reuse factor. We show through environment simulations that it is possible to serve thousands of users in a stadium using small cell technologies. In particular, Wi-Fi and LTE small cells can be used in stadiums to complement each other to cope with the increasing capacity demand.