AT&T has upgraded its wireless infrastructure at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, N.C., home of the Carolina Panthers NFL team.
The venue, which seats more than 74,000 people, has more than 645 Wi-Fi access points as well as an in-stadium distributed antenna system that was upgraded in 2012.
According to AT&T, fans at the stadium have exchanged 1.9 million MB of data (equivalent to 3,900 hours of streaming HD video) on the Wi-Fi system so far during the 2013 season, about 50% more than during the same time last year. Cellular data during the first six home games of the Panthers season increased more than 90% year-over-year on the DAS.
“We are looking at things differently now. As connectivity in stadiums across the country becomes a rapidly growing priority we are deploying both Wi-Fi and DAS networks to support that need,” said Cristy Swink, AT&T’s vice president/general manager for mobility and consumer markets in the Mid Atlantic.
—Infonetics Research predicts an $8.5 billion market for carrier Wi-Fi equipment in its latest report on Wi-Fi deployed in public spaces by operators.
“Over the 5 years from 2013 to 2017, operators will spend a cumulative $8.5 billion on carrier Wi-Fi equipment, led by mobile operators using carrier Wi-Fi for data offload,” said Richard Webb, who is directing analyst for microwave and carrier WiFi at Infonetics. “This strong growth will gain additional impetus from the proliferation of small cells with integrated Wi-Fi over the coming years.”
Revenue for carrier Wi-Fi equipment — including access points and hotspot controllers — totaled $338 million in the first half of this year, and has already surpassed 2/3 of the total revenue for the prior year, Infonetics reported. North America has consistently dominated the market in carrier Wi-Fi revenue share, and the top five positions in the vendor market are held by Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Ruckus and Alcatel-Lucent.
–Meanwhile, SNS Research said that the scope of the term “wireless network infrastructure” is changing as networks become more heterogeneous. While the terminology has traditionally been associated with the macro-cell RAN and mobile core, it is expanding to include HetNet elements of Wi-Fi, small cells, DAS, remote radio heads (RRH) as well as “the emerging Cloud RAN concept,” SNS said.
Traditional wireless infrastructure spending estimates are about $52 billion by the end of 2014, the firm said, and HetNet infrastructure is predicted to account for about $17 billion spent in the same timeframe. SNS Research expects the total overall wireless infrastructure market — including HetNet, macro-cell RAN, mobile core and backhaul — to have a compound annual growth rate of more than 5% over the next several years and account for more than $104 billion in annual spending by the end of 2020.
