High-density venues like hotels and stadiums, characterised by both high numbers of concurrent users and significant variations in the number of users, present unique challenges for WiFi builders.
This is according to Nqubeko Asanda Shabalala, Pre-Sales Engineer & Product Manager at Huawei Enterprise Business Group (EBG), who says Huawei has invested in becoming a leader in technology for high-density use cases.
Shabalala explains that challenges in implementing high quality WiFi in hotels and stadiums include intra-system interference, complex scenarios and device installation constraints, and complex policy controls for diversified STA types, multi-user conflict and load imbalances.
She says: “In stadiums, there is the sheer size of the stadium itself to consider. Because no two stadiums are exactly the same in terms of design, the shape of the stadium, factors like wind and infrastructure interference, and their current cabling infrastructure must also be considered. You have to cater for the admin staff who work at the stadium, broadcasters and media, and tens of thousands of users who might attend a game.”
“In a hotel, the construction and decor materials cause different levels of experience, which means you may not have a deterministic experience throughout,” Shabalala says. “With hotels, there are multiple separate rooms – each of which must have a level of privacy. This means there may be soundproofing that can increase interference levels. The challenge here is that putting an access point in every room can prove very costly and not eco-friendly.”
With an aged, traditional network, WiFi in stadiums and hotels might deliver a discontinuous user experience, with coverage holes. When the number of users peaks, they may find some users have coverage and some do not.
Huawei, with partners such as Mustek, is bringing solutions to South Africa to upgrade user experiences at high-density venues. The solutions, backed by expert architects and engineers, allow hotels and stadiums to transform user experience and harness emerging technologies.
Shabalala notes that Huawei is a world WiFi technology leader and ranks number one in cumulative contributions to WLAN standards and WiFi 7 standards that are particularly applicable to high density scenarios.
“Our portfolio for stadiums is extensive, and includes access points with directional external antennas that we can intentionally focus on a particular area. For hotels, we use access points with omnidirectional antennas. Every Huawei access point is built with Huawei’s patented dynamic zoom antennas with AI, to increase the coverage range by 20%. It allows for better wall penetration, making it better for hotel scenarios,” she says.
Huawei high-density solutions for hotels and stadiums are distributed, designed and implemented by Mustek, in partnership with Huawei EBG.
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