Avoid over-fitting networks: Best practices for venue modeling

Technology is the cornerstone of the modern fan experience, making connectivity in smart stadiums a requirement to support the growing digital expectations of sport and entertainment goers. In newer stadiums, paperless ticketing and stadium-specific smartphone apps are commonplace to improve fan experiences but require venues to process large amounts of cellular data at all times in all areas. There are countless factors involved in providing a network that meets these needs, and to be even slightly off in calculations can result in a multi-million-dollar problem. Late last year, IBM filed a lawsuit against the parties responsible for the distributed antenna system (DAS) installation at the Atlanta Falcons’ Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The stadium faced issues with its cellular network infrastructure as antennas were improperly placed throughout the stadium, creating an expensive overfitting problem for the stadium and the NFL. To avoid these costly miscalculations, there are many precautions that systems integrators, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and operators can take to safeguard their network models.