When inside a large group of people (at a stadium, concert, festival), why does your phones internet data stop working despite having full bars? Why does such a large presence of phones in one area limit every phones’ usability and ability to even simply send a text message?

Question

When inside a large group of people (at a stadium, concert, festival), why does your phones internet data stop working despite having full bars? Why does such a large presence of phones in one area limit every phones’ usability and ability to even simply send a text message?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Here’s another stadium related analogy… the stadium is designed to accommodate the capacity they let it. There are enough seats, they have sightlines, there are many bathrooms and food stands. You can easily and quickly get to your seat as the flow of people is spread out. This is why you see 5 bars — the overall system can handle the capacity and proximity.

Now, you know how that huge crowd of people come to a slow crawl when all trying to exit the stadium at the same time? Suddenly, the system that could handle the overall capacity bogs down when everybody wants the same thing. This is why you get no/slow data even with 5 bars.