Boosting the Football Fan Experience with 5G-Advanced

Enabling good mobile network performance in stadiums is a tremendous test for any mobile network. When tens of thousands of people gather in a compact location, the demand for network resources is enormous. The capabilities of 5G-Advanced mobile networks offer new ways to manage data traffic.

For the Jiangsu Football City League — also called Suchao — China Mobile has used its 5G-Advanced network to offer its 5G-A Stadium Experience packages, which improve users’ experience in a football stadium.

For an elimination match in Nanjing with 61,000 attendees, the network was able to support over 10,000 China Mobile users with better video calling, shorter delay for instant messages and faster web browsing, as well as enabling more data traffic usage.

Notably, rather than using network slices, China Mobile adjusted a combination of the RFSP, 5QI and service priorities to improve users’ experience. This allows for rapid adjustment of network resources, and the company believes it’s a more-flexible solution than network slicing.

Improved uplink performance was especially important for enabling fans to post photos and influencers to share live streams from the stadium. For the final match of the Suchao competition, uplink traffic accounted for 38%, compared with a typical share of 15% to 20% on China Mobile’s network. Uplink performance is becoming more important because of the greater amount of user-generated content now and in the future from visual AI.

China isn’t the only country that sees the importance of improving the stadium experience. However, 5G-Advanced networks are uncommon, and operators have been using other, less-versatile network approaches. For example, Orange highlighted its use of private mobile networks to complement public networks to support broadcasters at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

In the US, the Super Bowl often leads to efforts by all three major operators. In 2025, official sponsor Verizon used NmmWave and C-band spectrum in and around the Superdome in New Orleans and reported that its users transmitted 38 TB of data. Verizon cited network tester Umlaut to claim 2.4 times faster download speeds and 4.8 times faster upload speeds than its rivals.

Like Verizon, AT&T also used mmWave and C-band spectrum and reported data usage of 29 TB. It also pointed to the importance of supporting FirstNet users — emergency or blue light services — which rely on AT&T’s network.

Although it wasn’t an event sponsor, T-Mobile also released press releases around the Super Bowl, highlighting the importance of stadium network performance.

5G-Advanced Packages Offer 2 Gbps Download and 150 Mbps Upload Speeds

China Mobile VIP users can enjoy the experience of 5G-Advanced, referred to as “5G-A”, for free. Regular users seeking an improved experience can pay 10 yuan (about $1.5) for a 5G-A Stadium Experience package, which is valid for four hours and advertises speeds of up to 2 Gbps download and 150 Mbps upload.

China Mobile uses the term “5G-Advanced” as part of the customer-facing proposition. If all operators in a country use the same industry-standard term, then customers will grow their understanding that this version of 5G is different from early deployments, which will help all operators to increase adoption and grow revenue.

Users can pre-purchase a 5G-A Stadium Experience package before the game and activate it when they need the improved performance. The operator uses multiple promotional channels, including social media, SMS marketing and billboards around the stadium.

As part of the solution, China Mobile created the Super Live Streaming package to enable live streaming for professional media and influencers. This delivers a guaranteed differentiated upstream connection throughout the stadium, improving the viewer experience with 2K high resolution.

China Mobile Solution Has a Strong Radio and 5G-Advanced Core Foundation

To support the tens of thousands of attendees, China Mobile deployed three-carrier aggregation on the 2.6 GHz and 4.9 GHz bands to provide a total of 260 MHz of bandwidth.

China Mobile reports that users with smartphones supporting three-carrier aggregation and 5G-Advanced network capabilities consumed 17.6% more data than non-5G-Advanced users. The three carriers were deployed on 53 cells inside the stadium.

Through a three-carrier solution, 5G-Advanced capabilities were achieved. The cells used new four-channel PRRUs and distributed multiple-input multiple-output (D-MIMO) technology to further enhance cell capacity in the venue. Additionally, China Mobile improved the signal by 10 dB using a new beamforming antenna, which concentrates the radio signal into a narrow beam.

The deployment relied on RFSPID and 5QI schemes to differentiate user groups. Based on the varying service requirements of different user segments, the base station applies intelligent configuration to deliver differentiated network experiences, including scheduling priority, guaranteed service rate and intelligent power control. This ensures tailored service assurance for different types of user and maximizes both wireless resource utilisation and user experience.

How Users’ Network Experiences Compared

China Mobile prioritized applications that must be responsive, such as instant messaging and scanning QR and bar codes. As a result, users of the 5G-Advanced packages experienced an 51.7% improvement in scan latency and a 14.8% reduction in latency for instant messages. Live video calling performance was also better, with the uplink rate rising by 167% for 5G-Advanced package users. Regular users’ services are also assured by the network.

As well as the improved network experience, subscribers also receive a customized logo displayed in the upper-left corner of the phone screen, similar to the signal bar. This text label can be tailored for different games, keeping it fresh and relevant to fans.

In the Future, More AI Will Be Used

The Suchao football league is an early example of how operators can use 5G-Advanced network features to build and grow new revenue streams. It also enables more-refined network resource management: China Mobile uses machine learning to help identify the network services in use.

In the future, China Mobile intends to make greater use of machine learning and other AI tools to improve service recognition and to more dynamically adjust the service priority weights to further improve users’ network experience.

These techniques also apply to other scenarios in other high-traffic locations, such as train stations, city centre business districts, shopping malls and concerts.v