Sophia Gardens has undergone a major digital infrastructure upgrade designed to meet growing connectivity demands from spectators, broadcasters and venue operators.
Welsh connectivity provider Ogi has installed a new network at the Cardiff home of Glamorgan County Cricket Club and Welsh Fire, providing high-speed Wi-Fi across the stadium, pavilion, media centre and public areas.
The investment is intended to address one of the particular challenges facing major sporting and events venues, where thousands of devices can attempt to connect simultaneously and demand can increase sharply during key moments.
The new infrastructure uses Wi-Fi 7 technology alongside dedicated 1Gbps connections, providing resilience if one connection experiences problems.
Different types of traffic, including spectator Wi-Fi, payment systems, broadcasting and operational systems, are also separated across the network. This is designed to prevent heavy public usage from affecting critical services such as card payments or broadcast feeds.
Danny Bartlett, Network Infrastructure Engineer and project lead at Ogi, said:
“Stadiums are one of the hardest places you can build a network. It’s not about covering the ground – it’s about handling the crowd.
“Tens of thousands of devices arrive at once, and demand spikes in seconds when a wicket falls. So, we engineered Sophia Gardens around that reality.”
The infrastructure reflects the increasing importance of connectivity to the operation of major sporting venues, with spectators expecting to use mobile payments, access digital services and share content throughout events.
Behind the scenes, connectivity is also increasingly critical to ticketing, payments, broadcasting and the systems used to operate the venue.
Ed Rice, Commercial Director at Glamorgan Cricket, said:
“It’s been great to partner with Ogi, welcoming the team to Sophia Gardens and working alongside them to implement a brand new infrastructure to help us with the increasing connectivity demand on a matchday.
“From payments, broadcast feeds, ticketing, and all the systems that keep the venue running, every bit of it depends on the smooth running of the network.”
The upgrade also creates the infrastructure for Glamorgan to introduce additional digital services in future, potentially including in-seat ordering, enhanced replays and second-screen content.
Ogi said the Sophia Gardens project could provide a model for improving connectivity at other major venues across Wales.
Sally-Anne Skinner, Chief Executive of Ogi, said:
“Sophia Gardens is a Welsh institution, and it deserves world-class infrastructure behind it.
“Delivering that with a Welsh team, for a Welsh venue, in one of the trickiest environments going – we’re incredibly proud of that.
“What we’ve built here shows what’s possible for venues right across the country.”
