[Hidden-tech] Advice sought: Can passive WiFi use by a crowd's phones drain bandwidth...?

[Duane Dale]

Holiday greetings, Hidden Tech.

My church has been offering live streaming of its Sunday services via its
YouTube channel.
Hiccups in the video (and audio) stream are common. (And those hiccups show
up when streaming the recorded version after-the-fact.)

An iPhone in the sanctuary is doing the "capture" and is connected by WiFi
to a cable modem/router in an adjoining room (outside the stone walls of
the church).

Some people place blame on those stone walls, but my speedcheck in an
otherwise-empty sanctuary shows a pretty consistent ~25 Mbps up and down.

As a possible solution, a WiFi extender in the sanctuary, wired with CAT6
to the modem/router, has been tried with apparent success for small
mid-week services, and we may start using it for the Sunday services.


*But here's my question: *Can passive WiFi use by a crowd's phones drain
bandwidth and/or slow transmission speeds?
Imagine a Sunday service with 100+ people in the space.
Imagine that a majority have smartphones in their pockets, and some % of
those are on, with WiFi enabled,
and some % of *those* have used the WiFi modem/router in question and have
stored its password.
Let's say 25 such phones, though it might possibly be 50.

Assume that no one is making intentional use of WiFi (streaming the
service, watching movies, checking emails...) other than the "official"
streaming iPhone,
but some (most?) of those with WiFi enabled might have connected
"automatically" to the modem/router in question and are doing passive
tasks, unattended.

With 25-50 such phones, could that raid bandwidth enough to cause hiccups
in a live video upload?
(Or if not with 25-50 phones, what about 250-500 such phones in a larger
hall? Or some even-larger number?)

If that could be a problem, are there solutions other than the obvious one
-- asking everyone to power off, or use airplane mode, etc.??
Or some sort of temporary lock-out of all but the preferred device?

Thanks for any insights and advice.
Duane Dale
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