Hotels and Conference Centers all package their wifi/network solutions differently, so you will have to work closely with the network vendor at the venue.
We know that it is frustrating not to have an easy rule of thumb.
The high level points to communicate to the network vendor at the venue are:
The Touchpoint app will use much less bandwidth than the other activities attendees perform.
These activities include checking email, downloading attachments, and surfing the web.
The event organizer should work with the venue to understand the number of attendees on site.
The event organizer should understand the general Internet needs of attendees.
If the event organizer is utilizing live polling, they will want to work with the venue network provider to understand how many simultaneous users they can support.
The event organizer should estimate the peak number of simultaneous live poll users.
The event organizer should be assured that the venue can connect those users.
The connections use very little bandwidth.
An active connection is required.
Details
The Touchpoint app will not be the main user of bandwidth at the conference.
When Wi-Fi is available to attendees, attendees will use it to send and receive email, browse the web, watch videos, etc.
This usage will typically outweigh usage by the Touchpoint app.
For people downloading the app at the conference, the iOS app is typically 10MB.
For people downloading the app at the conference, the Android app is typically 5MB.
When the app is first opened, there is an initial data sync.
This initial sync tends to be larger than subsequent syncs, but it is still fairly small bandwidth-wise.
For a conference of 1,500 attendees, the initial sync would be less than 1MB.
After that sync, the app uses caching and other technologies to minimize duplicate syncing of data.
Subsequent syncs could be anywhere from 2K to 100K, depending on how much data changed.
In other words, subsequent syncs require small amounts of data.
For comparison purposes, the average single web page in 2015 is more than 1,600K, according to Web Performance today.
Therefore, a sync for the Touchpoint app would often be an order of magnitude or two less data than one attendee visiting a single web page.
If the event organizer is providing presentations within the app, those presentations can be anywhere from 500K to 5MB or higher.
The event organizer should plan for bandwidth needs accordingly.
Note that in the Touchpoint app, a presentation downloads and opens in the app only when the end user clicks on it.
Live Polling
If the event organizer uses live polling or wants attendees to access presentations during sessions, they should ensure that the venue (e.g. each conference room, not just the common areas) has a sufficient number of access points.
It is problematic if the hotel tells you they offer X megabytes of bandwidth but only has one router and 1,000 devices are trying to connect at the same time.
When the event organizer talks to the venue, they should ask about bandwidth.
Also ask how many access points can be supported for simultaneous usage.
In our experience, one business router can support 150-200 people.
However, the capacity varies widely based on the devices the venue employs.
Therefore the event organizer should ensure the venue has enough routers based on the number of access points each router supports and the number of attendees expected.