BLE mesh capacity estimate in 1-to-1 and 1-to-many connections

[Krastanov]

Are there any publications, from Nordic or academia, that give estimates on what would be the maximum capacity of a BLE mesh network?

I believe there is a hard limit of about 32000 nodes, but what about limits related to the capacity of the RF spectrum?

For instance, consider a large lecture room with a minimum number of relay nodes (maybe only one).

How many non-relay nodes can receive a broadcast message from the relay before the network becomes unreliable?

How many of the non-relay nodes can send a message to the relay (per unit of time) before the network becomes unreliable?

[rolandash]

Normally 'clear of air' principle is used in most RF IC PHY, purely depends on randomness of transmitting to avoid collision. So the only way to achieve more number of nodes is longer interval between 2 transmission. Depends on collision level you expected you can reach number of thousands with interval about 1~2 seconds.

However, longer interval can also limit the real time demand on data collection.