Super Bowl action not just on the field

The teams on the field were not the only things put to the test over this past weekend’s Super Bowl XLIV as the more than 75,000 people in attendance at Sun Life Stadium in Miami put a strain on the Big 4 wireless operators’ networks. And like the victorious New Orleans Saints, the results of tests conducted by Root Wireless of the carriers’ data networks showed a surprise.
According to Root, the nation’s two largest wireless firms, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility, showed the greatest impact from the strain on their networks, while No. 3 and No. 4 Sprint Nextel Corp. and T-Mobile USA Inc. withstood the onslaught best.
Root’s testing consisted of the company’s crowdsourcing application loaded onto smartphones operating on the networks of the four nationwide carriers at a fixed location in the stadium’s parking lot. The tests reported data transmission speeds, cell tower IDs, network connection failures and other performance indicators between 1 pm and 11 pm on game day. To set a baseline, Root also conducted network tests at locations throughout Miami in the week prior to the game.
As for game day, Root found that while AT&T Mobility’s network provided the fastest average download speeds to the smartphones, averaging 348 kilobits per second on the downlink and 68 kbps on the uplink, the carrier’s network posted the highest rate of data connection failures with 16% of connection attempts failing. Root also found that the carrier’s smartphones average signal was 81% of full bars on the device.
Verizon Wireless’ network was similarly stressed with 11% of connection attempts failing and the carrier’s smartphones average signal was just 54% of full bars on the device. Root’s testing also found that network speeds for Verizon Wireless averaged just 97 kbps on the downlink and 58 kbps on the uplink during testing.
“Though AT&T provided the fastest service when downloading data, it reported far more connection failures than usual,” Root noted in its results. “Verizon also reported a much higher rate of connection failures than usual and, atypically, Verizon’s service was significantly slower than its competitors’ services.”
While the big boys struggled, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA shined.
Root’s testing showed that Sprint Nextel’s devices posted an average signal that was 96% of full bars and that its network returned a failed connection rate of 9%, which was slightly higher than testing during the week. Average download speeds on Sprint Nextel devices averaged 231 kbps, while upload speeds averaged 68 kbps during the game.
T-Mobile USA posted the lowest data connection failure rate of just 3% during the game day testing period, with the carrier’s devices posting an average signal that was 72% of full bars. Average download speeds on the carrier’s network was at 237 kbps, while upload speeds topped its competitors at 126 kbps.
“Sprint and T-Mobile were both winners on game day, providing data service that nearly mirrored their respective baseline performances, as established on more typical days,” Root noted.
The results might have been skewed by the larger subscriber bases supported by both Verizon Wireless (more than 91 million customers nationwide) and AT&T Mobility (more than 85 million customers nationwide) compared with Sprint Nextel (around 35 million CDMA customers) and T-Mobile USA (approximately 33 million subscribers), but the larger operators also boast significantly stronger spectrum portfolios.
Root conducted similar tests earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.