Verizon says its in-stadium fans experienced peak speeds of 3.89 Gbps during the Super Bowl
In preparation Sunday’s Super Bowl LVI at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium, Verizon invested $119 million in a deployment that, among other things, included 169 new small cells, four new macro cell sites and 24 new in-building systems. Fan stats, provided by the carrier, show that both network usage and speed increased compared to last year’s results.
According the Verizon, its wireless network was used by 60% of the attendees in the stadium at this year’s Super Bowl, up from 56% in 2020. Its users experienced peak speeds of 3.89 Gbps in the stadium during the game, up from the roughly 2 Gbps reported last year. Fans also used 30.4 TB of data in and around the stadium, again an increase from last year’s data usage, which came in at just under 26 terabytes.
As expected, one of the biggest spikes of wireless data usage occurred during the halftime show and during the game’s kickoff, the two game-day moments most commonly shared on social media.
Verizon was also involved in the half-time show, providing its 5G network to support real-time 4K steaming using 360-degree cameras, which broadcasted to fans’ homes, while additional cameras also streamed it throughout the stadium, allowing those in attendance to “curate their own second screen experience with access to exclusive vantage points not accessible on television.”
“With 5G, our customers are able to enhance their in-game experience like never before, opening up new ways to engage with the game, the halftime show and all the excitement surrounding the big game. Our engineers and technicians have worked tirelessly for years preparing for this, to ensure our customers can take advantage of all they can do on our award-winning, reliable network,” said Phillip French, vice president of network engineering for Verizon.
