Running Up the Scoreboard: Big Game Brings in Big Numbers

Over the weekend, hundreds of thousands of pro football fanatics flooded New York City to take in the festivities for this year’s “Big Game.”

And they were excited to share their favorite plays and moments with friends and family. That’s why our network team huddled on a game plan to provide the best network experience possible for customers.

As a result, the numbers coming from our customers in the stands were higher than ever before at the pro football championship game or, for that matter, any one-day sporting event we’ve measured. Here’s what we saw from our customers using our in-stadium Distributed Antenna System (DAS) network:

• Total data usage in the stadium was more than 624GB – the highest data usage we’ve ever seen from a one-day sporting event we’ve measured. 624 GB is the equivalent to 1.8M social media posts with photos.
• The amount of content uploaded and downloaded skyrocketed. As a result of fans sending and receiving videos, photos, and more. In total, fans uploaded and downloaded the most data from 5-6pm EST, which is the hour directly before kick-off. During this hour 119GB crossed our in-stadium network.
• In addition, customers made nearly 55,000 calls

When compared to the Big Game metrics from last year, we saw a dramatic increase in data from inside the stadium – confirming demand for mobile data is still growing at a rapid rate. Fans are using their devices at these “look at me” moments and showing up ready to capture and share their memories. Since 2011 and inclusive of the last four Big Games, total data usage on AT&T’s in-stadium network has increased from 177GB to 624GB and peak hour data usage has increased from 30GB to 119GB.

To learn how our customers were covered throughout their entire Big Game experience, read our complete Innovation Space blog.

For more details, check out our New York City Big Game enhancement infographic.