Levi’s Stadium sees 5.1 TB of Wi-Fi data used at college football championship

January 10, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Fans and media members at Monday night’s College Football Playoff championship game used a total of 5.1 terabytes of data on the Wi-Fi network at Levi’s Stadium, according to figures provided by the San Francisco 49ers, who own and run the venue.

With 74,814 in attendance for Clemson’s 44-16 victory over Alabama, 17,440 of those in the stands found their way onto the stadium’s Wi-Fi network. According to the Niners the peak concurrent connection number of 11,674 users was seen at 7:05 p.m. local time, which was probably right around the halftime break. The peak bandwidth rate of 3.81 Gbps, the Niners said, was seen at 5:15 p.m. local time, just after kickoff.

In a nice granular breakout, the Niners said about 4.24 TB of the Wi-Fi data was used by fans, while a bit more than 675 GB was used by the more than 925 media members in attendance. The Wi-Fi data totals were recorded during an 8-1/2 hour period on Monday, from 1 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. local time.

Added to the 3.7 TB of DAS traffic AT&T reported inside Levi’s Stadium Monday night, we’re up to 8.8 TB total wireless traffic so far, with reports from Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile still not in. The top Wi-Fi number at Levi’s Stadium, for now, remains Super Bowl 50, which saw 10.1 TB of Wi-Fi traffic.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Aruba, AT&T, DAS, Hewlett-Packard, Levi's Stadium, NCAA Football, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Alabama, AT&T, Clemson, College Football Playoff championship, DAS, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi

AT&T: Lots of DAS traffic for college football championship

January 9, 2019 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

DAS on a cart: DAS Group Professionals deployed mobile DAS stations to help cover the parking lots at Levi’s Stadium for the college football playoff championship. Credit: DGP

This may not be a news flash to any stadium network operations team but the amount of mobile data consumed by fans at college football games continues to hit high levels, according to some new figures released by AT&T.

In a press release blog post where AT&T said it saw 9 terabytes of cellular data used over the college football playoff championship-game weekend in the Bay area, AT&T also crowned a cellular “data champion,” reporting that Texas A&M saw 36.6 TB of data used on the AT&T networks in and around Kyle Field in College Station, Texas.

(Actually, AT&T pointedly does NOT declare Texas A&M the champs — most likely because of some contractural issue, AT&T does not identify actual stadiums or teams in its data reports. Instead, it reports the cities where the data use occurred, but we can figure out the rest for our readers.)

For the College Football Playoff championship, AT&T was able to break down some specific numbers for us, reporting 3.7 TB of that overall total was used inside Levi’s Stadium on game day. Cell traffic from the parking lots and tailgating areas (see photo of DAS cart to left) added another 2.97 TB of traffic on AT&T’s networks, resulting in a game-day area total of 6.67 TB. That total is in Super Bowl range of traffic, so we are excited to see what the Wi-Fi traffic total is from the game (waiting now for the college playoff folks to get the statistics finalized, so stay tuned).

DAS antennas visible at Levi’s Stadium during a Niners game this past season. Credit: Paul Kapustka, MSR

For the additional 2+ TB of traffic, a footnote explains it somewhat more: “Data includes the in-venue DAS, COWs, and surrounding macro network for AT&T customers throughout the weekend.”

Any other carriers who want to add their stats to the total, you know where to find us.

Back to Texas A&M for a moment — in its blog post AT&T also noted that the stadium in College Station (which we will identify as Kyle Field) had the most single-game mobile usage in the U.S. this football season, with nearly 7 TB used on Nov. 24. Aggie fans will remember that as the wild seven-overtime 74-72 win over LSU, an incredible game that not surprisingly resulted in lots of stadium cellular traffic.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, Levi's Stadium, NCAA Football Tagged With: 4G LTE, Alabama, AT&T, Cisco, Clemson, College Football Playoff championship, DAS, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Paul Kapustka, San Francisco 49ers, Stadium Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi

Mercedes-Benz Stadium Wi-Fi saw 12 TB of data used at January’s college championship

December 2, 2018 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The iconic ‘halo board’ video screen below the unique roof opening at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Credit all photos: Paul Kapustka, MSR (click on any picture for a larger image)

The Wi-Fi network at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium saw 12 terabytes of data used at the 2018 College Football Playoff championship on Jan. 8, 2018, according to officals from the Atlanta Falcons, owners and operators of this city’s new distinctive venue.

We’d long suspected that Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which opened in August of 2017, had seen big data days inside the 71,000-seat arena with its innovative technology, but until Sunday the Falcons had never made any network-performance data publicly available. But a day after the venue saw another 8.06 TB of Wi-Fi used during the SEC Championship game, Danny Branch, chief information officer for AMB Sports & Entertainment, revealed the statistics during a live MSR visit at an Atlanta Falcons home game. The 12 TB mark (which was an estimate — we’ll check back with the Falcons for exact numbers) is the second-highest we’ve ever seen in our unofficial research of single-day Wi-Fi totals, trailing only the 16.31 TB recorded at Super Bowl LII in February at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“We’re confident and ready for the Super Bowl,” said Branch during a pregame stadium tour, details of which we’ll dig into deeper in a full profile for our upcoming Winter Stadium Tech Report. Multiple network speed tests taken by MSR during Sunday’s 26-16 Falcons loss to the visiting Baltimore Ravens showed robust Wi-Fi performance on the network that uses gear from Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, in a design from AmpThink.

DAS renovation complete

An under-seat DAS antenna in the 300 seating section at Mercedes-Benz Stadium

According to Branch, the cellular distributed antenna system (DAS) network inside Mercedes-Benz — a deployment that is at the center of a current lawsuit filed by contractor IBM against gear supplier and designer Corning — is also now at full deployment, with the completion of 700 new under-seat DAS antenna deployments, mostly in the upper seating deck.

MSR speed tests taken during Sunday’s game showed a wide range of DAS results, from single-digit tests in some tough-deployment areas to results near 100 Mbps directly in front of what looked like some new antenna deployments. Again, look for more details in our upcoming profile in the Winter Stadium Tech Report (due out in mid-December).

“We’re in a good place [with the DAS],” said Branch, though he did say there was going to be more DAS work done on the outside of Mercedes-Benz Stadium prior to when Super Bowl LIII comes to the venue on Feb. 3, 2019, mainly to help ensure that the move toward more digital Super Bowl tickets goes smoothly. Mercedes-Benz Stadium also now has a couple of MatSing ball antennas in its rafters, there to bring DAS coverage to the sidelines of the playing field.

Sunday the Mercedes-Benz Stadium staffers were hosting a rare big-game back-to-back event, following Saturday’s packed-house tilt between SEC powers Alabama and Georgia, a championship-game rematch won by Alabama 35-28 after a dramatic comeback.

“That was a massive flip,” said Branch of the two-day stretch, which saw another huge data day Saturday with 8.06 TB of Wi-Fi used. The network, sponsored by backbone provider AT&T, averages about a 50 percent take rate from event attendees, according to Branch, who gave praise to Aruba and AmpThink for their combined deployment efforts.

“The expectation for fans now is that there will be Wi-Fi [in a sports venue],” said Branch. “But I love it when friends come to me after a game and tell me ‘the Wi-Fi is so fast!’ ”

THE MSR TOP 17 FOR WI-FI

1. Super Bowl 52, U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn., Feb. 4, 2018: Wi-Fi: 16.31 TB
2. 2018 College Football Playoff Championship, Alabama vs. Georgia, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga., Jan. 8, 2018: Wi-Fi: 12.0 TB*
3. Super Bowl 51, NRG Stadium, Houston, Feb. 5, 2017: Wi-Fi: 11.8 TB
4. Atlanta Falcons vs. Philadelphia Eagles, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pa., Sept. 6, 2018: Wi-Fi: 10.86 TB
5. Super Bowl 50, Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif., Feb. 7, 2016: Wi-Fi: 10.1 TB
6. Taylor Swift Reputation Tour, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., July 27, 2018: Wi-Fi: 9.76 TB
7. Minnesota Vikings vs. Philadelphia Eagles, NFC Championship Game, Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pa., Jan. 21, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.76 TB
8. Jacksonville Jaguars vs. New England Patriots, AFC Championship Game, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Jan. 21, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.53 TB
9. Taylor Swift Reputation Tour, Broncos Stadium at Mile High, May 25, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.1 TB
10. Kansas City Chiefs vs. New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, Mass., Sept. 7, 2017: Wi-Fi: 8.08 TB
11. SEC Championship Game, Alabama vs. Georgia, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga., Dec. 1, 2018: Wi-Fi: 8.06 TB*
12. Green Bay Packers vs. Dallas Cowboys, Divisional Playoffs, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, Jan. 15, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.25 TB
13. Stanford vs. Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Ind., Sept. 29, 2018: 7.19 TB
14. (tie) Southern California vs. Notre Dame, Notre Dame Stadium, South Bend, Ind., Oct. 21, 2017: 7.0 TB
Arkansas State vs. Nebraska, Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb., Sept 2, 2017: Wi-Fi: 7.0 TB
15. WrestleMania 32, AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas, April 3, 2016: Wi-Fi: 6.77 TB
16. Wisconsin vs. Nebraska, Memorial Stadium, Lincoln, Neb., Oct. 7, 2017: Wi-Fi: 6.3 TB
17. Super Bowl 49, University of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, Ariz., Feb. 1, 2015: Wi-Fi: 6.23 TB

* = pending official exact data

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AmpThink, Aruba, AT&T, DAS, Hewlett-Packard, NFL, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Alabama, AmpThink, Aruba, AT&T, Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Corning, DAS, Georgia, Hewlett-Packard, iBM, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi

AT&T sees double DAS usage at College Football Playoff championship game

January 10, 2017 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Wireless data use at big sports events keeps continuing to grow, with AT&T reporting that its cellular network traffic from Monday’s College Football Playoff championship game between Clemson and Alabama was double the total from last year’s game.

According to AT&T, it saw fans use a total of 3.8 terabytes of wireless data Monday, on its stadium distributed antenna system (DAS) network at Raymond James Stadium as well as from other network sites in and around the stadium in Tampa. At last year’s championship game in Glendale, Ariz., AT&T saw 1.9 TB of data used on its cell networks. Keep in mind, these numbers are for AT&T networks ONLY, so the total wireless numbers are much larger.

Unfortunately, Verizon Wireless is (so far) declining to report its wireless data statistics from Monday night’s game, a situation we hope they reconsider; we are also still waiting to hear from Sprint and T-Mobile representatives to get their figures from the event. We also have a call in to the stadium authorities to see if we can get figures from the in-stadium Wi-Fi network, so stay tuned. If AT&T’s numbers are any indication, the thrilling 35-31 Clemson victory might just join our list of top single-day wireless event, especially since the event set an attendance record with 74,512 on hand to witness the drama.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, NCAA Football, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Alabama, AT&T, Clemson, College Football Playoff championship, DAS, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Twitter, Wi-Fi

Fans at College Football Playoff championship game use 4.9 TB of Wi-Fi data, 3.9 TB of DAS from AT&T and Verizon

January 13, 2016 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Alabama coach Nick Saban hoists the college championship trophy. Photo by Kent Gidley / University of Alabama

The exciting national championship game Monday night between Alabama and Clemson also resulted in a big night for Wi-Fi and cellular usage at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., with 4.9 terabytes of Wi-Fi data consumed, according to stadium network officials.

While the number didn’t set a stadium record — the 6.23 TB of Wi-Fi used at Super Bowl XLIX last February in the same venue is still the highest single-game Wi-Fi mark we’ve seen — the 4.9 TB used Monday nearly matches the total from last year’s inaugural College Football Playoff championship game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, where 4.93 TB of Wi-Fi was used. It’s worth noting, however, that Monday night’s game had 75,765 fans in attendance, almost 10,000 less than last year’s crowd of 85,689 at the first playoff championship. So at the very least, Monday’s fans used more data per fan in attendance than last year’s game.

On the cellular side of things however, AT&T reported that data usage on its DAS network Monday night exceeded the total from last year’s Super Bowl, with 1.9 TB carried Monday to top the 1.7 TB total AT&T recorded at Super Bowl XLIX. UPDATE, 1/26/16: Verizon has followed up with a report claiming it had 2 TB of DAS traffic at the event. So for right now the wireless total from Monday’s game stands at 8.8 TB, a number that still might grow if we ever hear from Sprint or T-Mobile.

Mark Feller, vice president of information technology for the Arizona Cardinals, said that the University of Phoenix Stadium Wi-Fi network saw 23,306 unique devices connect Monday night, with a peak concurrent connected total of 17,297 devices. The stadium network also saw an additional 1.2 TB of wired data used Monday night, primarily from press and photographer Ethernet connections, Feller said.

The 4.9 TB mark unofficially puts Monday’s game in the “top four” of highest-ever single game Wi-Fi data totals we’ve seen, behind only last year’s Super Bowl, an Alabama game at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field this fall that hit 5.7 TB, and (barely) last year’s college championship game. All eyes in the Wi-Fi totals world now turn to Levi’s Stadium, where Super Bowl 50 takes place Feb. 7. Will the 6.2 TB mark survive, maybe showing that fan data use at big games has peaked? Or will a new record be set?

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, ESPN, Levi's Stadium, NCAA Football, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Alabama, AT&T, Clemson, College Football Playoff championship, DAS, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, NCAA, Paul Kapustka, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, University of Phoenix Stadium, Wi-Fi

Texas A&M’s fiber-backed Wi-Fi at Kyle Field records 5.7 TB of data during Alabama game

October 29, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Scoreboard, Kyle Field. Photos: Texas A&M

We’ve been hearing rumors about how much data was flowing at the new fiber-based Wi-Fi network at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field this fall, and now we finally have some verified numbers that are sure to pop some eyeballs: According to the networking crew at Corning, fans at Kyle Field used 5.7 terabytes of Wi-Fi data during the Oct. 17 game against Alabama, which the Aggies lost 41-23.

In case you are keeping score the 5.7 TB mark is the second-largest single-game Wi-Fi usage number we’ve seen, trailing only the 6.2 TB recorded at Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Ariz., earlier this year. Before you pin it all on the network, however, be aware that the newly refurbished Kyle Field can hold a whole lotta fans — the announced attendance for the ‘Bama game was 105,733, which is 35,000+ more fans than the 70,288 who attended the Super Bowl at the University of Phoenix Stadium on Feb. 1. Still, building a network to support basically another baseball stadium’s worth of fans is pretty cool, too.

Other related numbers from the Wi-Fi network are in Super Bowl territory as well, including the 37,823 unique clients recorded during pre-game and game time, as well as the 26,318 peak concurrent user count. We’re not sure why only 10 people tweeted about the Wi-Fi (8 good, 2 bad) but the 3.2 Gbps throughput should also turn some heads.

Corning ONE DAS headend equipment at Texas A&M’s Kyle Field deployment

The question this all raises for us is, has the availability of a fiber backbone allowed fans to simply use more traffic? And is the demand for mobile data at big events perhaps even higher than we thought? With a regular-season game at Nebraska hitting 4.2 TB earlier this season, it’s pretty clear that data demands are showing no signs of hitting a plateau. Or maybe we can deduce that the better the network, the more traffic it will carry?

It’s also worthwhile to note that stats this season from AT&T have shown several 1+ TB data totals for games at Kyle Field on the AT&T DAS network, which uses the same fiber backbone as the Wi-Fi. This “fiber to the fan” infrastructure, built by IBM and Corning, will also be at the core of the network being built at the new home of the NFL’s Falcons, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, scheduled to open in 2017.

We’ll have more soon from Kyle Field, as Mobile Sports Report is scheduled to make a visit there for the Nov. 7 game against Auburn. If you plan to be in College Station that weekend give us a holler. Or a yell, right? We are looking forward to seeing the stadium and the network firsthand, to do some speedtests to see how well all areas are covered. With 5.7 TB of Wi-Fi, it’s a good guess the coverage is pretty good.

(Statistics provided by Corning for the Oct. 17 game are below.)

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, NCAA Football, SEC, Super Bowl, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, Alabama, AT&T, DAS, Kyle Field, Levi's Stadium, Mobile Sports Report, Paul Kapustka, SEC, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Texas A&M, Wi-Fi