Seattle Seahawks

Super Bowl XLIX sets new stadium Wi-Fi record with 6.2 Terabytes of data consumed

February 4, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

University of Phoenix Stadium. Credit: Arizona Cardinals.

The Super Bowl is once again the stadium Wi-Fi champ, as fans at Sunday’s Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Ariz., used 6.23 terabytes of data during the contest, according to the team running the network at the University of Phoenix Stadium.

The 6.23 TB mark blew past the most recent entrant in the “most Wi-Fi used at a single-day single-stadium event” sweepstakes, the 4.93 TB used at the Jan. 12 College Football Playoff championship game at AT&T Stadium. Prior to that, pro football games this past season at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., and at AT&T Stadium had pushed into the 3-plus TB mark to be among the highest totals ever reported.

The live crowd watching the New England Patriots’ 28-24 victory over the Seattle Seahawks also used about as much cellular data as well, with Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint claiming a combined total of 6.56 TB used in and around the stadium on game day. All three carriers were on the in-stadium and outside-the-stadium DAS deployments being run by neutral host Crown Castle. If those figures are correct (more on this later) it would put the total wireless data usage for the event at 12.79 TB, far and away the biggest single day of wireless data use we’ve ever heard of.

Apple OS updates still the application king

Handrails with Wi-Fi antenna enclosures from AmpThink. Credit: Arizona Cardinals.

Mark Feller, vice president of information technology for the Arizona Cardinals, and Travis Bugh, senior wireless consultant for CDW, provided Mobile Sports Report with the final Wi-Fi usage numbers, which are pretty stunning for anyone in the stadium networking profession. According to Feller the new CDW-deployed Wi-Fi network with Cisco gear at the UoP Stadium saw 2.499 TB of data downloaded, and 3.714 TB uploaded, for a total of 6.213 TB of Wi-Fi usage. Bugh of CDW said there were 25,936 unique devices connecting to the network on game day, with a peak concurrent usage of 17,322, recorded not surprisingly at halftime.

Peak download usage of 1.3 Gbps was recorded before the game’s start, while peak upload usage of 2.5 Gbps was hit at halftime. The top applications by bandwidth use, Feller said, were Apple (mobile update), Facebook, Dropbox and Snapchat.

DAS numbers also set new record, but clarification needed

The only reason we aren’t yet trumpeting the 6.564 TB of reported DAS use as a verified record is due to the differences in clarity from each of the reporting providers. We also haven’t yet heard any usage totals from T-Mobile, so it’s likely that the final final wireless data use number is somewhere north of 13 TB, if all can be believed.

Parking lot light poles, Westgate entertainment district. Can you spot the DAS?

As reported before, AT&T said it saw 1.7 TB of cellular wireless activity from its customers on game day, with 696 GB of that happening inside the stadium, and the balance coming from the outside areas before and after the game. We’d also like to welcome Sprint to the big-game reporting crew (thanks Sprint!), with its total of 754 GB of all 4G LTE traffic used in and around the stadium on game day. According to Sprint representatives, its Super Bowl coverage efforts included 5 COWs (cell towers on wheels) as well as expanded DAS and macro placements in various Phoenix-area locations. The Sprint coverage included the 2.5 GHz spectrum that uses TDD LTE technology.

As also previously reported, Verizon Wireless claimed 4.1 TB of customer traffic in and around the stadium on game day, which Verizon claims is all cellular traffic and does not reflect any Verizon Wireless customer use of the stadium Wi-Fi network. Verizon also reported some other interesting activity tidbits, which included 46,772 Verizon Wireless devices used at the game, of which just 59.7 percent were smartphones. Verizon also said it saw 10 million emails sent on its networks that day, and 1.9 million websites visited, while also seeing 122.308 videos sent or received over wireless connections.

We’re still waiting to see if we can get usage numbers from the Super Bowl stadium app (we’re especially interested to see if the instant replay feature caught on) but the warning for stadium owners and operators everywhere seems to be clear: If you’re hosting the big game (or any BIG game), make sure your network is ready for 6 TB and beyond!

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Apple, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, iPhone, MSR Guides, NFL, Seattle Seahwaks, Sprint, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: AT&T, COWs, DAS, Dropbox, Mobile Sports Report, New England Patriots, Paul Kapustka, Seattle Seahawks, SnapChat, Sprint, Stadium Wi-Fi, Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLIX, University of Phoenix Stadium, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

AT&T sets new DAS traffic records for Super Bowl with 1.7 Terabyte mark

February 2, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

University of Phoenix Stadium

AT&T said its customers set new records for Super Bowl and professional football game wireless data consumption, with a total of 1.7 terabytes of traffic used in and around the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., Sunday night.

In a blog post from AT&T senior executive vice president John Donovan AT&T said it saw 696 gigabytes of wireless data used on its in-stadium DAS Sunday night, with an additional 1 TB used in and around the stadium in the surrounding parking lots and the Westgate entertainment district, a mall/restaurant complex that is connected to the UoP stadium area. The 1.7 TB mark surpasses the 1.4 TB DAS mark AT&T saw at the recent College Football Playoff championship game in Arlington, Texas, on Jan. 12.

Donovan’s blog post contains some interesting looks back — with a peak usage of 125 GB per hour Sunday, AT&T saw another new high mark, one that seems to say that usage of wireless data at stadiums is still climbing with no roof (retractable or not) in sight. Here’s a couple quotes:

Since 2011 – inclusive of the last five Big Games – the total data usage on AT&T’s in-stadium network has increased from 177GB to 696GB and peak hour data usage has increased from 30GB to 125GB.

And:

These numbers don’t come as a total shock as we experienced several high marks this season. In total, from 253 games at 31 stadiums, our customers have used more than 85.7TB of mobile data on our venue-specific cellular networks. That’s equivalent to more than 245M social media posts with photos from 253 games (an average of almost 1M social media posts per game).

We are still waiting for results from the stadium Wi-Fi network… will the total break the 6 TB mark set at the CFP championship game? Stay tuned! More AT&T infographic fun below.

click on photo for larger image

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Super Bowl Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Mobile Sports Report, New England Patriots, Paul Kapustka, Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl, Super Bowl wireless data, Super Bowl wireless traffic, Super Bowl XLIX, University of Phoenix Stadium

Championship games traffic stats: AT&T DAS hits high-water marks; Seahawks Wi-Fi sees 1.6 TB of data

January 26, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Just a quick update on some wireless usage statistics from the recent NFL championship games in New England and Seattle: According to AT&T, the AT&T customers on the DAS networks at both stadiums hit high-water marks for the host teams this season, well above the traffic averages. And maybe due to their team’s lackluster play for most of the game, fans at CenturyLink Field in Seattle didn’t give the stadium’s new Wi-Fi network a record workout, but did end up using about 1.6 terabytes of data during the Seahawks’ come-from-behind win over the Green Bay Packers.

On the DAS side, AT&T said that the two championship games “resulted in the two greatest data traffic increases of the 10 playoff games compared to their regular season data traffic averages.” During the Patriots’ blowout of the Colts, AT&T customers on the DAS at Gillette Stadium used 444GB of data, a 44 percent increase over the regular-season average at Gillette; and in Seattle, AT&T DAS customers used 496GB, 53 percent higher than the regular-season average at CenturyLink. Remember, these stats are for AT&T customers only, on DAS networks in stadiums where AT&T has a DAS deployment; Mobile Sports Report requested similar data from Verizon Wireless, but Verizon did not respond. AT&T summed up its playoff DAS findings in this press release page.

According to Chip Suttles, vice president of technology for the Seahawks, the CenturyLink Wi-Fi networks saw 20,064 unique users during the NFC championship game, with a peak concurrent user number of 16,078. At CenturyLink there are actually two fan-facing Wi-Fi networks, one exclusively for Verizon customers and the other for all other device users; according to Suttles there was 1.2 TB of data consumed on the main CenturyLink Wi-Fi network, and 198 GB used on the Verizon-only network. Interestingly, media at the game used more data than the Verizon customers, with 223 GB of Wi-Fi traffic used by press, according to Suttles. We also requested statistics from the Wi-Fi operators at Gillette, but have not heard anything back yet.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, NFL, Seattle Seahwaks, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: AT&T, CenturyLink Field, DAS, Mobile Sports Report, New England Patriots, NFL championships, Paul Kapustka, Seattle Seahawks, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi

YinzCam’s Super Bowl stadium app will have instant replays, Super Bowl commericals, stadium maps and more

January 23, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

Screen shot of Super Bowl app for this year’s game.

We’ve been waiting for official word on what the YinzCam-developed app for the Super Bowl will look like, and though there’s no press release the page where we are guessing it will eventually be available is offering some details, like the availability of instant replays from different camera angles, video of Super Bowl commercials, and stadium maps.

On the Seahawks.com site we found a good how-to story for fans going to the game, which included a link to this page, where we are guessing the Super Bowl stadium app will be available for download. Here is the boilerplate:

New for Super Bowl XLIX, the Super Bowl Stadium App Presented by Verizon aims to take the fan experience inside University of Phoenix Stadium to the next level. Features that will enhance Super Bowl ticketholders’ experiences include exclusive in-stadium video content such as Super Bowl commercials and replays from four different camera angles, stadium seating and concession maps, once-in-a-lifetime gameday opportunities visible only to fans inside the stadium and the option to receive up-to-the-minute gameday notifications. Available on iOS, Android and Windows. Goes Live 23rd January 2015

(Looks like the app is already available in the App Store and in Google Play, but nothing is live; we downloaded the app and the only three buttons available, for highlights, commercials and memories, all say they will be available on Feb. 1 at the stadium, so no idea what the “goes live” on the splash page above means yet.)

YinzCam founder and CEO Priya Narasimhan had told us earlier this year that a Super Bowl app was in the making, and apparently it will contain features found in some of the latest YinzCam app deployments, such as the Seattle Seahawks’ new stadium app, which has multiple camera angle replays. The Super Bowl app is different from the Arizona Cardinals’ regular stadium app, which was also built by YinzCam, which also features instant replays.

We were able to download the app for iPhone (it’s free) and apparently you will need to be connected to the stadium Wi-Fi (which has the clever SSID of “Stadium WiFi”) in order to view highlights and other video options.

The good thing for fans at the big game, there will be plenty of networking horsepower to keep the app running, no matter where you are. If you’re inside the stadium there is a new Wi-Fi network and a refurbished DAS deployment to keep fans connected; stay tuned next week for our big breakdown of DAS deployments and carrier plans to keep the Super Bowl crowds super-connected.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, Android, Apple, Apps, DAS, iPhone, iTunes, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NFL, NFL Mobile, Seattle Seahwaks, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: Ariz., Glendale, Mobile Sports Report, New England Patriots, NFL Mobile, Paul Kapustka, Phoenix, Seattle Seahawks, stadium app, Stadium Wi-Fi Super Bowl XLIX, Super Bowl, Super Bowl app, University of Phoenix Stadium, YinzCam

NBC will live-stream Super Bowl online for tablets, computers; Verizon NFL Mobile will carry for smartphones

January 20, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

If for some reason you are banned from the living room couch for the Super Bowl, NBC has you covered — the network will be streaming the game live online, along with hours of pregame, postgame and halftime festivities — for anyone with an Internet connection and a laptop, PC or tablet.

According to a press release sent out Monday NBC said it will also not require viewers to have a qualifying cable or satellite contract to view the game, thereby eliminating the often annoying login process that accompanies many other online live sports streaming activities. You will, of course, be subject to multiple NBC advertisements but hey — a small price to pay for the convenience of being able to watch the game online.

(Mobile Sports Report is old enough to remember Super Bowl parties where we rented extra TV sets for the bathrooms and the kitchen; now you can just use in-house Wi-Fi and a tablet or laptop, perhaps with a splash guard.)

On the cellular side, if you are stuck somewhere and want to watch on your phone, the only option is having a Verizon contract and using the NFL Mobile app. If you are a More Everything customer the live viewing of the game is free, if not you must pay a $5 monthly charge for the one day in February that you will need premium access. (Pro tip for Verizon customers — don’t forget to cancel that premium access charge the day after the game, since Verizon will happily charge you $5 a month all summer long even though there are no NFL games during that time.)

It’s an easy guess so we will predict right now that this year’s Super Bowl will set new online records for most Internet viewers — without fail this has happened every year since the networks and the league started making the game available online. According to the NBC folks the online stream will have some handy extras, like the DVR feature that lets you scroll back to important plays, as well as additional camera angles and in-game stats.

Now our next dream is for the Shield and its broadcasters to follow ESPN’s lead on the college championships and provide online “Megacast” options for alternate announcers. A man can hope.

Filed Under: ESPN, NBC Sports, NFL, NFL Mobile, Seattle Seahwaks, Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless Tagged With: how to watch Super Bowl online, Mobile Sports Report, NBC Live Extra, NBC Sports, New England Patriots, NFL Mobile, Paul Kapustka, Seattle Seahawks, Super Bowl, Super Bowl online, Super Bowl streaming, Verizon Wireless

Seahawks hit local Wi-Fi record during playoff game with 2.6 Terabytes of traffic; Verizon maintains cone of silence over its investment in network

January 16, 2015 by Paul Kapustka Leave a Comment

The Wi-Fi network that debuted in CenturyLink Field this season had its highest Wi-Fi traffic day last weekend, when 2.6 terabytes of data was carried during the Seattle Seahawks’ Jan. 10 playoff victory over the Carolina Panthers.

According to the Seahawks’ tech staff, 18,899 of the 68,524 fans in attendance used the Wi-Fi network at some point, with a peak concurrent user mark of 15,662. The peak bandwidth utilization of 1.4 Gbps was reached just after Cam Chancellor sealed the win with his electric 90-yard interception touchdown return, the Seahawks tech staff said.

The Wi-Fi numbers represent traffic on both of the separate Wi-Fi networks in the stadium, one of which is reserved exclusively for Verizon Wireless customers. Verizon, which has declined to comment publicly on the specifics of its partnership with the Seahawks, is believed to have bankrolled a major portion of the Wi-Fi deployment at CenturyLink. Before the Wi-Fi partnership between the Seahawks, Wi-Fi gear provider Extreme Networks and Verizon was officially announced on Oct. 29, Verizon claimed it had “added an in-stadium Wi-Fi system” at CenturyLink prior to the start of the 2014 football season, as part of a national football stadium Wi-Fi map Verizon published on Sept. 4. The Wi-Fi deployment was somewhat of a surprise, since team officials had long said they were looking at 2015 as the year they might pull the trigger on a Wi-Fi expenditure. Apparently, having available funding from Verizon helped push the project forward faster than expected; but again, we have no official confirmation or explanation of the exact fiscal participation level of all the partners involved.

For Seattle fans, having Verizon as a Wi-Fi partner has additional perks — in addition to a separate Wi-Fi network for Verizon customers, all fans at the stadium also have access to the NFL Network’s popular RedZone channel, via the new Seahawks stadium app created by YinzCam. Because of various conflicting rights contracts, RedZone isn’t available in most stadiums for fans to watch. The Seahawks also have a number of live-action and replay views available via the app; however, the stadium’s tech team did not have any metrics on fan use of the app or the number of video replays watched.

Wi-Fi access point antennas visible on poles at CenturyLink Field, Seattle. Credit: Extreme Networks

Verizon’s reluctance to comment publicly on its Wi-Fi deployments is no surprise; repeated attempts and queries by MSR for interviews with Verizon executives about Wi-Fi deployments are routinely ignored by Verizon representatives, and public quotes like the one from Bobby Morrison, president for the Pacific Northwest and Alaska at Verizon Wireless, in the official press release, don’t offer any details about Verizon’s level of fiscal commitment to the CenturyLink deployment. Verizon has also declined to comment on its Wi-Fi network deployments at Ford Field in Detroit, and at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Verizon executives were also conspicuously absent from a stadium-technology event centered on the Wi-Fi network earlier this week, leading some reports to omit Verizon’s considerable participation in the network’s deployment, something NFL CIO Michelle McKenna-Doyle told MSR about earlier this year.

Though no statistics were available from Verizon about the DAS deployment it also put in at CenturyLink Field this year, AT&T did share some DAS stats from CenturyLink for the Seahawks’ Dec. 14 victory over the San Francisco 49ers. During that game, AT&T customer traffic on the AT&T DAS at CenturyLink was 395 GB, according to AT&T. It will be interesting to see how much wireless traffic this weekend’s NFC championship game between the Seahawks and the Packers will generate — we’ll track down as much of it as we can to see if it compares to the 6 TB mark set at the recent College Football Playoff championship game at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Filed Under: 4G LTE, AT&T, Cisco, DAS, NFL, NFL Mobile, Seattle Seahwaks, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi Tagged With: 4G LTE, AT&T, DAS, Extreme Networks, Mobile Sports Report, NFL, NFL Mobile, Paul Kapustka, Seattle Seahawks, Stadium Wi-Fi, Verizon Wireless, Wi-Fi, YinzCam