Over 100 million viewers are expected to watch Super Bowl XLVIII – in one way or another – at Metlife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey this Sunday. MetLife’s capacity is 82,500 and it will be packed with half-freezing fans and media members trying to stay warm during a February night in New York. But setting aside the weather and the league’s decision to host its 48th Super Bowl in a cold-weather city, what is the first thing you would do if you were in attendance?
Share your experience on a social network of course.
Picture the kickoff of this game and all the camera flashes in the stands. Those flashes used to be digital cameras that would record an image for later printing or downloading. Now the flashes are smartphones that are ready to digitally distribute the flash photo they just took within seconds via Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc. So in order to provide an audience of tens of thousands of socially active people with wifi access a very robust network is required.
That’s where AT&T comes in.
Mike Maus, Assistant VP of network services at AT&T, explains how AT&T is connecting fans at Super Bowl XLVIII:
“For the last year or so we’ve been working on our pre-game and game day network playbook in an effort to provide the best possible wireless experience for our customers. In anticipation of the huge volume of data and voice usage expected [for the Super Bowl], we’ve built a new state of the art antenna system inside the stadium, we’re rolling in portable cell sites both at the stadium, and to support the tailgate areas, and we’ve augmented coverage in New York City to support the activities there.”
AT&T has upgraded key portions of the New York and New Jersey network with both permanent and temporary enhancements in the specific areas where additional traffic is anticipated leading up to and during the Big Game. Since the beginning of 2013 and heading into this Sunday, they installed or upgraded four Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS). These DAS, which will cover fans in the stands, suites, concourses and restaurants of the stadium, contain more than triple the capacity of the original DAS used by AT&T during the 2013 regular season, are equivalent to 21 traditional cell sites, and have enough capacity to cover a city the size of Trenton, NJ.
The massive new DAS also features more than 500 antennas hidden throughout the stadium and more than 6.4 miles of cable. So when there is a mobile wifi usage surge on the network after Peyton throws a TD or Marshawn Lynch rumbles into the end zone, the DAS will provide the necessary bandwidth.
AT&T also provides access to Wi-Fi hotspots and Wi-Fi Hot Zones in NYC that will help fans stay connected. Once in these areas, AT&T customers will be able to connect to the Wi-Fi network, free of charge. This is valuable when you consider how congested the wifi bandwidth already is around MetLife Stadium leading up to and during the game.
For the tailgaters and media members around the stadium who get there early and brave the elements, two COWs will be deployed in the parking lots that serve MetLife Stadium to handle the influx of wireless demand on game day in the lots, nearby venues and the Meadowlands Sports Complex rail line. A COW (cell on wheels) is a mobile cell site that consists of a cellular antenna tower on a truck or trailer, designed to be part of a cellular network.
For people on the streets in the city AT&T has deployed five COWs to provide additional coverage and capacity for fans attending or watching the game who are coming from Super Bowl Boulevard in Midtown Manhattan. In addition, AT&T built a new cell site at the northern end of Super Bowl Boulevard, in Times Square, to handle the increased wireless needs of the more than 270,000 people expected to attend each day.
When this year’s Super Bowl kicks off in the largest market in the country, AT&T will be a big reason why the event will work from a logistics stand point. For the biggest single day sporting event on the calendar people need constant connectivity. Having a wireless network that simply works is an enormous task, yet vital component.