There may be no better setting to test out network capabilities than the Super Bowl. During Sunday’s big game at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Verizon quietly put its new 5G network connection to the test.
Designed to deliver faster speeds and a crisper connection, guests at the Super Bowl and in New York City engaged in a live demonstration. Participants wore VR headsets displaying a live, 180-degree stereoscopic view of the on-field action. With 5G’s massive bandwidth and blazing speeds, live video and VR can be taken to new levels.
“Since we first set out to create the world’s largest set of 5G test markets, we learned a tremendous amount about what the technology could deliver,” Sanyogita Shamsunder, Executive Director, 5G Ecosystems and Innovation, said in a statement. “This latest demonstration at Super Bowl LII and in New York City is another example of how we’re pushing 5G to exploit never-before imagined uses cases and applications.”
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Also on Super Bowl Sunday, the first ever 5G video call was completed on Samsung-developed 5G prototype tablets. Verizon chairman Lowell McAdam, who was in Minneapolis, called KT CEO Chang-Gyu Hwang, who participated from Seoul.
Verizon also before the Super Bowl showed off 5G capabilities with Ericsson by using NFL players.
Verizon isn’t the first provider to dive into 5G capabilities. Back in November, AT&T announced they would be bringing the network to Minneapolis and 19 other cities by the end of 2018.