Record data used at College National Championship Game
Jan 13, 2016, 5:20 AM
Clemson's Deshaun Watson (4) celebrates a touchdown during the second half of the NCAA college football playoff championship game against Alabama Monday, Jan. 11, 2016, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
(AP Photo/Chris Carlson)
A record number of posts, tweets, selfies and social media shares were recorded by AT&T data network at the College National Championship Game this week.
“We had thousands of football fans coming from Alabama and South Carolina all the way to the Valley to see the game,” said Scott Huscher. “What AT&T saw was record setting numbers on our network for data usage.”
Total data usage from AT&T networks serving the stadium and surrounding tailgating parties was more than 1.9 TB or the equivalent of 5.5 million social media posts, he said, and this is just the reports from one data carrier.
“Every year there’s new technologies, there’s new mobile apps that people are using. They’re integrating video more,” said Huscher. “We continue to see a rise in the mobile data that people are using.”
The record was 15 percent more data usage than last year’s Super Bowl also held in Glendale and 37 percent more than the National College Championship Game last year held in Arlington, Texas.
“AT&T made a lot of preparations because when you have so many people like that in one area,” Huscher said. “A data network is like lanes on a highway. You’ve got to have enough lanes for everybody to be able to use it effectively.”
The data giant upgraded its Distributed Antenna System at the game as well as cell sites and temporary cells on wheels or remote cell towers to prepare for the expected demand increase.
