Clemson won the 2017 NCAA College Football Playoff Championship in dramatic fashion Monday evening (Jan. 9) in a nail biting rematch that saw underdog Clemson drive down the field against number 1 ranked Alabama’s staunch defense for the winning score in the game’s waning minutes.
Anticipating record-high viewership, AT&T made a range of temporary and permanent wired and wireless network upgrades in and around Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, AT&T’s Paula Doublin highlights in a Jan. 10 blog post.
AT&T Data Traffic Growth
No surprise, but network traffic and data usage spiked as enthusiastic fans shared songs and uploaded live video from their seats using mobile devices. By game’s end, total AT&T network traffic came in at 3.8 terabytes, the equivalent of more than 11 million social media photos, Doublin touted.
That was about double that for last year’s CFP Championship in Glendale, Arizona, a closely fought contest that saw Alabama come away with the national championship trophy. Data traffic for this year’s contest was 300 percent higher compared to the average 2016 NCAA collegiate football game.
Prepping for the spike, AT&T rolled out upgraded Distributed Antenna System (DAS) at the stadium, as well as mobile Cells On Wheels (COWs) throughout the Tampa Bay area.
More broadly, AT&T networks transported more than 209 TB of mobile data from 563 pro and college football games in stadiums wherein it had a network presence this past year, according to Doublin.
Apparently, there’s little rest for the weary. AT&T’s Doublin and her network team are moving on to Houston to prepare for NFL Super Bowl LI.
