In preparation for the Super Bowl, Verizon Wireless has amped up its network for their customers.
In various locations in and around downtown, including hotels, team practice facilities, the Indiana Convention Center and Lucas Oil Stadium, Verizon customers will have no trouble tweeting the Super Bowl score, doing a search for a restaurant, or sending a business report to their home office with ease.
Verizon Wireless invested $159 million last year for network upgrades in Indiana. That figure is an increase of $69 million from the investment spent in 2010. Of that increase, a significant portion was used on upgrades for the Super Bowl.
Below are more facts and figures from Verizon to make sure that Super Bowl goers (and residents) can have easy, accessible service during the big game.
* Lucas Oil Stadium is the “most wired” as it is the first stadium relying on 4G LTE (Fourth Generation Long Term Evolution). It is the latest and fastest for wireless standards available to consumers and business technology. 4G was available, but not widely used during the Dallas game. 4G LTE from Verizon Wireless was introduced in the greater Indianapolis area last June.
* About 85,000 people are expected at the Super Bowl game (of which 15,000 will be for staff, media, etc.) The network has been built to support more than 2.5 times normal traffic of a Colts game. Attendance at a regular game is about 70,000.
* Verizon Wireless is managing the free Wi-Fi network to enable more people (from all carriers) to get online.
* Backpack testers will be testing Verizon Wireless’ network during the game. Five engineers will be walking around Lucas Oil Stadium with small portable equipment testing Verizon’s voice and data network during the game. The equipment is carried in a bag similar in size to a camera bag and weighs less than 10 pounds.
* Most Super Bowl fans tend to use the network heavily at the start of the game and during halftime.
* Most infrastructure improvements made by Verizon will stay in place, including for more than 30 downtown venues.
