Verizon has sent out a press release detailing exactly how they plan to amp up their coverage in and around NRG Stadium for this year’s Super Bowl. Building out for incredible volume and throughput in preparation for gigantic events like this is a must, now more than ever before, and Verizon is ensuring that they won’t disappoint in that regard; much like last year their setup for this year includes a number of both fixed and portable accouterments of various sizes throughout the city, and they even threw in a few special pieces of equipment meant to reach lower seating that would otherwise have somewhat weak coverage due to the geometry of the arena.
Verizon’s full layout will include 23 new permanent full-size cell sites in the area, as well as over 220 new permanent small cells, which could later be used for a 5G rollout. Capacity has also been doubled around the city, and on major thoroughfares in and out. Three channel carrier aggregation has been deployed in the area to allow greater speed and capacity. On the portable equipment front, Verizon is rolling out a grand total of 24 nodes on wheels, containing various suites of network equipment. To round out all of the improvements, a new antenna system will provide additional coverage to the lower seats of the stadium and the ground area around it.
Verizon’s array for this year’s Super Bowl even manages to outclass the setup that they laid out at Levi Stadium last year, and should provide fairly ample capacity and speed to cover the anticipated millions that will be flooding Houston, centered around the same stadium that hosted Super Bowl 2004, back in a time before data networks mattered much outside of the enterprise world. The 51st Super Bowl will be upon us in just a few short weeks, and all of the nation’s carriers are scrambling to ensure their networks will be up to snuff for the huge crowd that the Big Game is guaranteed to draw into Houston’s already-crowded wireless market. Verizon’s top-notch preparations should serve them fairly well, and provide a good foundation for Houston to be among the first cities ready for 5G when they begin their rollout.
