68 terabytes of data shatters Super Bowl records

The Super Bowl came and went and left not only the Denver Broncos as the 2016 winners but also shattered previous Super Bowl Data records.

During the game, its many many many adverts, halftime show with Coldplay, Beyonce and Bruno Mars and the final touchdown, millions of people tweeted, live streamed, and shared their views. Twitter Data reported that over 27 million tweets used the #SB50  resulting in 4.3 Billion views.

As the game was in play, Twitter lit up across the US as can be seen via this time-lapse map:

Explore how the halftime show united @Broncos & @Panthers fans, and lit up the country:https://t.co/ei9VXwWhGh pic.twitter.com/AdBhMiETeE

— Twitter Data (@TwitterData) February 8, 2016

Verizon spent $70 million

In order to carry the anticipated volume, Verizon spent $70 million to triple its 4G LTE wireless network in the Bay Area for the Super Bow week. This investment in infrastructure allowed the legion of fans to share their special 50th Super Bowl experience in the manor they were accustomed to.

To ensure that the system worked with no issues, Verizon deployed half-dozen “walk-testers” who were outfitted with a backpack of test devices that use GPS coordinators to track their exact location, while the devices made data connections and voice calls on a continual basis. Each network tester could view their results in real time on the connected tablet or smartphone they are carrying, while at the same time remote engineers receive the data over the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.

Brian Mecum, vice president-network support for Verizon Wireless confirmed that “Between the stadium, Super Bowl City and the 50th Mile, they’ve walked more than 120 miles in the past two days.”

Super Data Stats

Leading up to the game, Verizon customers consumed 68.8 terabytes (or 68,800 gigabytes) of wireless data in the Bay Area on videos, web searches, social media updates and more which is the the equivalent of 45 million social media posts.

On Game Day at Levi Stadium more than 7 terabytes of data were consumed on the Verizon network which marked a 268 percent increase in data usage over the past two years (2015 Super Bowl, Verizon customers in Phoenix used 4.1 terabytes of data and in 2014 fans in New Jersey used 1.9 terabytes.)

According to Verizon, “the biggest spikes in network activity happened when Denver recovered the fumble and scored in the first quarter, with a 15 percent data surge. Data usage hit a game-day high with a 24 percent increase during the big halftime show. “

How was the data made up ?

• 19.82% Video
• 19.62% Web-browsing
• 17.67% Social media sharing
• 15.96% Cloud
• 2.29% Music
• 1.44% Messaging
• 1.37% Email
• .97% Navigation
• 20.86% Other

Some other cool stats include:

• During first half, 18 579 Instagram posts were uploaded.
• During first quarter, 18 000 Snapchats were sent from within the Levis Stadium.
• Video was nearly 20 percent of the usage on game day.
• Highest usage day was Friday where 2.2 Terabytes of data was consumed
• The most used application was Facebook followed by YouTube
• Speed test example from lower bowl seats clocked at 120 megabytes per second (Mbps) on the download

*Headline image from Verizon