Rogers says it’s investing in its 5G network at the Rogers Centre ahead of Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour stops to ensure it can handle the massive amount of data fans are expected to use.
In a blog post shared with MobileSyrup, Rogers detailed how Swift fans used nearly 30 terabytes (TB) of mobile data in a day at recent shows. The company highlighted three examples of massive data use:
- During a show at Wembley Stadium in London, Swift fans used a record 5.58TB of mobile data
- Swift’s Melbourne, Australia, concert at the MCG Stadium saw fans use an average of 15TB of data per night
- AT&T’s network handled 28.9TB of data during the busiest day of Swift’s three-day tour stop in Arlington, Texas
To put that last one in perspective, Rogers said that if fans shared 200,000 photos or 400 hours of video, it would only use up 1TB of data.
With Swift holding six Eras Tour stops in Toronto in November, there’s likely to be a huge amount of data used. Rogers said it completed an $8 million upgrade to its 5G network at the Rogers Centre, and its teams have spent 6,000 hours planning the project and 10,000 hours installing new equipment and infrastructure.
Rogers said it installed technology to enable three times more 5G network capacity throughout the stadium, equivalent to what would traditionally be covered by 33 towers in downtown Toronto. Rogers teams also installed antennas near the top of the Rogers Centre’s 86-metre-high roof to ensure fans with floor seats get the same 5G experience as those in stadium seats.
According to the company, the upgrades began this summer and network performance has already improved. Rogers says those using its 5G network at the Pink concert in August saw twice as fast download speeds and eight times faster upload speeds than at the Diljit Dosanjh performance in July.
With all these updates, here’s hoping the Rogers network can keep up with the demands of Swift fans. It’d be a shame to have a repeat of The Weeknd situation, which saw the Toronto singer-songwriter’s July 2022 Rogers Centre performance disrupted by the telecom giants infamous nationwide network outage (though, to be fair, the outage wasn’t related to the concert — it just happened on the same day).
In other Swift-related news, the Eras Tour stops in Toronto are expected to bring nearly $300 million into the local economy through additional expenses like dining, accommodations and shopping.
Images credit: Rogers
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