Super Bowl Shows Small Cell Advantages

Here’s a fairly easy illustration of the value of distributed antenna systems, small cells, massive input multiple output (MIMO) radios in areas of dense mobile user activity. At the Super Bowl in Atlanta, mobile download speeds were fairly impressive, compared to what a user might expect to see on a routine, out and about basis:

Operator	Mean Download (Mbps)
T-Mobile	101.53
Sprint	93.28
Verizon	72.51
AT&T	34.88

source: Ookla

source: Ookla

Small cells played a huge role. AT&T “upgraded its Distributed Antenna System, while also adding hundreds of small cells.

T-Mobile deployed more than 300 small cells at game-related venues.

Sprint rolled out Massive MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) radios on seven cell sites.

Verizon installed nearly 30 permanent cell sites in Atlanta and deployed portable cell sites at event locations.

Wi-Fi offload probably also was important. But note the speed data. As often is the case, public Wi-Fi now is far slower than 4G performance.

Game	Mean Download (Mbps)	Mean Upload (Mbps)
The Big Game - February 3, 2019	30.98	31.35
Peach Bowl - December 29, 2018	30.36	33.28
College Championship - January 8, 2018	53.95	53.04

Basically, the same principles will apply as millimeter wave frequencies start to more widely in the

metro network.