In the leadup to Super Bowl LII, NETSCOUT estimates that the top four mobile networks across the country will carry a combined total of 45 TB of data on Super Bowl Sunday, driven by sports fans using mobile devices to follow the event live and share their experiences from in and around the U.S. Bank Stadium. The 45 TB figure is the equivalent of 45,000 hours of video streaming or 14 million photos being taken and uploaded to social media sites.
It's anticipated that social media activity will be responsible for generating the bulk of data traffic, with the following applications topping the list in terms of mobile usage:
- Snapchat
The 2018 forecast indicates a 40% increase on last year, when NETSCOUT estimated Super Bowl LI would generate a total of 32 TB. Last year's Super Bowl broke all wireless data records, with every major U.S. carrier reporting huge spikes in data usage in and around the NRG stadium, the venue for Super Bowl LI. According to NETSCOUT's estimates, it's possible that more records could be broken next Sunday when the Patriots take on the Eagles in Minneapolis.
John English, director of service provider solutions at NETSCOUT, said: "Last year, wireless carriers experienced massive surges in mobile data usage during the Super Bowl. We expect to see much higher levels of data traffic this weekend. Sports fans across America will be active on their social feeds, streaming videos and posting all manner of Super Bowl related content before, during and after the game. A single terabyte is equal to one trillion bytes or one thousand hours of video streaming, which would take about 40 days to watch. So you can imagine just how much mobile usage it will take to generate 45 TB of data."