Today, Verizon announced a deal with MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Jets and New York Giants, to provide major network upgrades for 2024 and beyond to accommodate the exponential increase in data customers use during stadium events held throughout the year. Additionally, Verizon is extending their long-term cornerstone partnership with the Giants, Jets, and MetLife Stadium.
"As technology evolves, customers want to do more with their wireless technology at games, concerts and other events," said Lynn Cox, SVP of Access Engineering and Operations for Verizon. "When large crowds of people gather in a place like a football stadium, network resources can be strained. So we are very intentional about upgrading technology and infrastructure in places like MetLife Stadium to accommodate our customers' needs."
MetLife Stadium is having its busiest summer ever with over 1.2 million guests and a record 18 concerts. The excitement continues as the Stadium heads into the NFL season with back-to-back national night games – Giants-Cowboys on Sunday Night Football, Sept. 10 and Jets-Bills on Monday Night Football, Sept. 11.
The unprecedented investment and network improvements at MetLife Stadium will be anchored by Verizon's new Distributed Antenna System (DAS), a wireless network of antennas throughout the stadium allowing for better performance and greater capacity to accommodate fans' needs.
The new DAS system will provide 4G LTE service and 5G Ultra Wideband service using Verizon's C-band spectrum designed for high capacity and wide coverage in addition to the 5G service it already offers in the stadium using its premium millimeter wave spectrum. It will cover the field, bowl, concourse (including the four gate entrances), all clubs/suites, and the ticketing areas. As part of the new design, engineers are also adding a performance enhancement technology that divides crowds into sectors like pieces of a pie. Each sector can be adjusted individually to handle wireless traffic. This technology gives Verizon engineers more leeway to adjust performance based on where customers move and how they use data inside the stadium.
With these network enhancements, customers will be able to do many more things on their mobile phones during games and events. From sharing their experience in the stadium to using their phones for getting refreshments, navigating the stadium, participating in fan experiences like sports betting, fantasy leagues and looking up players' stats, gaining entrance to the stadium and more, customers need a robust and reliable experience. That exponential increase in data carried into and out of the stadium will require upgraded fiber optic cable links. Fiber optic cables are used to connect the stadium to the rest of the network. Verizon is also increasing the capacity on the fiber connections in and out of MetLife so they can carry 10 times the amount of data.
