Rogers said Thursday that it has completed an $8-million upgrade to its 5G network at Rogers Centre in Toronto ahead of a six-night tour stop by singer Taylor Swift next month.
The construction involved 10,000 hours of installing new equipment and infrastructure, including antennas on the roof of the stadium, Rogers said in a press release, which means “faster speeds, lower latency” and three times more capacity, Rogers said in a release.
The increased capacity means the thousands of expected fans should be able to share live moments from the concert without significant delay.
“As the proud presenting sponsor of Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour, we’ve upgraded our 5G network to get ready for fans at Rogers Centre,” Mark Kennedy, Rogers’s chief technology officer, said in the release. “Taylor fans use record amounts of data to livestream as well as share videos and photos from her shows, and this investment will ensure they have the best experience.”
Rogers cited the amount of data consumed by Swift fans in other parts of the world. In Wembley Stadium in London, England, “Swifties” consumed nearly six terabytes (TB) of mobile data; in Melbourne, Australia, fans consumed an average of 15 TB of data per night; and close to home, in Arlington, Texas, AT&T handled 29 TB during one day of the pop star’s three-day tour stop there.
Rogers isn’t new to large crowds using its wireless network, and it probably learned most from the parade in 2019 for the championship Toronto Raptors basketball team, when Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto saw six times more traffic than usual and some hiccups.
Screenshot via Rogers video
