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Ah, Superbowl Sunday, just typing this makes me feel excited.  Whether or not your favorite team is still playing, or whether or not you are even a fan, I’m sure you enjoy partying it up with a few friends and watching the game.  If you are a hardcore fan and plan to be at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa for the game, you might experience some delays when sending texts and even not being able to get a call through.  There will be a lot of network traffic that week and Sprint has been preparing for this for a year now. 

Since 2008, Sprint has invested nearly $49 million and more than $11 million specifically for the Tampa Bay area.  They are not messing around with anything, they seem to be pretty serious about providing the best possible coverage. 

Richard Blanc, Regional Vice President of Network for Sprint, had this to say about their preparations:

“We’re looking forward to our own game-day performance. Super Bowl preparations are a major undertaking and our networks are ready. We’ve enhanced coverage in the downtown area, around Raymond James Stadium, at the Super Bowl Media Center located at the Tampa Convention Center, at hotels and other area landmarks, and we’ll be closely monitoring our networks to ensure customers have the best possible experience.”

Sprint estimates there to be 70,000 fans pouring into the stadium to watch Super Bowl XLIII, many more for the technical crew, and then the millions of Americans watching at home.  All in all, there will be a lot of data going into the stadium and out of the stadium. 

Here is a quick rundown of what they enhanced in Florida and more specifically Tampa:

  * 18 new cell sites in the Tampa area to enhance coverage in and around the stadium.
  * Distributed Antenna System (DAS) in the stadium to enhance Sprint’s wireless coverage and capacity and to enhance 3G data coverage and capacity for high-speed mobile broadband use.
  * In-building coverage enhancements at area hotels.
  * Three Cell Sites on Wheels (COWs) deployed near the stadium for additional coverage.
  * One COW deployed in downtown Tampa, enhancing coverage for area events.
  * Optimized and extended the NFL’s existing nationwide Sprint Global MPLS enterprise network into Tampa for the Super Bowl.
  * Implemented Sprint Dedicated Internet service to support the secure access and critical communication needs of the teams as they prepare for this event.

Lately, Sprint has been working on enhancing their network capabilities as we have seen on New Year’s.  They seem to be doing a lot to get their popularity higher; only time will tell to see if all this is helping.

Via [VirtualPressOffice]