Can you video chat with 69,000 World Cup fans? I tested the phone service at the stadium during the game

Every year, as the Super Bowl approaches, all three major U.S Tankers announce Its latest upgrades are to ensure that the stadium hosting the big game has enough high-speed network capacity to handle the hordes of fans who turn up with a smartphone in every pocket. But every year, some people complained that they couldn’t post their bragging rights live because everyone was trying to send messages, photos, and videos at the same time.

Just four months after this year’s Super Bowl, the game’s location has been changed to Santa Clara, California The Levi’s logo was famously covered – To host many Football World Cup games. For the Paraguay-Australia match on June 25, it was the fifth time in two weeks that the nearly 69,000-seat stadium was filled with fans eager to watch the match. The largest football tournament in the world.

The games are tied Millions more eyeballs From the annual NFL Championship, from viewers at home to the thousands of people who have come from around the world to watch it live — and who will all reach for their phones at the same time when their team sings the national anthem or scores a touchdown.

The San Francisco Bay Area stadium is not alone. this World Cup It is being played in three countries for the first time ever – Canada, Mexico and the United States – so there are high chances that the host stadiums will fail to provide sufficient cell service for the tens of thousands of people who travel to the matches every day.

I’ve researched what each carrier has done to improve their network before World Cup At the 11 host stadiums in the United States, nets in the Bay Area were stress-tested to see if they would withstand the pressure on game day.

Putting networks to the test in a World Cup match

While I was focused on my beloved Australian team throughout the match, I was also focused on how much of the match I could capture on my phone and send to friends and family watching at home. Using a Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus In Verizon, A Motorola Razr Connected to T-Mobile via Mint Mobile and iPhone 17 Pro Max Connected to AT&T’s new Turbo Live offering, two of my colleagues at CNET and I ran various network tests during Paraguay’s game against Australia on June 25.

With 68,827 fans attending the match, many of them had more than one device – we had six phones between the three of us – meaning a lot of people were trying to use the networks at once.

Send photos and videos

Using my Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus on the Verizon network, I sent photos and videos to CNET Mobile Manager Editor David Lumb during the game. The images arrived on his phone within seconds, while a 23-second video took less than a minute to view.

Many of us who attended the match also used it RCS messages And WhatsApp to send photos we took together via Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T to each other. Everything was sent and delivered within a minute.

Video calls

FIFA’s tough lottery system and subsequent resale market has made World Cup tickets incredibly expensive, meaning there’s likely to be a group of people you’d like to video call while they’re at the match if they can’t get there. I made several video calls throughout the match, including one to Sydney, Australia, just before kickoff; One to Los Angeles in the first inning; One for Germany in action; And one to Melbourne, Australia, at the end of the match.

Aside from the L.A. call (which we determined was due to poor cell phone reception in L.A. traffic and not on my end of the field), they all had crystal clear video. It was one thing to hear the calls over the roar of the crowd, but the Verizon network stood up to the video.

AT&T Turbo Live

New AT&T Turbo Live service It allows you to sign up for a one-time pass that gives you priority access to a high-speed network during events and concerts. Using an iPhone 17 Pro Max, we subscribed to Turbo Live, and CNET Content Director Patrick Holland recorded download speeds of 1,690Mbps and upload speeds of 92.4Mbps.

Ultra-fast download speeds were more than double what I experienced on my Samsung Galaxy S23 Plus on Verizon, which maxed out at around 714Mbps. Senior writer Abrar Al-Hiti recorded a speed test of just 3.77 Mbps using a Motorola Razr Fold With Mint Mobile eSIM (an MVNO that uses T-Mobile’s network), though Ookla noted that it was using the Frontier network at the time of the speed test.

However, setting up access to Turbo Live is a long, multi-step process that takes at least 10 minutes during the game — including finding your event on the Turbo Live website to see if the service is available, checking your phone to see if you’re eligible, paying the one-time fee ($12 for the match we attended), activating the eSIM, setting your default line, and choosing the eSIM as your primary network in your settings. It’s a time-consuming process that requires your full attention, so the most important thing for us is that you pay for it and set it up in advance. We’ve seen events listed on the Turbo Live website weeks away.

Post photos and videos on social media

Posting stories to Instagram was a smooth and quick process. Photos uploaded in moments using Verizon and T-Mobile networks.

Overall, the networking held up, and I had enough signal to send photos and videos to friends and family as well as post to social media. Mobile bandwidth even supports my video calls across continents and oceans, and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to send messages from my seat to all parts of the world despite sitting side by side with nearly 69,000 other fans doing the same thing.

I’ve reached out to each carrier to find out how they can update their stadium networks to handle the data fans need to share their World Cup experience around the world.

How carriers optimized their networks for the FIFA World Cup

Verizon

Verizon, the official sponsor of the World Cup, has installed thousands of… Antennas under the seatsadded more 5G spectrum to boost capacity across the United States World Cup Stadiums have hosted and installed massive ball-shaped antennas to provide 4G and 5G coverage in nosebleed seats.

Verizon says it expects people to use more than 50 terabytes of data per game at each stadium.

“This is the equivalent of streaming every movie ever made on Netflix simultaneously during one 90-minute game,” Abraham Arencibia, Verizon’s vice president of technology and product development, told me. “To handle this increase in wireless network traffic, we boosted capacity three to five times at all host stadiums in the United States. We also added 80,000 miles of fiber to deliver every camera feed from every match to FIFA’s International Broadcast Center.”

Verizon has also deployed approximately 150 small cells and temporary cell sites to boost reception in areas that will be affected by tens of thousands of fans who will move en masse into stadiums or host nearby viewing parties. The carrier is also offering private 5G networks for Lenovo’s Verdict display body cameras.

AT&T

before World CupAT&T also updated its network across all 11 U.S. host stadiums, with “more than 2,000 improvements across surrounding markets.” These upgrades are designed to handle increased network demand, which will be managed via on-site support teams.

At the San Francisco Bay Area stadium, AT&T increased capacity and coverage inside the stadium as well as at nearby airports, hotels and downtown areas.

“Events like this place a huge demand on connectivity,” Robert Walters, senior vice president of network planning at AT&T, told me. “We have enhanced our network in host cities to deliver reliable performance to audiences, ensuring first responders get the dedicated, priority communications they rely on through FirstNet.”

First Net – First Responder Network Authority – is a partnership between AT&T and the federal government to provide a network across the United States dedicated to first responders and safety agencies. Unlike its commercial network, AT&T says FirstNet will never slow down, even during mass crowd events like World Cup. FirstNet employees are on the ground at every game, and AT&T has deployed cell trailers to be on standby to ensure that.

AT&T also has Turbo Live available at 10 of the 11 host stadiums in the United States, including the San Francisco Bay Area stadium. Turbo Live It allows not only AT&T customers but also Verizon and T-Mobile customers to pay a one-time access fee of between $5 and $15 to use AT&T’s priority network. You must have a 5G-enabled, carrier-unlocked phone with an open eSIM slot to use it.

T-Mobile

While T-Mobile has talked about expanding its network capacity across stadiums, airports, public transportation, fan zones and areas surrounding the event, one of the main talking points has been T-Mobile Dynamic CXan AI-powered system that adapts and optimizes the network in real-time as demand changes.

“Dynamic CX, an AI-powered capability designed to help the network adapt in near real-time as crowds gather and move through event areas, is being used at select high-traffic locations, including fan events and transportation hubs,” T-Mobile said.

This will include viewing parties and local events around the World Cup that do not take place inside the stadiums.

T-Mobile told me that Dynamix CX has been working well so far — it helped manage network demand during the first two games in Seattle, where there were more than 630,000 unique devices, while maintaining a 99% network accessibility rate.

At the San Francisco Bay Area stadium, T-Mobile has upgraded the venue’s connectivity infrastructure, as well as expanding 5G coverage around the area and transportation systems. Like Verizon and AT&T, T-Mobile has support teams on the ground at games to monitor the network.

Telephone tips for attending a World Cup match

After doing all the battery draining phone tests, my first tip is to bring a portable battery and charging cable.

Some other tips if you’re attending a match:

• Use your phone’s virtual wallet to purchase match tickets, transfer apps and in-stadium purchases.
• Make sure your phone’s software and apps are up to date.
• Use 5G networks instead of Wi-Fi in the stadium for faster speeds.
• Sign up for AT&T Turbo Live in advance if you want the fastest network possible.

Corinne Reichert attended the World Cup match as a guest of Motorola/Lenovo. CNET’s judgments and opinions are our own.