When Super Bowl LVIII kicks off on Sunday (February 11), it will be the culmination of a season of hard work for the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs For Verizon, it will be a moment for the wireless carrier that has spent the last three years upgrading its network to accommodate the throngs of fans and media that will be flocking to Las Vegas

About 72,000 people pack Allegiant Stadium at game time According to Verizon, they should have no problem uploading videos, checking stats, and enjoying fast download speeds when they take their seats

"It's all about communication," said Kyle Malady, vice president and CEO of Verizon Business, at a pre-Super Bowl event showcasing Verizon's network enhancement efforts around Las Vegas 'What we're really excited about is the investment we've made in stadiums along with the NFL There's nothing spinning out there that's not happening"

This is the result of work that began three years ago, during which Verizon has nearly tripled the capacity of its Las Vegas network Verizon's C-band spectrum covers 52 million square feet of casinos on the Las Vegas Strip

Inside Allegiant Stadium, Verizon says it has installed about 250 5G mmWave radios to cover seating areas, suites, press seats, and concourses c-band provides 160 MHz of frequency bandwidth at the disposal of fans, and last year's game This is three times the 5G bandwidth that was available at the [Joe Russo, Verizon's president of global network technology, noted, "The last Super Bowl was meaningful in its own right 'The last Super Bowl was the first time we used ultra-wideband technology for FaceTime and video streaming in parking lots and stadiums Russo told me, "I'm not sure how much of a difference that would make

That's good news for those who got Super Bowl tickets But for those of us who haven't invested thousands of dollars to watch the game, why should we care about improved connectivity at the big game?

Verizon executives say it's because once the Super Bowl is over and out of town, the network improvements will remain All that fiber and increased C-band spectrum is now as much a part of the Las Vegas scene as the casinos and showgirls

"We have a lot of assets in place that will serve Las Vegas well, not just this weekend, but in the future," Russo said

The same should be true for New Orleans, which will host next year's Super Bowl According to Russo, the Verizon team charged with preparing the city's network for Super Bowl LIX is on hand this week to observe the team's current activities, just as those responsible for the 2023 game in Phoenix are on hand to share what they learned from that experience Las Vegas

"[The Super Bowl] gives us an opportunity to showcase our skills and our work, not only for the NFL, but for first responders and public safety," Malady said

This year's game is also notable in that coach-to-coach communications, a private networking product developed by Verizon, will make its Super Bowl debut Verizon will be auctioning off headsets worn by winning coaches, whether it be San Francisco's Kyle Shanahan or Kansas City's Andy Reid, for charity