Rogers Centre Upgrades 5G Network Ahead of Taylor Swift Tour

Rogers has completed an $8 million 5G network upgrade at the Rogers Centre in Toronto to ensure a top tier fan experience for Taylor Swift’s upcoming ‘The Eras Tour’.

With the demand for mobile data surging at Swift’s shows worldwide, this investment aims to bring faster speeds, lower latency, and greater capacity for concertgoers, explained Rogers on Thursday.

The project involved 6,000 hours of planning and 10,000 hours of installation, adding technology that boosts the stadium’s 5G capacity threefold. That increase is comparable to the capacity of 33 cell towers across downtown Toronto.

For the first time, antennas installed near the top of Rogers Centre’s 86-metre-high roof will deliver the same network quality to fans on the floor as those in stadium seats.

“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,” said Mark Kennedy, Chief Technology Officer, in a statement. “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.”

Swift’s concerts have smashed data usage records across the globe. During her Melbourne stop at MCG Stadium, fans used an average of 15 TB of data per night. At AT&T Stadium in Texas, a single day of the three-day event saw a whopping 28.9 TB of data. 1TB of data is the equivalent of 200,000 pictures shared, or 400 hours of video.

Fans at Rogers Centre are already benefiting from the upgrades. During a Pink concert in August, attendees on the Rogers 5G network saw download speeds double and upload speeds eight times faster compared to the network’s performance at a Diljit Dosanjh concert in July.