5G Providers Continue To Lean on Sports To Demonstrate Possibilities

Sports continues to be one of the industries showing the power of 5G, providing some of the best use cases for the next generation of connectivity. As major telecommunications firms AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile continue to deploy 5G coverage, they continue to tout sports venues as a perfect place to demonstrate the technology before it becomes ubiquitous. Verizon counts its latest deployments as three NBA arenas: Phoenix’s Talking Stick Resort Arena, San Francisco’s Chase Center, and Denver’s Pepsi Center. Madison Square Garden will be part of a coming expansion, which will then see Verizon’s 5G network in 10 NBA arenas throughout the season. The high-bandwidth, low-latency networks promise to provide fans with better access to information and videos in stadiums that have been logjams in networks before. “When you go to a game, there is still a lot of downtime; this is just another layer of entertainment,” said Heidi Hemmer, Verizon vice president of technology. Verizon has played a key role at Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center, which has been at the forefront for many technology advancements within venues. Sacramento Kings Chief Technology Officer Ryan Montoya said the team and Verizon will continue to rollout first-of-its-kind experiments with 5G – like its initial test with a group of students with a live feed of a game in virtual reality.