AT&T Super Bowl Mobile Traffic Surged 80% Over Last Year

The Super Bowl power failure, which appeared to recharge the San Francisco 49ers offense in the second half, also led to a record surge in mobile traffic for AT&T Inc. (T), the nation’s second-largest wireless carrier.

From 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. New York time, a span covering the halftime show and the power disruption during the Feb. 3 game, customers used 78 gigabytes of data inside the New Orleans Superdome, AT&T said yesterday. That was almost double the peak volume of last year’s Super Bowl and the most ever for an in- stadium championship game.

While the burst of data use was aided by the blackout, it’s consistent with the surge in data traffic AT&T is contending with as its customers snap up more smartphones. Data traffic has doubled every year since 2007, the company said a year ago.

According to estimates provided by AT&T’s online data-use calculator, 78 gigabytes would equal about 234,000 social-media posts with photos or more than 10 straight days of streaming, high-definition video. The stadium held 71,024 fans, according to the National Football League.

Total data traffic for the game, as people texted, posted to Twitter, e-mailed and uploaded photos, was 388 gigabytes, also a record and 80 percent higher than the 2012 Super Bowl, said Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman. There were also 73,000 mobile-phone calls during the game, he said.