The Waste Management Phoenix Open golf tournament broke more than just attendance records last week. AT&T says data usage on their cellular network surpassed record levels, too.
Scott Huscher, a spokesman with AT&T Southwest, said their customers at the event used about 9.1 terabytes of data. He added, for perspective, that’s the equivalent of about 26 million selfies.
"What we’ve seen is that as certain social-media networks get more popular like Instagram, Snapchat, people are uploading a lot more video than they used to and that in turn uses more data. And so each year we’re just seeing a bump up in data usage," Huscher said.
He said customers used 60 percent more data this year compared with last. The increase was even more pronounced the year before, jumping 200 percent from 2015 to 2016.
The company used portable cell towers to accommodate the increase.
