Why Taylor Swift’s Eras tour has kept the Telstra boss Vicki Brady awake at night

Imagine if Taylor’s adoring fans didn’t have access to Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp and dozens of other video-hungry mobile apps at her sold-out concerts.

Taylor Swift performs to a sellout crowd at Accor Stadium in Sydney. Picture: Getty Images/TAS Rights Management

Taylor Swift fever is also sweeping through corporate Australia, with the boss of the biggest telco Vicki Brady admitting even she had some sleepless nights in the lead-up to the US pop superstar’s sold-out concerts.

There’s good reason. There were nearly 100,000 mostly screaming teenage girls each night in Melbourne and more than 80,000 at Sydney’s run of shows. Imagine if they didn’t have access to Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp and dozens of other video-hungry mobile apps all putting unprecedented strain on the phone network.

Packed out Taylor Swift shows at the MCG, above, and in Sydney were putting unprecedented demands on the mobile network. Picture: Mariko Nissen

Added to the challenge was the fact that so many fans were standing on the vast playing field below the stage, where it is harder for mobile signal to reach, given much of the transmitter tech is designed to get to people sitting high up in the stands.

Brady attended the Melbourne concert at the MCG and while she is currently in Barcelona for a major telco conference, Mobile World Congress, she is getting daily updates on the performance of the network over this weekend at Sydney’s Accor Stadium.

“Our teams plan for major events, and it doesn’t get more major than Taylor Swift. In fact, it’s taking a major event to a new level,” Brady tells The Australian.

She said the network has so far passed the test, although acknowledged there have been pressure points, particularly with fans leaving the events at the same time, which also meant mobile use was at the highest.

“It’s an extraordinary amount of data and obviously people in one location like that. No network is really built to be able to deliver for that without any issues,” she said.

To give some indication of the extent of demand placed on the network, the Melbourne concert used around 35 terabytes of data – the equivalent of 645 days worth of storage of high-definition video.

And to highlight the generational gap among the Taylor Swift fans, the Melbourne concerts used twice the amount of data over an equivalent-sized crowd or event at the MCG.

Telstra chief executive Vicki Brady.

Brady also took the opportunity to run new technology. Instead of shaking it up on the surface of the MCG, she was running a speed-test on the new generation of Google Pixel handsets that uses new 5G millimetre wave, or mmWave technology. This has been designed specifically to allow 5G networks to be delivered to large crowds in high density areas for peak use such as football stadiums, airports, railway stations and even Taylor Swift concerts.

Brady says she was getting 1.6 gigabit per second at ground level, which is 10 times the speed of the NBN’s fast 100Mbps fibre home plan. However, Google’s mmWave phones have only been on sale for a short period of time. Brady also ran a test with her late model Apple iPhone that runs on standard 5G.

“There were moments of congestion, but it held up well,” she recalls.

There’s still one more show to go in Sydney, but Brady said she is pleased with the performance so far.

“I had sleepless nights in the lead-up – you think about the worst case when you’re in this job – but I just think about the way the team has planned and prepared for it.”