Wireless carriers boost capacities to avoid ungodly strains during pope's visit
NEW YORK — When Pope Francis addresses the 2 million people expected to flock to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia on Saturday it’s a heavenly bet many will be pulling out their smartphones to immortalize and share the moment on social media and with family and friends.
That's led U.S. wireless carriers to work in advance to avoid ungodly strains on their cellular networks.
The papal trip is the equivalent of “15 Super Bowls,” said John Donovan, AT&T technology and innovations senior executive vice president. The company has invested more than $25 million to prepare its network for the Philadelphia festivities, as well as papal appearances in New York City and Washington, D.C.
Rival Verizon Wireless has spent more than $24 million readying its own network in Philly — and $1.6 billion overall since 2014 in the regions the pontiff will visit. Sprint and T-Mobile are also gearing up.
The carriers are accustomed to challenging mega-scale events — from the Super Bowl to presidential inaugurations — that can jam up their networks. And they've had to react quickly when there are unanticipated natural disasters or tragic events such as the Boston Marathon bombing.
Donovan said he expects the pope’s visit to break network traffic records. In a company blog post, Sprint regional vice president Scott Santi said, “It’s safe to say that this will be an unprecedented event.”
As part of the papal preparation, the carriers will be deploying temporary mobile cell sites: COWs (industry shorthand for Cell on Wheels) and COLTs (Cell on Light Trucks).
In Philadelphia, for example, AT&T will have two COWs, two temporary high-powered rooftop antennas, an outdoor distributed antenna system and nearly 200 upgraded cell sites. AT&T is also adding LTE coverage to certain subway lines, with the overall goal to quadruple network capacity.
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Taking similar measures, Verizon is also quadrupling capacity in downtown Philly. T-Mobile says it is doubling capacity, and Sprint says it is upgrading too.
It's not all for naught once the pope leaves. The carriers are leaving behind some permanent network infrastructure. “It’s a wise investment we’ll grow into,” said David Heverling, who leads Verizon’s network team in the Northeast.
In advance of the papal visit, the carriers consulted the Secret Service and law enforcement officials about where network equipment could be deployed, with competing carriers having to cooperate in some cases.
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“Sometimes we have to share resources, and that resource might be space,” Donovan said.
There are other potential challenges.
“You hear about this pope being unpredictable," Heverling said. “He might go here and then at the spur of the moment he might go there. And you have to adjust for that. We’ll have engineers in the crowds and from a high level we have our normal metrics that show usage trends, service performance, stuff like that. There’s nothing as valuable as front-line feedback.”
AT&T’s Donovan said he'll look at three main areas to measure success: how AT&T performs against against competitors, whether the company’s connectivity failure rate is less than 2%, and whether the carrier gets positive customer feedback on social media.
In the meantime, Verizon’s Heverling is confident. “From an engineering and network standpoint, there’s a tried and true plan we’ve used before. We know we’re ready for this. It’s going to be an exciting week.”
Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA tech columnist @edbaig on Twitter.
