Call failed.
That is what Katelyn Org’s iPhone read constantly when she wandered from tailgate to tailgate by herself Saturday.
“It’s dangerous [to not be able to make calls] because there were so many people, and everyone was in gold,” said Org, undecided freshman.
With about 150,000 college football fans in and around Tiger Stadium on Saturday, cell phone service was backed up before, during and after the game.
But AT&T has plans to increase capacity of cell phone service during LSU football game days.
“Our goal with the enhancements is to be able to easily manage capacity, such as the unprecedented number of attendees at the Florida game,” Sue Sperry, AT&T Louisiana spokesperson, said in an e-mail to The Daily Reveille.
Before the end of this year, Sperry said AT&T will install 3G capacity to three existing cell sites on campus. Sperry said AT&T currently has 12 cell sites, both in and around the University’s campus.
“The new plan will allow calls to be rerouted to these sites, not just the sites at Tiger Stadium,” Sperry said. “This planned technology is our commitment to LSU and its dedicated alumni.”
Org said improving the system will make navigating on game days more safe and less stressful.
Amanda Schellhaas, history freshman, said she kept turning her phone on and off because it was “searching” for service all day. Schellhaas also said her text messages were delayed.
“Usually texting will go through, but that was taking so long,” she said. “You had no communication.”
Sperry said texting uses less bandwidth and is the best way to keep in touch with people in an overwhelming crowd, as on game days. However, this past Saturday, technical difficulties made texting unreliable as well, she said.
“We had some equipment not working properly,” Sperry said. “That was a one time only thing where we had a latency in delivering [text] messages.”
Peter Davidson, director of Energy Services at the Office of Facility Services, said AT&T has seven cell sites directly on campus — at Kirby-Smith Hall, Middleton Library, the Life Sciences building, Herget Hall, Patrick F. Taylor Hall and two on the east side of Tiger Stadium. He said Verizon Wireless also has cell sites on campus, but not as many as AT&T.
“What they’re going to do ... is to take the two sites in the stadium and redirect one of them to improve coverage within the stadium itself,” Davidson said.
Davidson said the work is scheduled for this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Davidson said he didn’t know the exact revenue made from the different cell sites on campus, but it’s more than $20,000 a year. He said the Tiger Athletic Foundation gets revenue from the two cell sites on the east side of Tiger Stadium.
Sperry said AT&T implemented the Cell On Wheels — or COWs — in the parking lot by the stadium in order to help cell phone service during game days. She said the COWs have been used the past couple of seasons and have helped boost capacity at games.
For next year, Sperry said AT&T will install a new system on campus to increase capacity further and to spread capacity around to neighboring sites.
“It’s like adding extra lanes to a highway and widening each lane at the same time,” she said.
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Contact Mary Walker Baus at mwbaus@lsureveille.com
AT&T to increase capacity of cell phone service
Technical problems result in text latency
Published: Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Updated: Tuesday, October 13, 2009
 "Photo: KIM FOSTER / The Daily Reveille")
KIM FOSTER / The Daily Reveille
Michael Lavespere, AT&T radio frequency performance engineer, explains how the different parts of cell phone towers work last March. AT&T will be adding a new system next year to boost cell phone capacity on campus.
5 comments
AT&T is just terrible, alll around, deceitful to say the least...do not like them at all!
It is very annoying. Some may see all these complaints as unwarranted (my dad always gives the, "Back in my day..." speech), but today, we pay for cell service and it is annoying that EVERY Saturday, for much of the day, my phone is virtually useless.