Some interesting details have filtered out about how AT&T upgraded its network in Austin, Texas, to support the masses at the South by Southwest event. This is no small requirement: if AT&T were to have mucked up 3G access at the show, thousands of blogs and tweets would have rained hellfire down on them day after day. So what exactly did AT&T do in Austin? How unique was it? And can it be replicated, or are such changes already on the drawing board, elsewhere on its network?
Gizmodo had some additional details on the AT&T upgrades, which it says it says it gleaned from an “official list” of network changes, the highlights included:
- Distributed Antenna System (DAS) at the Austin Convention Center, providing the equivalent coverage of eight cell sites, with 50 antenna nodes providing coverage throughout the venue.
- Over the past year, we’ve moved from one radio network “carrier” to three, which enables us to support more traffic over existing spectrum.
- We’ve expanded capacity using high-quality 850 MHz spectrum, which also offers improvements to in-building coverage via a signal that can better penetrate walls than signals at other frequencies.
- We have deployed HSPA 7.2 software at all of our 3G cell towers nationwide. While this upgrade is not expected to provide a noticeable immediate boost in average speeds until Ethernet backhaul is in place, it does result in a better overall customer experience by generally improving consistency in accessing data sessions. It also prepares the network for faster speeds and increases network efficiency.
- Three temporary cell sites, providing AT&T Wi-Fi as well as 3G service
- Two Cells on Wheels (COWS) will be used, as well as a third temporary site on a building rooftop.
- Augmented backhaul capacity to cell sites surrounding the event venues., including fiber-optic connections to more than quadruple the backhaul capacity of each of the eight cell sites that serve the event area, and temporary sites will also be served by extensive backhaul.
The Connected Planet take, Kevin Fitchard:
What’s unstated is that almost every single one of those attendees will probably have an iPhone—the standard mode de communication of the hipster elite. So this will be a trial by fire for AT&T—the amount of song downloads from Apple iTunes alone could be staggering.
Putting in WiFi was a smart move. With a lot of those iPhones set to automatically access AT&T access points, they could potential alleviate gobs of traffic from the wide area network. It’s a cheap and simple way to make AT&T’s 3G network look good even if HSPA isn’t carrying the burden. I imagine AT&T’s biggest concern will be the backhaul network, which will likely be source of the biggest bottlenecks. It’s installed fiber to the 8 must critical cell sites, which should vastly improve capacity in the conference venues. But will 8 sites be enough. Assuming AT&T has 3 carriers on each tower, that’s 21 Mb/s of capacity per site for a total of about 170 Mb/s to serve a massive wireless event, the burden of which will have to be disproportionately assumed by AT&T. AT&T, however, is augmenting that capacity with temporary sites, which I’m assuming its linking with microwave technologies, so it could add significant more capacity to the network. Remember though, SXSW isn’t an event focused on a single conference center or hotel. There a movie and music venues spread out throughout the city and even a lot of public outdoor events. Those sites are still being fed with copper backhaul.
It’s interesting to see AT&T use DAS antennas in convention center. As we reported on Monday, DAS Is experiencing a resurgence. It’s helping solve the enigma of why a technology designed for mobility is used primarily while stationary indoors. By distributing the capacity of a cell among several spatially separated antennas, AT&T can wrap its coverage around the nooks and crannies in a building.
That’s our take on this, let us know what you think in the comments below:
Oh come on now. Anyone living in Austin knows for a fact how ungodly awful AT&T 3G coverage is in Austin, especially during SXSW and ACL. SXSW is in it’s 25th year and ACL will be 10 this year. Having been to most sxsw’s and all acl festivals I can tell you that AT&T is the WORST here in Austin.
Every year, AT&T’s wireless system effectively comes to a halt during festivals. 9 years in a row of ACL, AT&T customers have no cell service. It’s as though it comes as a total surprise to them EVERY year. And each year they tell how they’ve made miraculous changes and huge investments, and then every year it crashes and burns.
Please AT&T, less promises more results. ACL is 10 this year, are you going to make it 10 years of worthless in a row? My money’s on you blowing it again. Iphone 5 will be a Verizon for me. I need a phone that works in Austin more than data and voice at the same time. How demanding, right?