When President-elect Barack Obama officially becomes President Obama on Jan. 20, 2009, a full 4 million people — that’s the size of Los Angeles, people — are expected to descend upon the nation’s capital. Add to this the fact that bars in D.C. are staying open around the clock for the event, and you’ve got: A) a lot of drunken texts to look forward to, B) a lot of, ahem, “inauguration stories” and C) maybe an incontrollable crying jag or thousand, telegraphed via cell and MMS to friends and family that couldn’t be there to witness the moment.
This is the backdrop against which wireless carriers are preparing to handle massive spikes in e-mail, texts and pics, calls and voice recordings, videos and Facebook updating. For instance, Sprint-Nextel Corp. announced Tuesday that it plans to boost its wireless capacity around the District by 40 percent — and then add on a full 90 percent of extra room for the iDEN push-to-talk service. T-Mobile USA is beating its own records for preparations for a single-day event, said spokesman Peter Dobrow, spending millions to get ready. AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless are eyeing the day as well.
Because according to carriers and CTIA alike, there’s just no way to avoid dropped calls and delayed transmissions. Joe Farren, assistant vice president for CTIA, told Reuters that it’s the “mother of all demand.”
All those camera phones and MMS capability, all that 3G wireless network speed and all those new smartphones/iPhones/netbooks? Not around four years ago. People coming out in the millions to the National Mall to witness a presidential swearing in? Unprecedented. The idea of e-mail everywhere? New to consumers. The resulting potential stress on the wireless set of invisible pipes that carry traffic can only be guessed at, but it’s sure to teach carriers a thing or two about what true oversubscription looks like.
Meanwhile, anyone that remembers the circuits locking up in D.C. during 9/11 knows the importance of clear channels for public safety. Accordingly, Sprint also is working with federal and local public safety agencies to ensure they have the wireless resources and devices they need to communicate in the case of an emergency, it announced.
