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The eclipse will be like a Super Bowl for cities in its path, an analyst tells us
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Watch parties will greatly increase cellular traffic on the network
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We asked AT&T, T-Mobile & Verizon how they are preparing
Are you ready for the total solar eclipse on Monday? Are you actually in its path? Primed to party down in red and green or just hunker down like a frightened animal in your home?
Well, however you plan to take on the totality, spare a thought for your operator’s cellular network. “Its like a Superbowl for cities in the path,” Iain Gillott, president of iGR, said on a phone call with Fierce this week.
During that brief period when the moon blots out the sun, in the towns and cities where you can get a good view of the event, there will be thousands – or even millions – of visitors taking and sending photos and videos of the sight. That’s a whole heap more traffic than a network would normally experience on a sleepy Monday afternoon in early April.
“Operators would normally do things like roll out a cell on wheels [COW] for major sporting events,” Gillott commented. Indeed operators like AT&T have even started introducing the next generation of these devices, a cell on wings!
Stellar preparations
Both AT&T and Verizon, however, are confident they have the network in place now to deal with temporary blips like a solar eclipse.
“We really don’t need to do that like we did in 2017,” an AT&T spokeswoman told us, when asked about bringing COWs into high traffic areas for the eclipse. She pointed us to a new AT&T blog about what the operator is doing to prepare its FirstNet public safety network to provide reliable communications for first responders across the country.
AT&T said that so far, it has supported more than 75 requests from public safety agencies in nearly early state in the path of the totality. The operator said it is optimizing network capacity along the path and plans to deploy “about a dozen FirstNet assets” to ensure first responders stay connected at all times.
“From the Super Bowl to the eclipse, we're always looking ahead to prepare for events where large groups gather. We've bolstered our network all along the eclipse's path,” a Verizon spokeswoman told us, noting that the operator had activated new cell sites in Niagara and Erie counties in New York State, added new cell sites in Northeast Ohio that are in the path, and switched on additional cells in Dallas.
“Similar upgrades have occurred in nearly every city the eclipse will pass over,” the spokeswoman said. “It's also worth mentioning that the launch, deployment and expansion of Verizon's 5G network has been a significant facet of our nationwide infrastructure upgrades which has been layered into our network since the last solar eclipse stretched across the United States in 2017.”
Update: After publication of this story T-Mobile sent this comment: “T-Mobile’s network is ready for the solar eclipse, and while we don’t anticipate impacts to our network, we have everything in place to ensure customers stay connected,” said Ulf Ewaldsson, president of technology, T-Mobile. “During the eclipse, we’ll have the ability to monitor our network and make remote adjustments to boost capacity at sites if needed. We will also have heavy-duty trucks and trailers that can broadcast signals and Wi-Fi at the ready in areas throughout the path of totality to deploy if needed."
So there you go! Your cellphone will probably work during the eclipse. Just remember not to look directly at eclipse when its happening.