The news has been full of stories about the massive crowds expected for Barack Obama’s inauguration, and the problems that the event will cause. Could the expected crowd even cause a D.C. cell phone logjam?

There are almost a quarter million people holding tickets for the inauguration itself. Another couple of million, and maybe more, are expected to be in the District of Columbia for the historic event. The total visitor account may well exceed 3 million people. Normally, only about 600,000 people live in D.C itself, where the event will be held. The population probably swells to over a million on workdays. That is the population that the cell phone network is built for. Can it handle four times that many?

We have all heard stories of cell phone networks going down during natural disasters, even when the disaster does not physically damage equipment. A story by CNET news hints that the inauguration is very much like a natural disaster for cell phone purposes. It is the pressure of too many calls too fast that causes phone networks to be overwhelmed.

All of the cell phone providers indicate that they have enhanced their networks in the area of the inauguration. AT&T says they have beefed up their equipment by 69 to 80 percent along the route of the parade, most of which will be limited to ticket holders. The level of increase is different for different signal types, and has been increased depending on the percentage of customers expected for each type. Nextel has upped their capabilities by 40 to 90 percent. Other carriers also report enhancements to their hardware.

Still, a fourfold increase in the number of subscribers using the network will have a significant impact on service. John Taylor, a spokesman for Sprint Nextel, said “We feel comfortable with all we’ve done to prepare for this event. And our customers will have great service. But if more than 2 million people show up, there will be blocked and dropped calls. And text messages will be delayed.”

He went on to say that even if the crowd stays below the 2 million mark, there could be delays and dropped calls at critical moments during the swearing in ceremony or along the parade route if hundreds of thousands of people send text messages at the exact same moment. Specifically, he said “We saw this happen on New Year’s Eve. The network was flooded with phone calls and messages all at the same time. And some of those messages were delayed a bit.”

So if you happen to be in D.C. for the inauguration, be aware that cell phone service may not be perfect. We have not seen an event this large since cell phones became common devices for the masses. Remember that you use less bandwidth for voice than for video, and less for text than for voice. If we all use the service carefully, we may not see greatly degraded network performance.

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Entry was posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 10:39 pm under Cell phones, Politics.

Read more entries by Michael W. Jones.
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