ASHWAUBENON, Wis. (WFRV) – As the NFL Draft and its hundreds of thousands of fans race closer, faster cell service speeds are also in the works with the help of ultra capacity and extended range 5G.
“It is absolutely critical to do these upgrades and the temporary solutions just to be able to ensure a great experience during the event,” David Adams, T-Mobile network operations manager, said. “Without them, it would have been difficult, just based on the sheer number of people.”
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While there are some temporary towers on site, most of the upgrades are to permanent ones.
“We get to make a lot of these permanent upgrades,” Adams said. “A lot of people who will come back and live within the surrounding area will get to enjoy those upgrades ongoing.”
T-Mobile crews have been planning for the draft for more than a year, bringing in temporary cell towers while upgrading existing cell towers and the distributed antenna system, which will continue to benefit residents long after the draft.
“They’ll notice twice the download speeds they typically would’ve before and 10 times the upload speeds they would have previously,” Adams said.
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“Community members that access those services are going to have added bandwidth and capability and resources,” Ashwaubenon village manager Joel Gregozeski said. “It also adds to the experience of Packer home games and major events that come to our community.”
T-Mobile has company, as Local 5 News was first to report on the efforts that both Cellcom and Verizon are making to upgrade their service ahead of the draft.
“We’ve made significant investments from that side of things, and it’s really a shuffling of the budget,” Rick Brooks, Cellcom chief technology officer, said.
The Midwest is no stranger to national events, forcing providers to upgrade equipment, but the massive free sporting event in the NFL’s smallest market is proving to be the toughest undertaking to date.
“Yes, this is the biggest event that I’ve worked on,” Verizon Wireless network performance manager Joshua Marti said. “The RNC was up there, the DNC was up there, but we believe this is going to be the biggest event.”
