Cell phone companies are getting ready for South by Southwest, when thousands of smartphone-toting attendees will be putting mobile bandwidth limits to the test.
“What we’re doing is we’re adding capacity to all of the existing sites that cover that area,” says Bill Brickle, Verizon’s director of system performance for Central Texas. “We’re also adding coverage by adding portable cell sites, or ‘cells on wheels’ as we call them.”
AT&T says it will also roll out portable cell sites and add Wi-Fi hot spots to divert bandwidth away from cell towers. And this year, SXSW attendees can take advantage of SX Lockers, where they can stow their phones as they charge.
South by Southwest EDU began on Monday. The interactive portion of South by Southwest starts on Friday.
