Obama, U-M commencement and 80,000 cell phones: Recipe for network nightmare?

(We’ll pretend, for a moment, that those 80,000 phones won’t try to record and send video of the president to their friends. There’s only so much an earnest cell phone tower can handle.)

Which is why wireless officials from AT&T and Verizon Wireless told AnnArbor.com that they plan to dispatch mobile cell towers housed on vans and trucks to boost their network capacity on Saturday. Sprint, for its part, plans to temporarily upgrade its network capacity to meet demand.

They’ll need it. The 2009 U-M home football season provided a glimpse of what cell phone connectivity might be like at the commencement ceremony. The home football games attract more than 100,000 people - and cell networks sometimes get clogged, particularly if a big play prompts people to communicate with their friends.

AT&T, which has had a hard time keeping up with demand for high-speed data access due to the success of Apple’s iPhone, endured a wave of criticism for the shortcomings of its network during U-M football games.

But Amy Grundman, a spokeswoman for AT&T, said the provider is deploying a mobile cell site to boost its network Saturday. She said she’s reasonably confident that there won’t be major problems.

“Given the measures we've taken to enhance wireless capacity in the area and to manage the voice and data traffic we expect to see during the event, we believe our customers will have a good experience,” Grundman said in an e-mail. “However, it's important to note that in any situation where large numbers of people in a dense area are using smart phones over finite spectrum, periods of network congestion can occur.”

U-M’s Scott Campbell, an assistant professor of communication studies who has conducted extensive research on mobile communication trends, said he expects to see an intense level of cell phone usage Saturday.

A cell phone tower at Domino's Farms in Ann Arbor Township.

File photo | AnnArbor.com

“Everybody who has the ability to use their camera phone is going to use it,” he said. “It will be kind of like a football game. But with Obama here, there’s going to be heightened use of technology.”

Sending a video file to a friend, for example, eats up a sizable chunk of bandwidth. But it might be tempting to try anyway.

“Without Obama, I think people are a lot less likely to record the keynote speaker of the commencement address and then send that recording to their friends and family,” Campbell said. Though “if the network gets clogged up, they can just send them later.”

Valentina Korkes, a U-M student who is graduating Saturday with a degree in Spanish, said she plans to send tweets and texts from the stadium. But during the president’s speech, she said she prefers to absorb the moment.

“I’d like to pay attention,” she said. “I mean, it’s the president.”

Nonetheless, she said she expects the period before and after commencement to test the cell phone networks. “Especially trying to meet family - that’s going to be really bad,” Korkes said.

It’s unclear how many commencement attendees will be using smart phones, which can access mobile Internet platforms. But a December report by Morgan Stanley said the percentage of North America phone users whose phones have 3G network capability is expected to rise from 38 percent in 2009 to 46 percent in 2010.

Meanwhile, Web sites are simultaneously introducing services that require additional bandwidth. The Big Ten Network, for example, which will broadcast the commencement address on cable TV, also plans to live-stream the video feed online. That means commencement attendees can use an iPhone, for example, to get a close up view of the president’s address - even while sitting in the stands.

Still, the cell phone service providers are cautiously optimistic that bandwidth hogs won’t create too many network problems.

“We are upgrading capacity certainly because it’s the president who will be there,” Sprint spokeswoman Jennifer Schuler said. “If I told you we never expect issues, that wouldn’t be the case, but certainly adding capacity is going to help mitigate problems that might otherwise occur.”

Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Michelle Gilbert said the service provider is taking the same approach it takes at U-M football games. The company plans to deploy a van that will add additional network capacity in the bubble enveloping the stadium.

“If you equate it to a computer and you’ve got a lot more people who are going to be using your computer, you need to add memory,” she said. “Well, we’re not adding memory, but we’re in essence adding capacity so that more users can use our network concurrently.”

John Jabero, owner of the Wireless Toyz store located immediately across from Michigan Stadium, said complaints about wireless connectivity during Wolverine football games are common.

“I think a lot of them just learn to live with it,” he said. “But it’s gotten a lot better. My phone works a lot better than it used to compared to three years ago. These days, I don’t have too many issues.

“But you still have issues where the phone will drop here and there. It’s such a small area. You’re talking about 120,000 or 130,000 people in a couple-block radius.”

Contact AnnArbor.com’s Nathan Bomey at (734) 623-2587 or nathanbomey@annarbor.com or follow him on Twitter. You can also subscribe to AnnArbor.com Business Review's weekly e-newsletter and breaking business news e-newsletter.