Verizon Brings COWs and COLTs to Baseball Games to Improve Data Capacity
posted Saturday Jul 14, 2012 by Nicholas DiMeo
Take me out to the ballgame. Take me out to the crowd. Buy me a cell phone with 4G speed. COWs and COLTs are what's needed for me. Does my rendition make sense? No? Well, let me explain. Verizon Wireless is looking bring COWs and COLTs to the Major League Baseball stadiums in both Detroit and Kansas City. However clearly Verizon Wireless has no stock in anything farm-related so those terms must mean something else, like Cells On Wheels and Cells On Light Trucks. These are mobile cell towers that Verizon can actually use in emergency situations, or in this case when they think their services may be in high demand in certain areas, perhaps like CES for example. Now, Sprint and other carriers have had these truly mobile services for a while but the difference is that Verizon's COWs and COLTs are 4G LTE.
So with that, Verizon recognized that the KC and Detroit stadium attendees have been using Big Red's 4G network so much that they are now placing these mobile trucks around the venues, just in time for the MLB to get ready for it's race for the playoffs in October. This also means Verizon's network has grown so much that it can't hold up to the demand and ever increasing usage during massive events such as concerts, sporting events and conventions.
However, the animal acronyms are only the first step to Verizon's 4G future. For a look into the rest of what's in store for the company, check after the break.
COWs and COLTs are just the first step into Verizon's transition to provide extra bandwidth to high traffic areas. Eventually, these mobile boosters will be fitted with Wi-Fi and will go beyond just LTE Light to provide an LTE Advanced network, with truly lightning fast speeds and the ability to provide an insane amount of capacity within a tightly packed area. Verizon is already working on doing just that and has built LTE distributed antenna systems (DAS) in both Miami and Chicago at their respective ballparks. The way DAS work is that they take a signal from one cell tower and send it to several antennae in a specific area. What this allows is a very defined signal shape that reaches the exact spot Verizon is trying to provide service to. In the end, this gives the user multiple options to connect to the network.
What all of this means for you is that when you're attending major events, like LA Gaming Week, Coachella or San Diego Comic Con and you need to use your phone, you will be able to and 3G users probably will not. This is huge help to anyone covering large events like that as press and starting with the MLB stadiums is certainly a good move to test out reliability and consistency.
Are you as excited about these upgrades as I am? I would love for them to implement this in just a few months at CES. Perhaps I can Cover It Live without having to wait 5 minutes per post on my 3G network.