| Overselling I was at the World Series in 2006 in St. Louis when the Cardinals won in Game 5. After the game, it took me 30 minutes to get a call out on AT&T. The guy next to me had Verizon... same situation.
Overselling capacity isn't just telecom... the airlines do it constantly... and I'm sure that with more coffee I could think of a dozen more examples. For that matter, POTS lines are oversold too. It doesn't matter 99.9% of the time...
I guess overselling doesn't bother me as long as they plan for big events. You CAN bring in more lines and erect a temporary tower (I heard they did this at the political conventions this past fall). The scary part is natural disasters. When tornadoes hit here, you can't get calls out. With phone lines down, you REALLY need your cell to work! |
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| said by gopnick: You CAN bring in more lines and erect a temporary tower (I heard they did this at the political conventions this past fall). The scary part is natural disasters. When tornadoes hit here, you can't get calls out. With phone lines down, you REALLY need your cell to work! Ever try to build or temporarily setup something in a big city? City governments (for example here in D.C.) are notorious for requiring a horrible amount of paperwork, permits, site reviews, etc.
It's surprising that any cell towers are ever built.
So let's not single out the carriers. There is plenty of blame to go around. Of course you need a permit to blame the city, fill it out in triplicate, and dance around like a fool. |
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| reply to gopnick
said by gopnick:....The scary part is natural disasters. When tornadoes hit here, you can't get calls out. With phone lines down, you REALLY need your cell to work! As it was stated above, this is why I have my HAM license. Saw it during Katrina and how much my buddy was able to help. So that urged me to get my license.
Doing over subscription is in a lot of area's of IT. That online storage system Comcast is going to offer is also going to be over subscribed storage. They wouldn't make nearly as much or none at all if they didn't use a thin provisioning method. |
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 GeekJediRF is Good For YouPremium
join:2001-06-21
Mukwonago, WI
 ·CenturyLink
 ·VOIPo
| ...and one of the reasons I built a 440MHz repeater at a broadcast site that has generator power and good HVAC...so that even when powers out and the cell networks are down, you can communicate with your HT! 
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The goal of the broadcast engineer is to get all the meters on the transmitter to go as far to the right as possible!! |
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| reply to dcdeadbeat5
The cell on wheels (COW) is very common and used extensively to provide temporary additional service. No permits, no muss, no fuss. They are self-contained trailers with a push-up mast, set up in the parking lot across from whatever large venue needs additional service. However, nobody can provide 100% capacity for the brief spike which happens after a huge event lets out. Economically it makes no sense.
As for the iPhone conundrum in Austin, they should do what the phone companies used to do with radio station contest lines...put them on their own switch and network. They can then fight over their "own" bandwidth while twittering and sending pictures to each other while the rest of us use the network for actual communications. |
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 en102Canadian, eh?
join:2001-01-26
Valencia, CA | I agree that COWs or COLTs should be set up for large events.
If I'm not mistaken, Innauguration had COWs/COLTs set up.
I suspect the probably didn't plan for capacity in Austin.
I've heard that they're also only still using a single carrier channel for 3G in Austin, which probably didn't help any. |
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| reply to Mr Buffet
I believe these mobile cell sites are used for emergencies. I don't think geeks needing to tell everyone who will listen, that they are at some rock concerto is considered much of an emergency. Unless they're emo, naturally...
»www.slashgear.com/att-mobility-n···1337635/ |
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| reply to dcdeadbeat5
Well, DC city government is in a class by themselves when it comes to that sort of thing... |
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