Smartphones lay mobile network down at festival

Just to underline the importance for Mobile operators to plan for large events:

The Danish yearly Rock festival "Roskilde Festivalen" has been held for about 40 years now, so even though the number of participants is expressive but stable with about 70.000 paying guests plus staff and musicians, you could argue that mobile operators have had plenty of time to learn with the mobile evolution over the years, but the evolution of usage of mobile phones is apparently so fast that it caught operators unprepared, although they are reluctant to admit it.

The take-up of Smartphone and laptops (not to forget) is drastically changing to loads that mobile operators are experiencing, and if they are not prepared for it, there is little to do when people start rushing in.

Hereunder is an article translated from a Danish newspaper yesterday on how people could not communicate during the music festival, sometimes for hours, and how this caused confusion when people needed to communicate with each other.

The message is: Don't think that you as an operators can cope with the new usage pattern just because things have gone well until today. Brazil have some very big events coming up in the coming years, and there is a lot to do yet in both the access, transmission, and signaling networks.

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Smartphones lays mobile network down at festival.
But telecommunications companies deny that they have problems with their networks
By Marie Sæhl

'Dut-dut-dut' and 'There is no contact with the mobile phone.

Many festival guests have experienced that they could not call their friends up, and SMS messages have been several hours late.The emergence of new smartphones - the iPhone as the dominant - is probably responsible for a portion of network problems.

18-year-old Frederick Roee Letter from Oslo could not call his friends up since he arrived at the festival. "I was lost for five hours because I could not get hold of anyone and therefore not knowing where the others had camped up ', he says.

Missed a ride
The same happened to 25-year-old Rie von Wowern couldn't pick up her cousin as she drove home last night.
"My cousin was suppose to drive home with me yesterday, but I simply could not get through. Simply no connection, and she could not see on her phone later that I had tried to call, "she says. And the two are far from the only ones. Politiken.dk have spoken with several festival participants who have repeatedly seen that the phones have not worked.

Operators see no problem
Nevertheless, says three of the big companies - Telenor, TDC and Telia - the operational status has not shown signs of problems.
"I've heard that there have been problems. But it is not on our network because we can see that they have not been overloaded, "says Lasse Bastkjær Jensen, press counselor at TDC. "But it's clear that if all of the guests writes an SMS to their friends about that now begins the concert, then sms'erne be delayed", he added.
The operator "3" indicates as the only operator that they have had problems with their network.

Smartphones loads the Networks
"Our network has seen max load all day. We have a base station on site, which we have even upgraded last Wednesday, but there has still been a lot more load than last year, "said communications director in "3", Stine Green Paulsen.
According to "3"'s technicians this may be because there are now more smartphones compared to last year, and it puts more pressure on the network, as people also go online via their mobile.

Spokesperson for the Roskilde Festival, Christina Bilde, called on Saturday for people to make good old fashioned agreements to be on the safe side.!!!!