Dropped calls, delayed text messages and sluggish Internet speeds should be long gone for AT&T subscribers — notably iPhone users — when they catch a Colorado Rockies game at Coors Field.
The nation’s No. 2 wireless carrier has outfitted the home of the Rockies with cutting- edge technology, blanketing the ballpark with 160 antennas and building the equivalent of eight 3G cell towers on site.
The $1.5 million project gives AT&T subscribers a dedicated network at the stadium and may lead to new services, such as in- the-seat concession ordering.
“It’s like a small city operating inside this facility,” said Jace Barbin, AT&T’s general manager for the Rocky Mountain Region.
The carrier’s network has been slammed since the 2007 launch of the bandwidth-hogging and wildly popular iPhone, which is tied exclusively to AT&T.
Network congestion and service problems have been especially pronounced at major sporting venues, where tens of thousands of cellphone users rely on a few surrounding cell towers for calls, text messages and Internet connections.
At Coors Field, AT&T built eight “cell sites” — each are essentially storage lockers housing computer equipment — in a 750-square-foot space in the basement, which is on the same level as the playing field. The company carved the stadium into eight sectors, each served by a cell site and about 20 antennas.
Antennas are virtually unrecognizable because they’ve been designed to blend in with the ballpark. They are “sculpted” to pick up signals from a specific area, such as one portion of a seating section. Calls or Internet connections are seamlessly handed from one antenna to another as fans walk around the ballpark.
AT&T officials said the system, which launched two weeks ago, more than quadruples its network capacity at Coors Field. Internet download speeds during games have hit 2.5 megabits per second.
“People are saying, ‘I’ve actually got service,’ ” said Kevin Kahn, chief customer officer for the Rockies. “It really gives us a backbone to expand in the future.”
AT&T has outfitted other stadiums with similar technology. The company is in discussions to wire Invesco Field at Mile High, a scenario Barbin deemed “very likely” to happen.
Other carriers will have the option to use the Coors Field network if they pick up some of the costs.
“We carry over half of all mobile data traffic in the U.S.,” Barbin said. “At some point, (other carriers will) get the sort of exponential growth that we saw in our data, and they’ll start to need the kind of systems that we’re having to deploy now.”
Verizon Wireless has three surrounding cell sites that cover the Coors Field area, said spokesman Bob Kelley.
“These sites provide more than enough coverage and capacity for voice calls and 3G data transmissions during the home ballgames and other events during the year,” Kelley said.
Andy Vuong: 303-954-1209, avuong@ denverpost.com or twitter.com/andyvuong
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