Verizon prepares for Donald Trump Presidential Inaguration

With an anticipated one million or more attendees expected to be in the nation’s capital for the Presidential Inauguration, Verizon has made significant network enhancements, leading to a 500 percent increase in wireless data capacity and debuting new technologies.

New self-optimizing technologies

• For the first time, the Network team is using Remote Electrical Tilt (RET) antennas to remotely change antenna angles.

• Verizon is using new technology in our temporary cell sites along the National Mall that allow Network engineers to make real-time adjustments, moving wireless capacity with the crowds as they move. For the first time, the Network team is using Remote Electrical Tilt (RET) antennas to remotely change antenna angles. In addition, they use Matsing Ball technology, which divides crowds into sectors like slices of a pie.  Each slice or sector can be adjusted individually to handle wireless traffic.

• All permanent cell sites around the Mall and the surrounding area have been upgraded with Electrical Tilt antennas to allow remote adjustment to boost coverage and capacity – so DC residents and visitors will benefit for years to come.

• The operator is using three-channel carrier aggregation (LTE Advanced) in the Washington metro area to enhance peak data speeds. This is a further enhancement to the nationwide August rollout of two-channel aggregation, providing 50% greater peak speeds in DC and across the country (to more than 90% of the population).

Network engineers have added 500 percent more wireless voice and data capacity throughout Washington D.C., including at Dulles International Airport, Union Station, and at local hotels and convention centers.

Teams of engineers equipped with hand-held test equipment are walking the Mall and most-densely populated neighborhoods of the nation’s capital throughout the festivities to monitor the network in real-time so changes can be made quickly as needed.

For President Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, only 10 percent of the U.S. population used a smartphone.  Today, 88 percent of Americans own smartphones and more than 95 percent of Verizon’s data traffic runs on its 4G LTE network, which launched nationwide about two years after that first inauguration.