Small cells, COWs and COLTs saddled up by Verizon as part of Churchill Downs hetnet upgrade
In the run-up to the May 2 post, Verizon Communications has beefed up its Churchill Downs deployment with small cell to accommodate the data demands associated with the Kentucky Derby held each year in Louisville, Ky.
On Derby Day last year, Verizon customers used 1.37 Terabytes of data, which represented a 224% increase over the 2013 event.
“Small cells are an integral part of Verizon’s commitment to the customer experience to stay ahead of the growing demand for mobile data by boosting capacity,” said Lauren Love-Wright, Verizon Wireless region president for Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan.
“This technology adds 4G LTE capacity in important high-traffic areas so that our customers can share the fastest two minutes in racing, especially on social media.”
Small cells are exactly what they sound like – miniature cellular base stations. Small cells are connected to macro cellular stations by way of radio, microwave or wired fiber backhaul.
Verizon also plans to deploy a mobile cell on wheels, or COW, and a cell on a light truck, or COLT.
On the spectrum side of the house, Verizon added XLTE capacity to its infrastructure, which uses Advanced Wireless Services spectrum to “at least double the bandwidth to 4G LTE customers.”
Churchill Downs is also equipped with an upgraded distributed antenna system deployed in conjunction with Mobilite; recent DAS upgrades include installation of 21 new antennas to further boost cellular coverage and capacity.
“With the Derby coming up, the additional capacity we are deploying will ensure that fans can count on their Verizon mobile devices to share e-mails, texts, pictures and videos of this quintessential Kentucky experience,” Love-Wright said.
