Made in America throngs test cellphones

Though cellphone providers had upgraded their systems to accommodate the thousands of people who descended on the Parkway for Made in America, complaints abounded.

Jamal Blake, 28, of Baltimore, couldn't send a picture on the popular app Snapchat as he waited by the stage where the rapper Future was about to play Sunday. The dreaded "Posting . . ." message was displayed on his phone screen for three minutes before he gave up.

Giovanni Casiano, 23, of Manhattan, said his Verizon service couldn't keep up with the massive crowd.

"Whenever I try to send an iMessage, it usually won't go through no matter where I stand," Casiano said. "Every once in a while I'll get lucky."

Jessica Malone, of Berlin, N.J., and Janet Park, of South Brunswick, N.J., both 22, said Sunday that connecting to the festival's WiFi had been impossible throughout both days of the festival.

"The festival is just draining too much of my data," Malone said, before finally shutting off her phone.

Made in America was a chance for providers to test out newly installed mini-cellphone towers making up a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) before the real crowds show up on the Parkway.

The World Meeting of Families, from Sept. 22 to 25, and Pope Francis' visit, on Sept. 26 and 27, could draw more than one million people to the Parkway; the pope will celebrate a public Mass there on Sept. 27. People will surely want to capture those moments live on their cellphones.

If 60,000 or so people couldn't get good service with the newly installed technology, how will one million people fare?

"This weekend was clearly an opportunity to test this out" before the pope's visit, Verizon spokesman John O'Malley said Sunday.

O'Malley said that on-the-ground Verizon workers didn't find any "significant issues" with cellphone use during Made in America. He said a full report likely would be done Tuesday.

Mayor Nutter said the city hosts many large events, and that there are always "after-action reviews" to help the city better manage the next event.

As for cellphone service, Nutter said: "We need more of it," for the papal visit. There will be "10-plus times more people," he said.

Nutter said the city asked all cellphone providers to upgrade their systems for the papal visit.

"We want to have great cellphone service," Nutter said, adding that the city is working with various cellphone carriers.

The wireless companies are paying for the upgrades, not the city, Nutter said.

Verizon started preparations for the papal weekend more than a year ago, when officials announced that the World Meeting of Families would be held in Philadelphia this month. The company's plan to roll out expanded coverage in downtown Philadelphia, including on the Parkway, over the next few years was crunched into one year.

"With the pope coming to town, it gave us an opportunity to excel the timeline," of upgrading cell coverage in downtown Philadelphia, said O'Malley, the Verizon spokesman.

Verizon spent $24 million on new permanent infrastructure that has "effectively quadrupled capacity" for cellphone coverage, including on the Parkway, O'Malley said Sunday.

Forty-five new minicell towers were installed and activated last week along the Parkway, O'Malley said. Verizon is on 37 of those DASes, and other cellphone providers also are said to be connected to those wireless service antennas.

AT&T and T-Mobile representatives could not be reached for comment on Sunday.

In addition to the new permanent cell towers, Verizon put a pair of temporary mobile sites in place to help with the weekend coverage. O'Malley said he expects several of those to also be brought in for the pope's visit.

"Back in the day, it used to be having the capacity for people to make calls; then it was texting; now it's Twitter and Snapchat," O'Malley said. "That was all built into our plan."

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