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- Frank Jackowski, area manager at AT&T, stands in front of one of the company's truck-mounted cell towers near Midtown Park.
- Frank Jackowski, area manager at AT&T, stands in front of one of the company's truck-mounted cell towers near Midtown Park.
- AT&T's "eyeball in the sky" cell tower (Photo Credit: Courtesy of AT&T)
- Sprint's "cell on wheels" (COW) tower at the Westin Memorial City. (Photo Credit: Courtesy of Sprint)
You may have had that experience: You're at an event with thousands of people and want to tweet or snapchat that selfie proving you're there.
But, everybody else is doing the same, overwhelming the network.
To beef up capacity, some network providers – including Sprint, Verizon and AT&T – are adding temporary cell towers at select locations near Super Bowl-related events.
One of AT&T's six truck-mounted towers is near Midtown Park, where ESPN will broadcast from.
"We worked with the NFL and the (Super Bowl) host committee to find areas that they're going to be an issue – where they're going to hold an event and they're expecting so many people there, then we have to increase our capacity," said Frank Jackowski, area manager for AT&T.
While the cell towers are temporary, some of the improvements to cell phone reception in Houston will be permanent.
"All the work that we've done at the Reliant, or NRG (Stadium), will stay there," Jackowski said. "Then everything that we've done at a couple of the host hotels."
AT&T spent $40 million on the upgrades, $35 million of which was for permanent improvements.
We also reached out to T-Mobile to learn if that company is upgrading its network during the Super Bowl but did not hear back by deadline.