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AT&T is the official telecommunications provider
for the Republican National Convention.
We are standing here in the Quicken Loans Arena where we will
be hosting the 2016 Republican National Convention.
The difference between the Republican National Convention
and an event here such as a Cavs game is there will be
a much more higher concentration of people
that will be accessing our networks from the floor.
We expect about 50,000 people to be here for it.
That is going to result likely in historic amounts of data usage.
One of the major items that we have to do is because of
the amount of people coming in town
and the capacity they’ll be a number of areas in Cleveland
that will have much higher capacity than they’ve ever had before.
So our number one goal because it’s such a delicate balance
is to upgrade the cellular coverage in the area
and specific areas including inside the arena.
When you look at how AT&T and other groups
may support a Super Bowl or another major sporting event, it’s huge.
When you’re looking at a convention
you have so many different moving pieces.
You have the convention itself, the streaming of the convention,
it’s a completely different aspect,
it’s not a one day event, it’s a multiday event.
We are currently located in our wireline central office.
Well you can see it looks pretty empty right now,
but very soon over the next weeks, and months,
it’ll be filled with radio electronics and equipment
that’ll help drive our wireless networks that will be providing
to several of the key venues and other new cell sites
being added throughout the downtown Cleveland area.
So this room will be completely transformed.
And in place of ceiling tiles
you’re going to see patch cables raining down.
You’re going to see multi-mode, single mode,
copper cables throughout this entire area.
We want to be felt but not seen or heard anywhere else,
this is why we strategically place our equipment and terminations
in areas such as this, that are not in view of the public.
With an expected 15,000 media personnel being housed
out of this Cleveland Convention Center –
this DAS behind us here is going to be critical to be able
to provide the needed coverage and capacity so that they can
experience that world-class wireless coverage that is expected.
Well there is a lot that is being done on the mobility side
to make sure that convention goers stay connected.
We’ll have a lot of legacy of COLTS and COWS,
and enhancing the DAS.
A COW is a cell on wheel, and actually we will be using various
COWS throughout the city of Cleveland.
The benefit of that is that it’s something that we are able
to pretty much easily role in to provide coverage and capacity
to areas that we may not be able to get access to.
When it comes to choosing an official telecom provider
for the Republican National Convention,
we’re very fortunate this time around that AT&T was available.
We’ve worked with them a number of times
in previous conventions and AT&T is just amazing.
What we are trying to showcase to everyone around the country
is that we truly are a full telecommunications provider.
There are some that still think of us as a phone company –
we’re that, but we are so much more and we’re the ones
that are going to bring to them the ability to communicate
in whatever means that they choose to do so.
I think that as the end of the day, when it comes down
to the convention our goal is to make it seamless.
We want our visitors to come in, the delegates to come in,
and we want it to look like an effortless experience.
Little do they know that it has taken over a year of preparation
for both wireline, mobility and DIRECTV for us to be able to do that.
But our goal is that our customers won’t be able to see that,
they’ll be able to pick up their device and use it anytime, anywhere.
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