• October 5, 2007

Boston's Fenway Park got beefed-up network capacity for post-season baseball with a temporary cell site, compliments of Verizon Wireless. It's part of the company's $145 million investment to enhance wireless capacity and coverage throughout the six New England states during the first six months of this year.

Cell on Wheels (COW), a mobile cell site that enhances wireless capacity, allows more baseball fans to simultaneously place calls, exchange text and picture messages, and download multimedia content while at the park. To meet demand, Verizon Wireless maintains a fleet of portable transmitters to support its network when highly populated events, such as baseball playoffs, require increased wireless voice and data use.

Network technicians monitor and analyze cellular traffic daily. Patterns are studied and used to optimize wireless networks and plan future expansion. Increased use of wireless data products and services, including notebook modems, wireless Internet and GPS navigation, are driving many investments in network capacity. More than 60% of Verizon Wireless' 62 million subscribers use data services, such as text messaging. Verizon Wireless says customers exchanged more than 10 billion text messages in the month of June.

--Laurie Sullivan