Telekom Austria Group’s domestic subsidiary A1 has trialled small cells at the Wiener Wiesn Festival to provide connectivity for more than 300,000 visitors.
A1 worked with Altiostar, which provided its LTE small cells solution and already works with TAG’s parent América Móvil. Kapsch Carrier Com was the systems integrator on the trial.
The music festival, which began last Friday (22 September), lasts for more than two weeks and attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors.
TAG said it wanted to see how effective, flexible and feasible small cells were to deploy on its live network. It said it has had issues in the past with providing mobile connectivity to large scale events because of the costs required and difficulty in connecting so many people.
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The operator is using the small cells solution in partnership with a virtual RAN concept that it said would play a critical role in future 5G networks.
Marcus Grausam, CTO A1, said: “We are very proud that we can already show where the future of mobile communications lies with our field trial. By integrating five LTE small cells in our powerful A1 LTE network we are able to offer visitors to the Wiener Wiesen virtually unimpaired mobile reception both outdoors and inside the marquees. The Wiener Wiesn is thus an ideal hotspot and a perfect location for conducting our trial and trimming our network to the demands of the future.”
Claudia Wiesner, Managing Director of the Wiener Wiesn Festival, added: “The small cells were installed in the big marquees and in two outdoor locations to boost the network coverage of A1’s existing excellent network infrastructure, enhancing the high quality of the services we offer our guests.”