Talk about an unlikely partnership: AT&T and Verizon Wireless announced that they have co-installed a DAS (distributed antenna system) deployment at the University of Oregon’s Autzen Stadium, a 200-antenna upgrade that should make cellular access a lot better for Ducks fans this football season.
There are few business competitions as balanced and as fierce as the one between the top two U.S. cellular carriers — so why are they doing the Kumbaya thing in Eugene? We haven’t heard any confirmation yet, but our guess is that it was somewhat of a forced partnership, due to an legacy deal between Oregon and Verizon, and the new Pac-12 infrastructure deal AT&T forged last year. (If either carrier would like to call in to confirm or deny, our lines are open.)
If you’re a follower of telecom business you might want to bookmark the Oregon press release announcing the deal and deployment, since it may be the first and last time you see Verizon and AT&T together in a single press release (that isn’t about keeping the government out of telecom regulation, that is). You can read between the lines when you see that AT&T is quoted first in the press release, Verizon second. Good news is, Ducks fans will have better cellular no matter which of the two major carriers they are a customer of.
We haven’t heard yet from AT&T about whether or not the conference is fully covered with DAS yet — according to this news report from last year there were only four Pac-12 schools whose DAS wasn’t up to snuff, with Autzen clearly being one of them. We are trying to get AT&T and Pac-12 folks on the line for a general update, so stay tuned.
AT&T bringing DAS to Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium
Moving to the other side of the Rose Bowl rivalry, AT&T announced it had installed a DAS at the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium, a network of 339 antennas that will also be used by Minnesota Vikings fans since the NFL team is also playing there this year and next while their new stadium gets built.
According to AT&T, fans at TCF Bank Stadium used 106 GB of data on the new network during the Gophers’ Aug. 28 home opener against Eastern Illinois.
