Photo via ShutterstockFor those of you that attended President Obama’s 2009 inaugural, you’ll remember that it was damn near impossible to send a text message or place a call, let alone use your smart phone to send an email, shoot out a tweet or update your Facebook status. Cell phone service providers are hoping to avoid that same fate this year, reports WAMU, by adding more towers:
Representatives at AT&T, which only had a couple of towers in the area back in 2009, reports the company will have nine temporary cell towers running the length of the mall and others along the parade route.
Officials from Sprint say they’re erecting three temporary towers around the mall and deploying another system to help with emergency communications.
Sen. Charles Schumer, Chairman of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Inauguration, says they’re taking measures to ensure people can call, tweet and post messages on Facebook because the inauguration is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
It’ll also likely be a touch easier to use your phone because fewer people are expected in town—preliminary estimates put attendance at this inaugural at between 600,000 and 800,000 people, far lower than the 1.8 million that attended in 2009.
Martin Austermuhle