Proximus boosts its networks during this summer's events
A spectacular increase in mobile data traffic on the Proximus network at Rock Werchter 2016
Close presence at more than 200 events
Proximus closely monitors more than 200 events every year in Belgium. At the smallest events, Proximus boosts the capacity of its existing infrastructure. At larger events, Proximus has a team of experts that sets up a temporary mobile infrastructure while its existing infrastructure is strengthened. In 2016 a temporary infrastructure will be set up at almost 75 events.
This weekend, with Rock Werchter, we entered the music festival period which brings together thousands of people. During these events, the festivalgoers not only want to be contactable at all times but also seek to share their experiences and emotions with their family and friends, in particular by sending messages and photos via the social media.
A capacity equivalent to three times that installed in a city like Namur
Rock Werchter received close to 80,000 people per day for four days this year. Like every year, Proximus puts in place a network of a capacity greater than that of the year before. This year, Proximus deployed seven temporary mobile stations equipped with 298 3G and 4G cells (compared with 240 cells in 2015). The capacity of this infrastructure set up on the 3 km² area of the event is equivalent to three times that installed in a city like Namur (or twice that of Leuven). The installation of these antennas requires the collaboration of a team of 40 people before the festival and about 10 technicians/engineers during the concerts. The teams also provide fixed connectivity during the event for such things as live recordings or services provided to other telecom operators.
6 TB in 4 days, a 37% increase in mobile data traffic
Despite a 7 to 10% drop in the number of festivalgoers in 2016, Proximus recorded an impressive increase in mobile data traffic on the Werchter site. This year the records have been beaten, with 6 TB of mobile data traffic on the Proximus network during the four days of the festival compared with the previous record of 4.55 TB in 2015. The two data traffic peaks were on Friday during the Belgium–Wales match and Saturday during the penalty shoot-out between Germany and Italy. With regard to the voice traffic and SMS traffic, the figures remained stable.
