Sidecut Reports

A little weekend geekspotting: Driving down the road near my house Friday, what did I see but a DAS antenna staring down at me! Seriously, we have previously reported AT&T’s moves to put DAS — Distributed Antenna System, or smaller cell antennas — in and around Palo Alto, and then we saw one at an AT&T workyard near here. But this one is apparently live and in the public wild, theoretically improving local cell reception.

Anyone know if AT&T is working with San Mateo to put these puppies in? If you didn’t know what you were looking for I am not sure you’d notice this one, a single antenna plopped right on top of a light pole.

Sidecut Reports readers know we’ve been following AT&T’s big push to promote Distributed Antenna System (DAS) deployments this year, but one announced today has to take the cake: Turns out that AT&T will be supplying the new in-building network at the stadium in Washington, D.C., known as… Verizon Center. Read the story by John Evan Frook at our sister site, Mobile Sports Report.

Fans and teams may be the big early winners in the cellular industry’s nationwide push to bring better phone reception to crowded places, an effort currently led by AT&T’s aggressive plan to build localized Wi-Fi networks inside major sporting venues like San Francisco’s AT&T Park and Chase Field in Phoenix.

To alleviate the bandwidth crush caused by the relatively new phenomenon of fans who want to shoot and instantly share pictures, videos and text messages from their seats, AT&T is partnering with teams and schools to build Wi-Fi networks directly inside the stadium walls, providing a better, faster Internet connection to those in attendance. Atlanta’s Turner Field, Stanford Stadium and Minute Maid Park in Houston have also received AT&T network attention, part of a Ma Bell strategy to improve cellular coverage by bringing in Wi-Fi and other network improvements right to the fans in the seats.

Read the rest of this post at our new site, Mobile Sports Report.