This year The University of Mississippi can expect better cell phone service on home game days due to a new state-of-the-art CSpire Wi-Fi system on campus and in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium.
The new system is expected to improve cell service quality largely due to the fact that many fans have iPhones with iMessage, according to Michael Thompson, senior associate athletics director for communications and marketing. iMessage users can send messages over Wi-Fi, freeing up cell tower energy and bandwidth.
“Having Wi-Fi is going to pull some of the load from the towers in the stadium and in Oxford,” Thompson said. “Personally, we are hoping that the cell service is a lot better this year. We will not know exactly how much better until we get through a few games.”
Cell reception has been noted to be of poorer quality during gamedays, both in the Grove and in the stadium, than on regular school days.
Corbin Divinity, junior biology major, does not like the lack of cell service during gamedays.
“The cellular service is an awful inconvenience at the university on gamedays, and I think it just might be due to so many people being there,” Divinity said.
Thompson verified that the decrease in cell service quality is in fact due to the amount of cell traffic on game days. He estimates that on a typical school day there may be about 8,000 students on the Ole Miss campus at one time, considering the fact that some students attend classes on alternating days. Out of the 8,000, all of them are not using their phones simultaneously because they also have to focus on classes.
However, on a typical game day, there is a significantly larger amount of people on campus, about 100,000 fans, Thompson estimated, and most of them will be using their cell phones in some manner.
Thompson said the issue has a lot to do with millennials in particular because they use their devices in more ways than other fans. This includes checking social media apps such as Instagram and Snapchat as well as sharing videos, which takes up more bandwidth.
Normally, Vaught-Hemingway Stadium uses a distributed antenna system to provide cell phone service. Certain carriers use distributed antenna systems and others do not, creating a different experience for certain cell holders.
Thompson said fans who have CSpire tend to have a higher satisfaction rate and better experience within the stadium. He said this also probably means CSpire has stronger towers around campus in the area.
The new Wi-Fi service will be free for all fans during the first two home games, but for the rest of the games there will be a $4.99 charge per game for non-CSpire customers.
Pierre Whiteside, a junior integrated marketing communications major, expressed his discontent about the new service.
“I personally feel like if they’re going to offer Wi-Fi, it should be free for everyone, not just CSpire customers,” Whiteside said. “Most people around here are with AT&T anyways, and it’s a larger company.”
As for Margaret Collins, senior broadcast journalism major, she is all for the new Wi-Fi system.
“I think it’s a great thing. I think we’ve needed it for a really long time; I know service reception has been really bad in there for quite some time,” Collins said. “But my only concern is that I hope the university has worked out all of the kinks that go with it because I know that we’ve had issues in the past with our Internet problems.”
