How we Connect Bonnaroo… One of America’s Biggest Pop-Up Cities

For a few days each year, a city called Bonnaroo appears.

Well, it’s actually a music festival, not a city.

But it does have its own post office, daily newspaper, and a new underground plumbing system. The festival expects 90,000+ Bonnaroovians to attend this weekend. So it’s easy to see how Manchester becomes Tennessee’s 7th largest city overnight. 

That's why we’re amping up our cellular connectivity in the “city” of Bonnaroo –tripling our LTE coverage compared to last year.

While the city appears virtually overnight, our coverage does not. For more than a month, network engineers camp out at Bonnaroo to set up the network.

We know fans love using social media at this festival. It’s our job to help make sure all the shares and posts get through.

To provide great coverage, we’re using 2 Mega COWs (Cell Sites on Wheels), 3 regular COWs and 5 CARTs (Compact A/C Radio Telephone Sites). Our enhancements are equal to 16 traditional cell sites. They give festivalgoers 20x more network capacity than during an average day at the 700-acre field.

Last year, 11 terabytes of data crossed our mobile network at the festival. That equals more than 33 million festival selfies. It’s also 25x more data usage compared to an average Wednesday-Sunday in the same area. With triple the LTE capacity this year, we’re expecting to set a new Bonnaroo data record.

From selfies to foodies (and food photos) to can’t-miss celebrity sightings, we’re helping festivalgoers stay connected throughout their entire Bonnaroo experience.