As part of a €1.1 billion network and infrastructure expansion and upgrade programme, Three Ireland has completed major 4G and 5G network upgrades across some of Ireland’s busiest and most demanding locations including major sports stadiums, live entertainment venues and transport hubs.Venues and stadiums upgraded include Croke Park, the Aviva Stadium, the 3Arena, Dublin Airport and Dundrum Town Centre. “These locations represent some of the most demanding mobile environments in Ireland, with tens of thousands of users accessing services simultaneously,” says Declan Gaffney, director of radio access networks at Three Ireland.The challenge for Three and for phone users is that the more people that try to access data service in a location the slower the service gets. That can lead to frustratingly long download and upload times or, at worst, complete loss of access to services. This isn’t too much of a problem if it’s just about sharing a selfie with friends, but it can be a real headache if concert or flight tickets can’t be accessed.“People’s expectations of and reliance on their phones have changed dramatically over the years,” says Gaffney. “You need your phone for tickets to events, for example. You get an email to download them to your phone wallet, but most people don’t do it. Then there is panic at the gate if you don’t have data connectivity. You need data to listen to commentary at a sports event. We pay for refreshments with our phones; we use them to send pictures and videos to friends.“People want and expect everything to work; they want their phone to be an enabler of their enjoyment not a source of annoyance. These upgrades are about making sure connectivity works when it matters most – not just in everyday settings, but in the places where people come together in large numbers.”Putting the scale of the challenge in context, he points out that Croke Park has a capacity of 80,000 people, almost the same as the population of Dundalk and Drogheda combined, all in confined area and a very large proportion of them wanting to use their phones at the same time.“Our engineers spend a lot of time designing the systems for these venues,” Gaffney says. “Croke Park is an open arena. It’s not a coverage issue; it’s a capacity issue. Over 4.1 terabytes of data were used by our customers during one of the Oasis gigs in the stadium last year. That’s the equivalent of 164 months of usage for the average customer in a couple of hours. We have to be able to cater for peaks like that. We divided the stadium into different sections with 110 antennae to provide that capacity.”You get an email to download them [tickets] to your phone wallet, but most people don’t do it. Then there is panic at the gate if you don’t have data connectivity— Declan Gaffney, director of radio access networks at Three IrelandThe difference made by the upgrades is significant. “The 3Arena is Ireland’s largest indoor entertainment venue with a capacity of up to 13,000,” he points out. “We upgraded both our 4G and 5G infrastructure throughout the building, improving coverage, capacity and throughput during sell-out concerts. We carried out performance tests during a fully sold-out event, and this showed that prior to the upgrade it took an average of six seconds to upload a 5MB video, compared to about 2.5 seconds afterwards.”Festivalgoers are looked after as well. “Electric Picnic is Ireland’s largest music festival and attracts 80,000 people,” he says. “If you’re at a gig for three hours you might be able to live without connectivity, but if you’re at a music festival for three days you probably can’t. At last year’s festival our network supported 1.2 million phone calls over the weekend and 160 terabytes of data usage – that’s equivalent to over 40 million photographs. We continue to invest heavily in our network at Electric Picnic. We deploy three temporary mobile masts alongside a permanent site, as well as enhanced coverage across high traffic areas.”More recently, Three completed in-building mobile upgrades at Dublin Airport’s Terminal 2 and Dundrum Town Centre. “These are very busy locations. At the airport, people use their phones to download tickets, make purchases, read the news while waiting for flights and so on. In Dundrum Town Centre it might be as simple as using the phone to compare prices of items you see in the shops there.”Upgrade work will continue. “We are always looking at other areas and venues to upgrade. We have done an awful lot of in-building work in cities like in the Irish Life Mall in Dublin as well. It may not sound as exciting as the Aviva or Croke Park but it’s very important to the people who need it and don’t have dead zones in their offices any more. Connectivity is central to how people experience busy public spaces today. Whether it’s sharing a moment, navigating a journey or completing a purchase, reliable mobile performance has become part of the experience itself. We’ll continue to invest to ensure our network can meet those expectations in Ireland’s busiest locations.”