Yettel has prepared 20 per cent more mobile network capacity for this year’s Sziget Festival than it did last year, with the additional capacity roughly equivalent to the needs of a town the size of Szombathely. The cost of building and operating the extra network has exceeded HUF 50 million, Balázs Mang, Yettel’s director of technical strategy, told a press conference at the festival on Tuesday.
30 engineers and service specialists worked on the new system
He said a team of 30 engineers and service specialists had been working on the system’s design, operation and round-the-clock monitoring since the initial planning stage. The work began in May.
For a mobile communications provider, he said, ensuring a reliable service at an event of this scale was particularly challenging because between 70,000 and 80,000 people used their devices simultaneously across an area of 0.7 square kilometres.
Festival-goers also uploaded considerably more photographs, videos and live content than they would under normal circumstances. While uploads typically account for less than 10 per cent of downloads, that figure can reach 30 per cent during the festival’s busiest hours.
Total 4G and 5G capacity increased at Sziget Festival
Working with its network infrastructure partner Cetin, Yettel has expanded last year’s 31-sector network and increased total 4G and 5G capacity by 20 per cent. Within that figure, capacity on high-speed 5G cells using the C-band frequency has risen by 40 per cent.
Mr Mang described this as particularly favourable given current energy pressures, saying that modern 4G and 5G network equipment operated far more efficiently. The latest technologies require less cooling and can handle the same volume of data while using fewer resources, he said.
The provider is supplying the additional network through 144 mobile-cell capacities at 21 locations during the festival, he added. The so-called microcells operating across the island typically cover sectors measuring between 100 and 200 metres.
He also said that, according to last year’s figures, peak-hour mobile traffic increased by 10 per cent over the previous year during the festival as a whole, with 40 per cent of it carried over the 5G network. 5G accounted for 25 per cent of total data traffic, and specialists expect that figure to approach 30 per cent this year as compatible devices become more widespread.
Free Wi-Fi zone with mobile-phone charging points
Judit Tőzsér, Yettel’s director of corporate communications, said that, as the official telecommunications partner of one of Europe’s largest music and cultural events, the company had set up a free Wi-Fi zone equipped with 15 mobile-phone charging points.
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Tamás Kádár, the festival’s chief organiser, said this was an exciting year for Sziget because the festival had once again come under Hungarian ownership. Its founder, Károly Gerendai, had returned, the management had become co-owners, and a group of investors with whom the organisers had worked for many years had also been brought into the festival’s ownership structure.
He added that the comfort of festival-goers would become an increasingly important consideration at European festivals, and that this included being able to use mobile phones without interruption.
Yettel was providing Sziget with extensive technological and other support in this area, he said, helping the festival deliver an outstanding experience for its guests.
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