The Pope's DC Data Storm

Nearly every public viewing of the Pope, whether DC, NYC or Philly, included a sea of cellphones in full picture and video taking mode. AT&T says total data across all three cities was a whopping 15.7TB, which is roughly 45 million social media posts with photos. Turns out Washingtonians used more data than New Yorkers. (Philly is still being analyzed.) People in DC were responsible for 4.7 million social media posts with photos during the Pope’s three-day visit. New Yorkers had a paltry 4.3 million. AT&T optimized its network during the Pope’s tour by building multiple Cell on Wheels (COWs), which temporarily add capacity equal to multiple cell towers. Here’s the Pope COW that sat near the Basilica.

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