In the past 18 months, AT&T nearly doubled the number of antennas it has at the Denver International Airport to improve coverage for its customers. The latest upgrade, announced Thursday, added coverage at the new and the .
The number of new antennas for the hotel and transit area was not immediately available. But it added to last year’s upgrade at the airport, when AT&T installed 204 antennas to public areas in the concourse, short-term covered parking, train tunnels and baggage tunnels.
The new coverage last year was “equivalent to four cell sites,” said Suzanne Trantow, an AT&T spokeswoman, who estimated that the number of AT&T antennas at DIA before 2015 was about 160.
Apparently, that made a big difference. In an , a research firm that rates mobile service, AT&T came out at the top for Denver’s airport for network speeds, beating the others by a lot. AT&T’s median download speed came in at 30.5 Mbps, compared with Verizon’s 11.5 Mbps, T-Mobile’s 1.6 Mbps and Sprint’s 0.8 Mbps.
Overall, Denver’s airport ranked right in the middle of RootMetrics’ study of the nation’s 50 busiest airports. At number 24, DIA scored a 92.4. By comparison, Southwest Florida International in Florida ranked at the top with a 98.7 score, while Philadelphia International in Philadelphia was last, with 66.1.
Technically, AT&T added a new Distributed Antenna System at the hotel and RTD area. The system essentially hides antennas all over the airport, such as under overhangs or on handrails. The result is that customer calls or internet usage travels a shorter distance than a text or call travels and results in a stronger connection. Says AT&T, “Calls, texts and posts are less likely to get stuck in a ‘traffic jam’ of other calls, texts and posts.”
At DIA, AT&T said it now has 600 antennas at the airport.