Summer has arrived and festival season is upon us once again.  The long traffic queues, expensive festival food and finding a decent spot to pitch your tent, are among some of the challenges festival goers are presented with – all soon forgotten once the music starts playing and the atmosphere lifts.

One important challenge that’s been addressed is the increasing trend by mobile network operators to install temporary masts at major events, ensuing coverage is available and reliable, and this is more great news for the push-to-talk over cellular industry.

The portable masts can be quickly deployed and are an excellent solution for short-term events where permanent and expensive radio infrastructure isn’t feasible or necessary. Push-to-talk over cellular utilises existing cellular networks, meaning that it can be a highly cost-effective solution for event organisers compared to traditional radio systems.

By providing additional network capacity and improving signal strength, the masts address the increased demand for cellular coverage and allow users to connect and transmit data simultaneously without overloading the system.

Take the recent announcement of the multi-year festival partnership between Vodafone and Glastonbury. Vodafone installed nine masts around the Glastonbury site last month, delivering more network capacity than ever before and enabling festival goers at the iconic event to keep connected.

High-density events like Glastonbury often involve the use of multimedia content, live streaming, and social media sharing. Masts installed at these events can support the increased bandwidth demand, ensuring faster data speeds and reducing latency.

It’s not just about the event attendees though.  Robust, reliable communication when managing large crowds at big events is absolutely crucial, and legacy radio systems may not be up to the task. This, combined with the improvements in cellular infrastructure, means that event organisers are increasingly turning to push-to-talk over cellular (PTToC).

Cellular networks provide broader coverage compared to traditional two-way radios. This ensures that event staff can instantly communicate across a wider area without the limitations imposed by range constraints.

And because PTToC solutions can be deployed on both smartphones and specialist devices, event staff can use a single device for multiple purposes. In addition to voice communication, they can also use the other features such as text messaging, multimedia sharing, push-to-locate for location tracking and sharing, and SOS emergency alerts and voice recording for incident reporting and debriefing. Such capabilities improve efficiency, safety, and overall event operations.

If you are interested in learning more about Mobile Tornado, including our PTToC solution, please get in touch for a demo.