Wireless networks crushed with traffic

	John Podesta, president of the the Center for American Progress, left, and Howard Dean, outgoing Democratic National Committee chairman, right, managed to get service as they arrived at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, for the swearing-in ceremony for President-elect Barack Obama.

Don’t Twitter via cell phone। Don’t send photos or videos using your mobile. And don’t hold your breath waiting to make or receive a call if you’re in the D.C. area. You’re going to be frustrated. And you may have to wait.

As anticipated, wireless networks, despite preparation, are getting crushed with traffic from an estimated 2 million people who have come to the nation’s capital for the inauguration of Barack Obama.

“The general consensus is that cell phones aren’t working। Text messages are working; it’s just the calls that aren’t working out so well,” said Matthew Schlesinger, 22, a D.C. resident who was in the Mall crowd this morning.

Schlesinger, a Verizon Wireless customer, said he was able to make calls, but a friend of his from American University, on AT&T’s network, has not been able to use his phone at all.

Representatives for the nation’s largest wireless carriers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, said customers’ delays in making and receiving phone calls is what they had projected, even with a boost in network capacity.

“Things are holding up well so far,” said Mark Siegel, AT&T Mobility spokesman. “There is minor congestion here and there, but nothing unexpected.”

Exacerbating the problem is the number of inauguration-goers who are jubilantly sending photos and videos using their cell phones, as well as to post them on the Internet, and to Twitter, sending short-form messages.

Mobile Web, e-mail and Twittering “use bandwidth as well,” said Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Debra Lewis.

She said the carrier’s network in the D.C. area is “handling three to five times the normal call volume,” but that “even in the most crowded spectator areas nearest the Inauguration stands at the U.S. Capitol, the vast majority of calls are going through on the first attempt.”

CTIA, the wireless trade industry association, has asked phone users to minimize that kind of activity, and wait until later to send or e-mail images, because of the network capacity it essentially hogs।

Text-messaging is recommended as an alternative to phone calls, to ease network traffic as well.

But enthusiasm and joy are overtaking the moment for some, including Schlesinger.

“I’ve been sending picture e-mails pretty much non-stop — I may wait to send some photos later. But honestly, if I get a nice picture of Obama giving his speech, I may want to send it to my family. So, I may be a little selfish,” he said.

Others, he said, who are having problems “are trying to find somebody who gets good service. But to honest, a lot of people are just caught up in the moment, and forgetting about calling people and being focused on what is going on around them.”