Swinging to the rescue.

As COVID-19 increases capacity at our nation’s hospitals, those same hospitals are also seeing an increased demand for connectivity.

That’s why the Pacific Northwest network team decided to take a look at hospitals in the region, which have all been seeing increased cellular traffic, to see if there were any opportunities to strengthen coverage. As a result, they identified a creative -- and fast -- solution to help Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR, which was experiencing signal issues on their upper floors.

“Looking at our coverage of that hospital area, one sector covers the hospital and another covers the freeway,” explained Principal Engineer Tom Fergusson.

“We realized that most of the traffic came from the intersection of the two major highways,” said Engineer III Preeti Panthanjali. “But, now with everyone staying at home, we realized this was a good opportunity to do a sector swing.”

A sector swing involves physically rotating sectors of a cell site from areas with less cellular traffic to point at areas that are experiencing more. It sounds simple, but in reality it’s a complex job.

With everyone working with a sense of purpose, the team was able to complete the project on an incredibly condensed timeline. “We knew that this hospital was at the forefront of getting more cases,” said Tom. “We could actually see the traffic increasing in the hospital.”

The result of the sector swing was a significantly stronger signal and improved connectivity for the entire hospital -- and pride in a job well done for the team.

“It gives an immense sense of job satisfaction. You feel you are a part of a community,” said Preeti. “I’m really honored that I was given this opportunity.”

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