Will cell phone carriers need to boost coverage in Erie during April's solar eclipse?

Eclipse watchers in the Erie region should not have to worry about fractured cell phone coverage during the once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse on April 8.

That’s the message from major cellular carriers, who say their state-of-the-art networks can handle any increased traffic/usage spawned by the April 8 event, which is expected to plunge Erie into daytime darkness and bring hundreds of thousands of visitors — and their smartphones — to the region.

The Erie Times-News reached out to the three largest cell phone carriers in the U.S. — Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T — to ask whether they will need to supplement coverage in the Erie area in regards to the eclipse.

Erie is expected to be among North America's prime vantage points in terms of viewing the event.

According to the American Astronomical Society, the path of totality — which means the moon will completely block the sun — will be about 115 miles wide and involves a portion of northern Mexico, more than a dozen U.S. states and eastern Canada.

What the cellular carriers say

Lyssa Hansen, a senior communications manager for T-Mobile, said “we had our engineering team take a look and T-Mobile has more than enough capacity utilizing its existing 5G Ultra Capacity network to accommodate visitors during the eclipse in Erie,” including areas along Presque Isle Bay and near Dobbins Landing.

According to T-Mobile, that high-band network has wide coverage and capacity.

Christina Moon Ashraf, a spokeswoman with Verizon Corporate Communications, said the company’s recent upgrades have made supplemental temporary coverage, like mobile cell towers, “unnecessary.”

So Verizon also believes its existing 5G network will be sufficient to cover the Erie area during the April 8 eclipse.

“Our network team has been very aggressively rolling out additional capacity on our 5G network,” Ashraf said. “That means we have drastically increased the capacity of our network to manage exponentially more data.

“Alongside the spectrum additions and the newer 5G technology, we also upgraded our fiber to manage ten times the amount of data our previous fiber could manage.”

AT&T, though, is planning improvements to existing Erie County equipment before April 8.

An AT&T spokesperson said that in preparation for the eclipse, the company plans to "upgrade targeted cell sites in Erie County with additional 5G and C-Band spectrum to improve speeds and capacity."

Additionally, plans are in place to "deploy redundant, backup connectivity solutions in Erie County" to support emergency communications and first responders during the eclipse.

The spokesperson said that equipment could include "everything from phones, tablets and smart devices to trucks, briefcase units and even drones."

The technology added to existing Erie-area cell towers could include a cellular communication band that is available only to first responders, so that "they never have to compete with commercial traffic" during the eclipse.

Erie’s day in the (obstructed) sun

During the eclipse, the moon will pass between the sun and the Earth, which will completely block the face of the sun and plunge the area into darkness.

The solar eclipse is expected to begin in Erie at 2:02 p.m., reach maximum at 3:18 p.m. and end at 4:30 p.m.

Erie is expected to be the only major city in Pennsylvania to be in what’s called the path of totality for that eclipse, defined as the shadow zone where the total eclipse can be seen.

That path is typically 10,000 miles long but only about 100 miles wide.

National personal finance news website MoneyTalksNews has listed Erie as one of the seven best places to watch the 2024 eclipse. Erie was also listed on Astronomy.com's list of 20 of the best places to view the 2024 total solar eclipse.

The 2024 solar eclipse is expected to be visible in Erie for 3 minutes and 42 seconds. A total eclipse won’t be visible from the United States again until 2044, and there won’t be another visible from Erie until 2099, according to Gannon University.

Contact Kevin Flowers at kflowers@timesnews.com. Follow him on X at @ETNflowers.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Eclipse watchers in Erie PA shouldn't worry about cell phone coverage