Cellphone use in the Boston area spiked dramatically the first week in September as hundreds of thousands of students returned to school, according to a recent study conducted by Verizon Wireless.
Calling, texting, surfing the Web and other cellphone activities jumped 70 percent during a two-week study conducted between Aug. 23 and Sept. 6. Boston College saw the greatest increase, jumping 380 percent, followed by Northeastern University, Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which increased by 280, 50 and 20 percents, respectively.
“We’ve been seeing this trend for the past three or four years,” said Verizon Wireless spokesman Howard Waterman. “Any time you have an area with thousands of students, you’re going to see a lot of network usage.”
This marks the first year the company has studied the increased cellphone use during the first week of the school year, said Verizon Wireless New England spokesman Michael Murphy.
“We asked our network team to study the overall usage and the usage in some university neighborhoods since they live and breathe these numbers and patterns,” he said.
To ensure connectivity, cellphone companies pay significantly higher rates to keep services running under heavy usage, Murphy said, adding Verizon Wireless spends about $1 billion every 90 days nationwide and $145 million in New England on network maintenance and other improvements.
Despite the high cost, Murphy said the company will continue to expand and improve its coverage to accommodate the ever-growing rate of cellphone use across the United States.
“In the month of June, there were over 10 billion text messages sent [nationwide],” Murphy said. “That was our biggest month ever.”
Officials say increases in cellphone use are nothing new for service providers, however.
Sprint PCS spokesman Mark Elliot said the industry has seen a general rise in cellphone activity since the launch of digital communication technology, which spiked as text messages became more popular.
“We live in a very mobile society and a very busy world,” Elliot said. “A lot of the traffic is still calls, but people are using text messaging more and more.”
For short-term needs, Elliot said when groups of spectators flood to the city, such as during the Boston Marathon or Red Sox playoff games, temporary, portable cell towers are added to the system.
Since cellphone service is provided by private carriers and not through BU, officials say there is little the university can do if students were to experience problems from overcrowded networks.
“Students bring these phones from their hometowns and have contracts with the company,” said Jim Stone, director of consulting services for the Information Technology Office.
Still, students said they have not noticed any changes in their cellphone service since returning to school.
“I haven’t had any problems,” said College of Arts and Sciences junior Michael Annabel. “I doubt many other Verizon users have had a problem either.”
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