AT&T Raises the Bar at Santa Clara University

Aug. 26, 2010 - PRLog -- SANTA CLARA, Calif. – August 25, 2010 – Six months after Santa Clara University students staged a day of complaint to AT&T about poor cell phone reception on campus, the company has installed a temporary antenna and is working on a permanent fix.

“The campus was in a black hole until now, so this temporary antenna is going to improve cell phone reception for AT&T customers by 80 to 90 percent,” says Joe Sugg, assistant vice president of university operations.

Last academic year, students were fed up with the inability to dial out, receive calls, and even text message while on campus, especially since many of them have iPhones that are exclusively supported by AT&T. They organized a call-in and had students and faculty call the company throughout the day on February 8 to complain about the service. What many students didn’t know was that the University was already in talks with AT&T to find a solution that would fix the problem.

After much discussion and planning, AT&T crews finally brought a 50-foot antenna to SCU in June and mounted it between the Malley Fitness & Recreation Center and the parking garage at no cost to the University. It was the quickest way to get something up and running. The antenna has been operational for about a week, but the real test will come when students return to school on September 20.

“I only had one opportunity this week to test the reception at some of the worst areas on campus, such as Benson Center and the Learning Commons,” says Chris Mosier, student body president. “However, I didn’t notice any significant changes. Once classes begin, I’ll retest it and ask for feedback from other students.”

Meanwhile, a permanent fix is still in the works, and that involves integrating antennas into the design of Swig Residence Hall. The antennas will run vertically at each corner of the building and will be hidden behind the façade of Swig. Sugg says it will be another four to five months before those antennas go online.

About Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University, a comprehensive Jesuit, Catholic university located 40 miles south of San Francisco in California’s Silicon Valley, offers its more than 8,800 students rigorous undergraduate curricula in arts and sciences, business, theology, and engineering, plus master’s and law degrees and engineering Ph.D.s. Distinguished nationally by one of the highest graduation rates among all U.S. master’s universities, California’s oldest operating higher-education institution demonstrates faith-inspired values of ethics and social justice. For more information, see www.scu.edu.

Media contact
Connie Kim Coutain | ccoutain@scu.edu | 408-554-5126 office | 408-829-4836 cell