Wireless users break records at State Fair

It was a record-breaking year for U.S. Cellular customers’ data usage at the Wisconsin State Fair.

U.S. Cellular customers made over 36.2 million data connections and downloaded and uploaded more than 8.2 Terabytes of data; a 54 percent increase over last year's State Fair usage. The busiest day for data usage was Saturday, August 5.

One terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes, the unit by which most wireless customers monitor their data. For context, some typical cellular plans include data allotments of anywhere between 2 and 6 GB up to unlimited.

"This year’s Wisconsin State Fair event went off without a hitch,” said U.S. Cellular Senior Network Performance Engineer, Mike Pyne. “With so many attendees using their devices to enhance and share their experience, we’re pleased that our network was able to handle the traffic and ensure that they could stay connected to the people and information important to them.”

On a typical day (when no events are happening) the U.S. Cellular site on the State Fairgrounds serves a small portion of the city of West Allis and handles approximately 500,000 data connections and 140 GB of data.

U.S. Cellular was the main sponsor for this year's Wisconsin State Fair.