The major wireless carriers handled a crush of wireless usage on Inauguration Day smoothly, despite some network slowdowns. The Washington, D.C., networks of AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile handled millions of extra calls, texts and multimedia data transfers without major failures, the carriers said. AT&T's network performed very well, despite occasional congestion, a spokesman said. Verizon's network in the region handled as much as five times the normal call volume, a spokeswoman said. The heaviest load came midday Tuesday, when the new president gave his speech. Texting was six times normal and wireless calling double on AT&T's network from 11 a.m. to noon, the spokesman said. Verizon subscribers in the region sent and received nearly 2.9 million text messages 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the company's spokeswoman said, a 700 percent increase from a year earlier. Sprint's peak calls, text messaging and data sessions, around midday, were triple normal, the spokeswoman said. The surge continued through 3 p.m., she said. Text paging around midday was about five times the amount the carrier gets on a typical day, she said.
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