The difficulty of trying to make a phone call on game days may soon be eased.

Cell phone carriers like Verizon Wireless, Cingular and Sprint/Nextel are taking measures to fix problems facing callers at Penn State.

Students, fans and alumni have recently been finding that during home football games, such as October's matches against University of Michigan and University of Illinois, attempting to make a call or send a text message via cellular phones has become increasingly difficult.

Ed Yakabosky (sophomore-information sciences and technology) found without reliable cell phone service he had difficulty meeting up with friends.

"Everyone wants to meet last minute, and you end up going in [to the game] late because you have to wait around until everyone's cell phones work," he said.

Depending on text messaging consistently proves unreliable, Sarah Holmes (freshman-education), said.

"Every time I make a call, it says that 'all circuits are busy,'" she said. "I have to text, but that piles up, costs money and takes longer."

Penn State is one of the densest areas with the most channels equipped, said Don Carretta, Class of 1975 and Verizon executive director of the Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia networks.

Carretta said Verizon is "working feverishly" to add capacity in the market and is paying special attention to Penn State. But he said signal is still struggling a bit, especially during the games themselves.

"Typically, the biggest challenge here is at halftime, because no one will make a call when the team is playing," he said.

Verizon Wireless has also installed new cell sites, commonly known as towers, said Laura Merritt, public relations manager. She said Verizon sees a dramatic increase in cell traffic during events such as football games, because of a substantial number of people trying to call at the same time.

"We have added new cell sites recently because we know people use cell phones around campus," she said, referring to cellular sites which opened last January. "We have also added capacity which allows more calls to go through a tower at the same time."

Jack Pflanz, communications manager for Sprint/Nextel, said the company has seen only one event in which there was a slight problem.

"The only incident we had problems with was the Michigan game," he said. "We're going to look at it and figure out what it is and we'll go from there."

Ellen Webner, of Cingular Wireless public relations, said Cingular expects increased traffic for all carriers during any event when attendance swells.

"We have a standing history with Penn State and feel we provide adequate coverage," she said.

Currently, Cingular has 11 cell sites in and around Penn State, including one at Beaver Stadium and one outside the Bryce Jordan Center, according to Webner.

So for now, students should rely on text messaging, both Carretta and Merritt suggested, since it is a shorter burst of traffic.

"There's no magic solution," Carretta added.