iPhone SMASH Puny AT&T Network at SXSW in Austin, TX
What’s causing all the commotion down in Austin, Texas right now? Turns out it’s not only iPhone news at South by Southwest 2009 (SXSW), but it’s everyone using iPhone 3Gs as well! It’s SMASHING AT&T’s network.
We’ve joked before that AT&T had basically gone out and strapped rabbit ears on their EDGE antennas and called it 3G, well if that’s the case, they’re rapidly strapping even more ears on round Austin way right now, according to Business Insider:
AT&T (T) tells us it’s adding wireless capacity in downtown Austin to deal with “unprecedented” demand (that’s resulted in service that’s flaky at best). This, of course, a result of thousands (tens of thousands?) of South by Southwest attendees bringing 3G iPhones into this part of Austin for the first time. The telco expects service to improve tonight and throughout the rest of the show.
Good news to most techies, however: while AT&T was down, at least Twitter was mostly up…
[via Daring Fireball]
March 16th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Wow LOL..
March 16th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
everyone should try whrrl 2.0 which debuted at sxsw… It looks like a really smooth social networking app somewhat like loopt but on a totally different level. There are only a few people on it so far but if more people use it I think it could catch on. It uses the new facebook connect and also cooperates with twitter.
March 16th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
I was at the south side Irish Parade in Chicago yesterday and scenerio sounds familiar. There were iPhones everywhere I looked. And it was no surprise that the network seemed crippled. People in our group with Verizon had no problems making calls, sending texts or using any sort of data service while all the iPhone and AT&T users were left wanting any connectivity at all. I’d go back to Verizon in a heartbeat if they had the iPhone.
March 19th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I could use my Treo 680 to check scores while attending UT games in Austin but last year with the iPhone, no luck. No texting inside the stadium either.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
In northeast Ohio the 3g iPhone as of recently the phone will go from no service, to Edge, to 3G and back again. Its been doing that for about 2 days now