Geeks depart, but AT&T's SXSW coverage sucks

South by Southwest Interactive has turned into SXSW Music. One attendee told me a funny story about watching the revolving door at a downtown hotel as techies were replaced by stereotypical rockers with long hair, beards, and tattoos.

With the exodus of the geeks, I'd imagine that the population of iPhone users in the greater Austin area has declined since AT&T had its widely reported problems over the weekend.

Apparently, there are still too many iPhones in town for AT&T's network to handle the load. On Wednesday, my iPhone was rendered a useless brick for much of the day. I frequently got no data coverage at all, including inside the convention center and several music venues, and several times, I was relegated to AT&T's slower EDGE network instead of the 3G network for which I'm paying close to $100 a month.

I had trouble completing voice calls, and on one, the person on the other end said I was almost incomprehensible because of the warbly modulation. (If you're an iPhone customer, you've probably heard this.) I can't even get the GPS navigation to work, though I don't know if this is related to AT&T or a separate problem.

Regardless, it's not like I'm in the backwoods--Austin's the state capital of Texas, the home of one of the largest universities in the country, and a major tech center.

I imagine that AT&T had to make some concessions to Apple to become the exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the United States, such as not being allowed to sell music through its own store.

In the short run, those concessions have probably paid off, as millions of customers switched from other carriers just to get an iPhone. But unless AT&T steps up its coverage sometime in the next six months, it is going to have a huge wave of cancellations when those two-year contracts end in late 2010.

Here's hoping that the company starts to make good by offering partial refunds to anybody with an iPhone and an SXSW badge.

Meanwhile, I'm sure that Apple's contract with AT&T is coming up for renewal sometime soon. I hope that it takes these complaints to heart.

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[dwreid]

Well don't feel alone. AT&T coverage sucks just about everywhere. Once they "upgraded" their network all of the coverage on my 3G phone has gone to hell. I live in Chicago for Pete's sake. My coverage went from a solid 5 bars to 1 and 2 in most places and none in many places. I regularly drop back to Edge when I'm paying for 3G. Welcome to the new AT&T. More bars in more places? Can you say "lie"?

[jo_tigger]

I agree, I even live in Austin, AT&T's service has always been lame here. Has nothing to do with geeks or SXSW.

[MizzQuezzaire]

AT&T is still better than T-Mobile's Frankenstein network that you can only use five sucky phones on. The new iPhone 3Gs are also useable on 3G overseas, unlike any other carriers' phones in the US.

[Hep Cat]

Somebody call the waaaahmbulance.

[urabigloser]

Wa Wa Wa. Did you complain about your flight an hotel room too?

[MadLyb]

Jeez, what a priviledged crowd!

It never ceases to amaze me when you "city folks" get away from the larger municipalities and are shocked at the state of our wireless infrastructure and start whining. On top of that, Austin is a pretty big town (at least by my standards). In my area, more coverage is EDGE than 3G...where you can get coverage and it isn't just AT&T. They all pretty much suck.

Welcome to reality.

[bryanlyle]

This is why I went back to Verizon and gave up my iPhone. It's kind of pointless when you can't use a cell phone to reliably make calls.

[jeffkirk]

I live in Austin, am attending various SXSW events (interactive, film *and* music), and own an iPhone that's been bricked half the time. Still, I accept that there are limits to how much AT&T can expand its coverage on what amounts to 24 hours' notice. They can't just throw up a temporary cell tower in the middle of downtown, as they've done during the ACL festivals at Zilker Park.

This year is anomalous in that it's the first year they've had to contend with SXSW crowds who are both iPhone equipped -- and that number has multipled considerably since March '08 -- AND in possession of a 3G model vs. first-gen. Personally, I know where to sniff out free wi-fi spots in order to get data access, at the very least, but agreed that AT&T has been very publicly rebuked, and will figure out a fix for future tech-heavy downtown events.

[sparrowhyperion]

Man... I tell ya... It's whiny yuppies who think that they HAVE to have the new shiny phone every year that keeps rates high. Here's some news from the real world. I spend $100 a month for my bundled telephone (land line), 12MB/s Cable Internet connection, and Digital TV service. I spend about $20 every 3 months on my cell phone. To spend $100 bucks on a cell phone is just stupid. There are people living in boxes and eating out of garbage dumpsters and people are paying $100 a month for cell phones. I hope all of these numbskulls feel good about themselves. Then again, with the economy in the crapper, maybe some of these annoying spoiled yuppies and guppies (Geriatric Yuppies) will end up in the cardboard boxes and then they might see what reality is like. So stop whining about your fancy Iphone not working. If Iphone users were dumb enough and spoiled enough to get one, and pay the overinflated fees; Then they deserve everything they get....

Here that little noise... That's the worlds smallest violin and it's playing just for you.

[FormerPCwonk]

Sparrowhyperion:

Are we ignoring the fact that its folks like you that keep cable internet rates high? Additionally, while I can appreciate you keeping your cell phone costs down, people with careers instead of jobs can't really rely on Boost Mobile. Cheers.

[nbvail]

AT&T has always sucked as did Cingular, but like other people said all cell based phones suck, it's time for new technology and its not cell.

[doublerig]

I was at SXSW last year, and all the cell service from all the providers was hit hard, not just AT&T. Seriously though, I bet at least 5000 iPhones show up at SXSW and you have to expect that would cause a huge performance hit to the network. The convention center WiFi was abysmal, why wasn't there any complaining about that? That is a much easier thing to scale for the convention center than AT&T putting up extra infrastructure. I'm sure AT&T would love to stack Austin with tons of service for SXSW, but setting up that kind of infrastructure for a couple weeks I am sure doesn't make fiscal sense. Finally, the conclusion of your story also doesn't make much sense. Because Austin can't support a ton more iPhones than normal at one concentrated location, AT&T is going to start having a bunch of cancellations in 2010? Really? I have taken my iPhone and iPhone 3g all over the country, and have always gotten acceptable service in major cities. In my home town of Milwaukee and the surrounding area I have great coverage. Also here in Milwaukee I know at least 50 people with iPhones, and they all love them. What does that prove? Nothing.

So the next time you want to write and article, please make sure you just don't base it on anecdotal evidence on one specific event where the cause of your problem is obvious. I sure hope this wasn't supposed to be tech journalism.

David

p.s. I also thought it was hilarious that you also complained the GPS wasn't working right and questioned whether AT&T was to blame for that also. Perhaps you need to come out of the rock you've been living under. ;)

[atzicecream]

You do realize that while on 3G you want less bars, right? You can't have too many towers fighting for the service, that's where the drops start, so if you are indeed in Chicago with 2 bars, that's generally going to be better than 5 bars. Edge on the other hand is exactly opposite. Also, I have a couple phones, iPhone and Blackberry both on AT&T, guess which one gets better reception, including in 3G areas? Maybe you guys need to point some blame to the manufacturers as well. Just a POV

[TokyoMetro]

Good day. I used to live in Austin before moving to Tokyo in 2003. When 3G was introduced here the coverage and performance was marginal. It is much better now and far better than even the performance in the states. The endless performance excuses about rural reception,hilly areas and high population density on the network just doesnt fly here in Japan. It just works well and doesnt cost an arm and a leg.

It would be great to see CNET send a small reporting team here to "road test" the network here in Japan with 3G handsets from NTT Docomo, Au KDDI, Softbank and Emobile. Report the srong points, weak points and surprises they didn't expect. It would give the readers a realistic comparison with the present networks in the states. Send them to "Shibuya crossing" , the hills of Nagano and the El Paso of Japan, Tohoku.
Btw, Softbank mobile in Japan uses a lot of Nokia Siemens 3G network equipment. So it is not about superior Japanese technology. It is how you apply it.