Last night I went to a friend's house overlooking the Philly Art Museum to see the fireworks. There were literally hundreds of thousands of people outside and all down the parkway. I got service fine at the party 21 stories up, but the minute I stepped outside downstairs... Epic fail. "searching..." and no service. I've never seen this happen before! Does AT&T just give up when there are too many people trying to access the same tower?
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AT&T 4th of July fail
- Thread starter SonoViva
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What? You mean when there were hundreds of thousands of users confined into a limited RF spectrum all demanding bandwidth, something went wrong?
NO WAY!
NO WAY!
It's weird that you got signal up high and lost it down below.
The capacity issue is an issue with carriers and big events like football games, big music festivals (South by Southwest, Austin City Limits, CES, Apple conferences, etc). Although to be truthful, it's not an AT&T issue per se, but you see it more on AT&T because of the number of people with it in the area. There's just too many people with cell phones in a small area, and it overloads the tower/spectrum in that area.
My recollection is that AT&T actually brought in extra capacity for South by Southwest and there weren't any issues. However, they didn't bring in anything extra for CES and there were issues.
One thing I saw at Austin City Limits a few years back was a rotation of No Signal, then 5 bars (but unable to connect to anything), then No Signal again. I could send SMS's though.
The capacity issue is an issue with carriers and big events like football games, big music festivals (South by Southwest, Austin City Limits, CES, Apple conferences, etc). Although to be truthful, it's not an AT&T issue per se, but you see it more on AT&T because of the number of people with it in the area. There's just too many people with cell phones in a small area, and it overloads the tower/spectrum in that area.
My recollection is that AT&T actually brought in extra capacity for South by Southwest and there weren't any issues. However, they didn't bring in anything extra for CES and there were issues.
One thing I saw at Austin City Limits a few years back was a rotation of No Signal, then 5 bars (but unable to connect to anything), then No Signal again. I could send SMS's though.
yeah, seriously. You can't really fault AT&T for that. Do you know how much more our service would cost if they built infrastructure with the intention of being able to provide service to 100x the number of customers they typically have in a location?
You are SO smart! FYI, at the same time I lost service in a large crowd my fiends on Verizon and Sprint had full service. I guess their equipment is more robust than AT&T's.
Understandable. It just pissed me off that some of those people connected to the towers probably just had their phones in their pockets and I was actually trying to use mine.
Yeah, why can't AT&T just put up new towers every 10 feet, and maybe they could also foresee large events and make new towers there just for the event.
Stupid post.
Stupid post.
Read about SXSW two years ago. I guess all the people that got annoyed there were stupid too.
Would you bitch at the cable company if everyone in your node began downloading the same bluray rip at the same time and brought the network to it's knees? Same concept basically.
It does suck, I admit. I have been a frequent attendee to college football games in Austin, TX and as far back as 8 to 10 years ago i've experienced this with every cell phone I've had on a GSM/digital network.
It does suck, I admit. I have been a frequent attendee to college football games in Austin, TX and as far back as 8 to 10 years ago i've experienced this with every cell phone I've had on a GSM/digital network.
No, but perhaps you are one who gets easily confused.
You see, a particular city or township will only allow a certain number of cell towers in a particular area. Some cellular companies have more towers in an area or are closer to your location, simply because they we're there first. In your location, there we're either a large amount of AT&T subscribers compared to other carriers, OR AT&T wasn't allowed to have any towers in close proximity. You should feel empowered, now you know.
Or maybe AT&T is more popular in your area. Anytime you have a large group in a confined area its expected for that your cell phone coverage will drop. Last Summer I attending an event where there were close to 40,000 people in one area. I could barely get cell phone coverage. When I watched an NFL game last year in New Orleans I had zero bars. This past week I was at the Georgia Dome with 70,000+ people. I could cell phone coverage with no problem. Its hit or miss depending on you area. I know that Atlanta for the most part is mostly Verizon. if you don't like AT&T don't buy the iphone and get Verizon. I'll buy your iphone off of you.
I love how all the haters are coming out of the woodwork. Every post that's dripping with sarcasm, I just picture Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons sitting at a computer typing away. For the record, I know how GSM works. All I was saying was that it was annoying.
Without actual data to back it up the argument that "there isn't enough RF spectrum to handle everyone at once" sounds fishy to me.
When I was in Beijing for the summer of 2005, local wireless carriers would bring in extra portable towers to areas that expected to have more people than usual. I was on a college campus (Tsinghua) and we saw the little trucks with their portable towers pretty often whenever anything was going on. None of us ever had any problems ever, and here is the kicker you probably didn't know: there are a lot of people in China! And the population density in Beijing is really high! (sorry, sarcasm is annoying I know).
I realize that now in 2010 people use more data so it is harder to keep up...
...
but on my last trip to Hong Kong I was talking to my friends there and asked how often then get data problems or dropped calls with their iphones. They honestly didn't know what I was talking about. My friend said "oh yeah, I think I had a call drop about a year ago when I was talking on a long call while traveling" and someone else mentioned getting really slow data at a big concert.
I think that US cell phone consumers just have been convinced to maintain low standards for quality, the way the FCC distributes spectrum is a huge mess, and it is hard enough to switch carriers that people can't really vote with their dollars. So to everyone saying "this is just how it is, accept it" I wish you could at least have the decency to be a little frustrated and demand more.
When I was in Beijing for the summer of 2005, local wireless carriers would bring in extra portable towers to areas that expected to have more people than usual. I was on a college campus (Tsinghua) and we saw the little trucks with their portable towers pretty often whenever anything was going on. None of us ever had any problems ever, and here is the kicker you probably didn't know: there are a lot of people in China! And the population density in Beijing is really high! (sorry, sarcasm is annoying I know).
I realize that now in 2010 people use more data so it is harder to keep up...
...
but on my last trip to Hong Kong I was talking to my friends there and asked how often then get data problems or dropped calls with their iphones. They honestly didn't know what I was talking about. My friend said "oh yeah, I think I had a call drop about a year ago when I was talking on a long call while traveling" and someone else mentioned getting really slow data at a big concert.
I think that US cell phone consumers just have been convinced to maintain low standards for quality, the way the FCC distributes spectrum is a huge mess, and it is hard enough to switch carriers that people can't really vote with their dollars. So to everyone saying "this is just how it is, accept it" I wish you could at least have the decency to be a little frustrated and demand more.
I usually go there every year for them! But we've bailed on our Philly friends for this party a couple years and decided to go there. Didn't beat OC, not even close.
I can't wait til "fail" and "epic fail" are retired. Most annoying net lingo in years. I liked it better when everything was just abreviated. ROFL WTF YMMV LOL