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AT&T Couldn't Hack Justin Bieber Concert

I

iPadPublisher

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 14, 2010
478
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I've got a young daughter, so you can save all the anti-Justin Bieber comments for another time.

For the first time ever, I had a real problem with AT&T service while visiting Las Vegas this past week for the Justin Bieber concert. I'm in Vegas a lot for work, and have never ran into this. But this past Saturday, even while displaying full bars (under the new iOS bar display policies) I was unable to make calls, send texts or check email. My iPhone 4 popped between 3G and Edge a LOT, and the bars went from full bars to Searching a few times, but no matter what was being displayed to me it took 10-15 minutes to get a standard txt out, and more than an hour to send ONE picture via SMS.

This is Las Vegas, and we were at Planet Hollywood, in the epicenter of The Strip. Vegas is in the middle of a recession (read the headlines, Nevada's recovery is much slower than anywhere else), which means The Strip is nowhere near capacity. You're telling me AT&T can't handle a few thousand people in one area? God Forbid Justin Bieber, Lady GaGa and say Wayne Newton do a show all within a few blocks of one another on the same night... it'd be a cell network holocaust. This is largely disappointing, and as I said, for the first time gave me a reason to be concerned about AT&T service. Boo!!

Anyone else experience problems in Vegas?
 
Not in Vegas but from what I understand this is not unheard of. Sometimes when they know there is going to be more load than usual they setup temporary cell towers? Not sure if they are towers or whatever they use but they do temporarily beef up the area to avoid what you saw happen. And in my city it doesn't even take Bieber to crash the network.... Just attempt to make a call during rush hour :)
 
AT&T did set up temporary towers at SXSW Austin because that event was notorious for having widespread AT&T network reliability issues.

I guess they only prop up temporary towers for multiple day music festivals instead of one-night concerts, but it is concerning that AT&T doesn't have sufficient network coverage (PERMANENT towers) to cover a tourist spot like Vegas.
 
Living in Vegas, no, I've actually never had a single complaint in the three years or so my family's had AT&T. With the Strip being so dense, though, I wouldn't be surprised if it was overwhelmed.
 
To many little girls have iPhones. O and a few thousand on a few towers is a lot don't you think? Buy a cheap router get 100 devices using it at once and then complain to AT&T
 
WTF? The guy makes a legitimate complaint about not getting service and you tell him that he shouldn't be upset that AT&T isn't delivering the service that he pays for?
 
nooaah said:
Welcome to AT&T. :p

Any time I go to a Phillies or Eagles game, I might as well leave my phone at home.
Click to expand...

I had similar problems this past weekend at Comic-Con in San Diego. AT&T was just hammered.
 
This happens at any major sporting event or mass gathering with younger kids who like to send picture messages etc non stop. My friend's Palm pre on Sprint does this as well so it's not just ATT.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_0 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8A293)

Any time there is a large group of people this happens. My phone was useless at the Paul McCartney concert and an MLS game I went to on Saturday. I finally got it to work when I turned 3G off.
 
I'm with AT&T ... no way I could hack (handle) a Justin Bieber concert. :rolleyes:
 
We have season tickets to Texans football and every single game without fail, full bars no signal. Nothing new really.
 
Tarzanman said:
WTF? The guy makes a legitimate complaint about not getting service and you tell him that he shouldn't be upset that AT&T isn't delivering the service that he pays for?
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone said he shouldn't be upset. Think we just said its common at events like that.
 
AT&T wanted to beef up the network for the Justin Bieber concert, but all of the auto-tune machines that he uses to sound halfway talented used up so much power that the Hoover Dam couldn't output any more to power AT&T's temporary towers.
 
This is another reason AT&T sucks. I've been to several college football games, some baseball games, and a couple of concerts with my iPhone and each time without fail my phone was useless. All my friends around me with Verizon, Sprint, or TMobile had no issues the entire time.

If you go to big events a lot, you may want to reconsider AT&T unless you don't mind holding a paperweight in your pocket during the event. Even text messaging fails on AT&T during a big event.
 
nooaah said:
Welcome to AT&T. :p

Any time I go to a Phillies or Eagles game, I might as well leave my phone at home.
Click to expand...

Same with my for home football games at Penn State. Might as well not even bring my phone to the game, i'll be lucky to get an sms out
 
this is normal for all networks... Big events tend to overload the circuits... it is nothing to do with signal, it has everything to do with the switch and circuits.

The tragedy here is not AT&T, it is that somebody actually WENT TO SEE BEIBER....
 
AT&T wasn't expecting the iPhone to put as much of a strain on their network as they thought, the best thing at this point is to get the iPhone on multiple carriers to spread the burden out.
 
Those of you who say its all AT&T do realize this is a problem for ALL mobile carriers right? AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. They ALL have this problem. When enough people are crammed in one area, they are all sourcing the closest tower and as a result - kill the network. The airwaves can handle only so much before they start to fail.
 
Hook'Em2006 said:
AT&T just doesn't want you at an eagles game is all. Unless the Cowboys are playing!!

Go Cowboys!!
Click to expand...

Even from a Longhorn, I strongly endorse this post. :)

yg17 said:
AT&T wanted to beef up the network for the Justin Bieber concert, but all of the auto-tune machines that he uses to sound halfway talented used up so much power that the Hoover Dam couldn't output any more to power AT&T's temporary towers.
Click to expand...

I don't even see how he became popular in the first place. He's got one song, where all he sings is "baby" for most of the song (and he didn't even write it, I'm sure!).


Anyway, anyone stating this is just an AT&T problem, has their facts wrong.
 
iPadPublisher said:
I've got a young daughter, so you can save all the anti-Justin Bieber comments for another time.

For the first time ever, I had a real problem with AT&T service while visiting Las Vegas this past week for the Justin Bieber concert. I'm in Vegas a lot for work, and have never ran into this. But this past Saturday, even while displaying full bars (under the new iOS bar display policies) I was unable to make calls, send texts or check email. My iPhone 4 popped between 3G and Edge a LOT, and the bars went from full bars to Searching a few times, but no matter what was being displayed to me it took 10-15 minutes to get a standard txt out, and more than an hour to send ONE picture via SMS.

This is Las Vegas, and we were at Planet Hollywood, in the epicenter of The Strip. Vegas is in the middle of a recession (read the headlines, Nevada's recovery is much slower than anywhere else), which means The Strip is nowhere near capacity. You're telling me AT&T can't handle a few thousand people in one area? God Forbid Justin Bieber, Lady GaGa and say Wayne Newton do a show all within a few blocks of one another on the same night... it'd be a cell network holocaust. This is largely disappointing, and as I said, for the first time gave me a reason to be concerned about AT&T service. Boo!!

Anyone else experience problems in Vegas?
Click to expand...

sound like someone is using their daughter as an excuse to enjoy justin bieber lol im just kidding on a serious note i didnt have any problems when i went to vegas last week.
 
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