iphone + election day + Madonna concert = meltdown in downtown San Diego

[djrobsd]

Not sure if this is a generic problem with the iPhone at concerts and sporting events, related to election day, or a combination of the two, but the data services were completely non-responsive last night at Petco Park in San Diego! I'm guessing thousands were probably trying to refresh their screens with election results, but who knows. Seems like AT&T might want to get some engineers over to Petco park and make sure their data networks are functioning even when the stadium is full... Or perhaps it was just election day!

LOL

 

[camarobh]

My wife and I were there also and both of our iPhones had the same problem, little to no data access. I attend 20-30 Padres games a year at Petco and have never had a problem with data access, so I am thinking it was the confluence of events that you outlined.....

 

[jlake02]

Yeah I would guess the election had the system jammed

 

[Auzburner]

Yeah, that would make sense. I had slower data in Central New York all night last night. It was surely the intense and widespread usage.

 

[nickspohn]

that's what usually happens.


new years is probably the biggest hog. followed by the election, christmas eve, etc.

 

[djrobsd]

Well at least I never lost text messaging.

 

[jhkaplan]

I was at the Obama speech in Grant Park last night, and none of us had data access. I could make a phone call and send a text, but I could only receive texts when I was on the phone. I would get zero texts in standby mode, but the second I made a phone call, I received an avalanche of texts. But no data at all last night.

 

[Compile 'em all]

It is not iPhone specific. Cells are designed to handle an avg. number of users and when a certain number is exceeded, performance will degrade.

 

[PoitNarf]

Madonna concert? The data channels were probably jammed because everyone was trying to occupy themselves with something else on their phones so that they could mentally drown out Madonna's voice

 

[daniels]

I'm in Boston and within 15 minutes of Obama being declared the winner I stopped getting calls. Voicemail was still downloaded, texting still worked and data still worked but I couldn't make or receive any calls. All of my friends with me had verizon and their phones worked perfectly

 

[Loonytik]

Happens almost anytime you are at a large scale event and with almost any cell phone. It is certainly not uncommon.