I was sitting in the stadium at the Fiesta Bowl monday night and had no service. Also had limited service outside the stadium. Never 3G, had Edge or O sometimes. Why is this? All my friends had service with Verizon. They were able to text and call from anywhere we went. We got seperated and I had no way to call them. Does At&t only have a certain amount of connections and is it way less than Verizon? It seems whenever I am at a mall, I also have no service. Normally I had no problems at home with the 3G. Strong 3G signal with no dropped calls. I upgraded to a 3GS last week and the 3G signal is never 5 bars.
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No Service Sitting In Stadium
- Thread starter blueturf
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I had the same problem when i went to the Cowboy game. Had to turn off 3g and use edge which barely worked. Im guessing everyone was on the phone and sending pics,facebook,ect. But there was over 100,000 people in the stadium and who knows how many tailgating in the parking lot.
Saturation. It's a similar situation to New York and San Francisco. Happened to me earlier in the year at a college game with 92,000 people around. When so many more people are sending SMS messages and a lot have Web-enabled phones, networks are going to be hella saturated. The addition of public WiFi to larger stadiums would be nice, especially when they charge $40/ticket.
this happens all the time when there is a high concentration of users in a small area. everyone is trying to access the same tower and its just congested.
$40 a ticket? Maybe for the nosebleed seats. The average NFL ticket price is now $75.
I was at a college game. That $40 is actually a joke because you can't really get to most games without a season ticket package, which is another $200-plus per season at least.
That average NFL price sounds about right, but I know Atlanta has had some cheap deals in the past. I bought a pair of $100 season tickets back in 2001 when we had the dog killer QB. They've gone up since, but I think you can find tickets there for $30 or less.
No matter how much, these NFL teams should be able to put in a decent WiFi network for the fans.
Football games are NIGHTMARES for cell providers.
* The number of people at games is higher than baseball, and like baseball, they're packed into a very small area.
* There are more and more people with cellphones, and they're not afraid to use them
* There are more and more people not just calling but sending SMS, MMS and other content. In the beginning this was seen more in college games but the olden folk are catching on in the pro stadia as well.
* There are distinct call/message peaks at the beginning of the game, each quarter and the half, plus when scores are made (especially by the home team)
Most of the tricks that have been used to increase cellular capacity (sectorization, downtilt, etc) don't work well in that small environment.
Other techniques that could be used are horribly expensive, especially when you consider there may only be 7-8 home games in a season - but cell providers know that they're graded on these kind of situations so the money may get spent.
As I've mentioned in some other threads, ignore the bars on your phone, they simply aren't any indication of service actually being available to you.
* The number of people at games is higher than baseball, and like baseball, they're packed into a very small area.
* There are more and more people with cellphones, and they're not afraid to use them
* There are more and more people not just calling but sending SMS, MMS and other content. In the beginning this was seen more in college games but the olden folk are catching on in the pro stadia as well.
* There are distinct call/message peaks at the beginning of the game, each quarter and the half, plus when scores are made (especially by the home team)
Most of the tricks that have been used to increase cellular capacity (sectorization, downtilt, etc) don't work well in that small environment.
Other techniques that could be used are horribly expensive, especially when you consider there may only be 7-8 home games in a season - but cell providers know that they're graded on these kind of situations so the money may get spent.
As I've mentioned in some other threads, ignore the bars on your phone, they simply aren't any indication of service actually being available to you.
I find AT&T's signal has piss-poor penetration within buildings and other structures. My iPhone often has no signal where my BlackBerry on VZW has full connectivity.
Yep it is something about the tech that ATT uses for 3G. Remember how on ATT you can surf the web and talk on the phone and on verizon you can not. Also remember cell phones are basically nothing more than a fancy 2 way radio.
Well in doing this 3G on GSM players like ATT require 4 channels for each phone compared to 2 channels on VZ phones.
Channels needed for ATT
1. Voice up
2. Voice down
3. Data up
4. Data down
Compare to CDMA
1. Voice or data up
2. Voice or data down
This mean CDMA can have 2 times as many phones on each given tower. Now this was just the very basics of the system but it helps to explain the problems in each system.
It is an example of CDMA vs GSM. CDMA is a more power type of signal so punches threw building better than GSM. Sucks but that is the basic truth to it. It a known problem of GSM. In the US the problem is made worse by both GSM and CDMA phones running at the same time. The stronger CDMA signal starts to drown out GSM so it gets that nice 1 2 punch to kill it with buildings.
AT+T sends voice and data together (you can call and access the web at the same time) while Verizon only allows voice or data. This means that AT+T's network has a much greater load on it.
Also, until the droid usage on the Verizon network goes up, the AT+T network will have a much bigger data load on it (blame it on the iPhone).
My iPhone is usually unable to connect to the internet at Fenway Park or Gillette Stadium. Once in a while I get lucky and get through, but more often than not, I can't connect to the internet. But for some reason, phone calls still seem to work.
In SF
What shockes me is that the service at the Giants game (AT&T Park for F's sake) is really spotty and unreliable. It was at one point the worlds largest hotspot or something like that, but its crap for 3G. At least it works and I can stream my MLB app audio on WiFi.
Where at the Cal football stadium I can't even send a text message. Ever. Not in two years. Spotty is one thing. Failure to place a text in an open air stadium is another.
What shockes me is that the service at the Giants game (AT&T Park for F's sake) is really spotty and unreliable. It was at one point the worlds largest hotspot or something like that, but its crap for 3G. At least it works and I can stream my MLB app audio on WiFi.
Where at the Cal football stadium I can't even send a text message. Ever. Not in two years. Spotty is one thing. Failure to place a text in an open air stadium is another.
Except that I want the sports set-up aka Slingbox replays of a live game while Im at the game on my iPhone.
When it works, it is GREAT to have the ability to go to your pocket live replay via Slingbox while sitting at the live event. As of now, the crap instadium service kills that.*
Yes I know that Sling is a WiFi deally now, but there are workarounds and it works on 3G for other networks.
I have found coverage to be spotty or non-existent at big events on both ATT & Sprint. It's the congestion of thousands of people sitting in one place trying to tap into the same pipes. I figure I can live for a few hours w/o being connected and enjoy the game.
However, what chaps me is when one of the carriers (ATT @ Cowboys Stadium, for example) are sponsors of the venue and they still have crappy service.
However, what chaps me is when one of the carriers (ATT @ Cowboys Stadium, for example) are sponsors of the venue and they still have crappy service.
$75?! You're not getting into a Giants game for under $200 unless you have your own PSL and season tickets which costs anywhere from $1,000 to $25,000. Any decent seat and you're paying $400+ per seat.
Last Saturday, I went to the Tennessee-Georgia game in Athens which was in Sanford Stadium (which holds around 92,000ish people). My Sprint iPhone 4S had 3G and like 4 bars the entire time but I couldn't use my data at all during the game... It flat out sucked, I'm wondering what the issue is with all the smartphones and their data problems at sports stadiums. (My friends AT&T iPhone 4 wasn't working as well...)