Austin360 blogs > Digital Savant > Archives > 2009 > October > 02
Friday, October 2, 2009
Sorry, iPhoners: AT&T networks not holding up at ACL
I was optimistic that the cell and data networks would hold up for Austin City Limits Festival based on what we were told on Wednesday, but if my experience so far today at Zilker Park is any indication, it’s going to be a miserable weekend for Twitterholics and mobile warriors who favor the iPhone.
AT&T’s services started off well this morning with Wi-Fi and 3G both holding steady. By noon, though, Wi-Fi was beginning to get flaky on my iPhone 3GS, working less and less. I turned off Wi-Fi and used 3G to post Twitter updates, check e-mail and upload photos. Soon, that was becoming flaky, too.
AT&T is encouraging fest-goers to rely on the Wi-Fi hotspots it has set up, but long before 2:30 p.m., when a mass of new people came into the park, they had become unusable.
By the time I set up camp for The Walkmen at the Xbox 360 stage, both networks (3G and Wi-Fi) were completely gone and even text messaging, my fallback for Twitter posts, was warning me that my texts weren’t going through.
It went on that way, with a complete lack of connectivity, until I left the park and was halfway down Barton Springs Road toward the American-Statesman building.
Every now and then, e-mails would pop through or a text would be sent successfully, or 3G would suddenly spring back to life, but I expended a big chunk of battery life simply trying to connect. If you don’t have a spare battery pack to juice up your phone, you’re going to have a hard time making it through a whole day at the fest with your iPhone still working. My advice is to turn off Wi-Fi if you can’t connect right away and maybe even 3G when you’re in a big crowd.
Not working? Try walking all the way across the park. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.
Bear in mind, this was early afternoon, before the big rush of people who show up for the evening headliners and who’ll further congest the data network.
It’s disappointing, to say the least. Was it too much to hope that the iPhone’s wireless carrier could keep up with the data demands of ACL weekend?
It seems, from everything I’ve seen the first day of the fest, that it was.
I wish I wasn’t having flashbacks of South by Southwest Interactive.
How are the other networks holding up? If you can read this and have info, let us know in the comments.
Below: three screens of defeat.
Permalink | Comments (42) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Austin, Internet, Phones
Dell intros Napster service for PC buyers
Backstage at the Austin City Limits Festival, Dell Inc. announced a deal with Napster to provide a year of streaming music service and 60 free MP3s from the music company’s library on some new PCs.
Dell said the deal with begin in late October with computers purchased at Best Buy and will be rolled out on Dell.com in November. Inspiron and Studio laptops will be included, but the company didn’t specify if it will be included on cheaper laptops like the Dell Mini line.
Buyers will be able to stream music for one year from Napster for a year and will be able to download 60 songs from the service. An icon for Napster will be pre-loaded on these PCs.
Also backstage at ACL, Dell gave a sneak peak at the next generation of its super-slim Adamo laptop and touted its Design Studio line. It also talked up Austin’s Bright Light Social Hour, the winner of this year’s Sound and the Jury contest, which the company sponsored.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: ACL Festival, Applications, Austin, Computers, Shopping
