
AT&T Fails The SXSW iPhone Test - ksvs
http://www.businessinsider.com/att-fails-the-sxsw-iphone-test-2009-3
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AndrewWarner
I ran into a couple of the guys from AT&T here. They said that they didn't
anticipate how many iPhones would be at the conference.

They showed me the emails they sent back and forth with John Donovan (AT&T
CTO) about the issue, and said they worked like mad to increase capacity.

(BTW, according to the sig files in his emails, looks like John Donovan is on
an iPhone.)

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Sam_Odio
Looks like AT&T has responded to the twitter outcry:
[http://gigaom.com/2009/03/15/tweeting-works-att-boosts-
sxsw-...](http://gigaom.com/2009/03/15/tweeting-works-att-boosts-sxsw-
network/)

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jwilliams
I've been to a few big events in Australia - and the big telcos deployed
portable mini cell's in order to handle the load. Anyone know if AT&T is doing
this at sxsw?

~~~
wmf
I don't see any on the street outside.

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mattmaroon
It's still baffling to me that Apple chose to tether themselves to AT&T. They
built a mobile browsing device that almost 2 years later is ahead of the
competition (at least for now) then tethered it to the worst data network
available. It's like they built a Ferrari with wheels that fall off at 65 mph.

~~~
feverishaaron
I am guessing they didn't have a choice. When they approached carriers, they
didn't show them the phone. It was a "trust us, this will be awesome"
situation. If you remember, when the iPhone was announced, a VP at Verizon
bragged about passing up the deal. It seems that AT&T was the only carrier to
trust Steve, much to their credit.

Apple also had stipulated very strict and unusual terms regarding revenue.
AT&T was smart to see the upside potential of a radically new device causing
users to switch to their network -- again, something that Verizon ignored. You
have to give AT&T credit. Even though they have a horrible network, they are
very strategically savvy.

Here is the whole story: [http://thewickedwoman.com/2007/07/08/why-apple-
chose-att-for...](http://thewickedwoman.com/2007/07/08/why-apple-chose-att-
for-the-iphone/)

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siculars
I have both the iPhone and a blackberry on verizon and I can confirm hands
down that verizon is far superior to att (I'm writing this on the iPhone now
and it's auto complete turned att to AT&T... Lame). FYI, I live in NYC but
when traveling nationwide have had the same experience.

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gojomo
Too bad AT&T doesn't have a femtocell product that can route iPhone traffic
over local internet connections.

Oh, wait, they do! It's in testing with their own employees. See:

[http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Femtocells-
in-2009-99...](http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/ATT-Femtocells-
in-2009-99608)

Not deploying a few to SXSW would seem a major blunder and lost opportunity --
unless the units are currently so awful they'd be even worse then the current
complaints.

~~~
wmf
AFAIK a femtocell can support fewer than a half-dozen phones; you'd need a ton
of them to handle the Austin Convention Center. It's not even clear that such
density is possible from an RF engineering perspective.

OTOH, T-Mobile is fine and the wi-fi works well (which is impressive with
~3,000 simultaneous clients).

~~~
gojomo
I know nothing of the technology itself, and I would love to hear from an
expert. But to speculate:

If the femtocells are to work in an urban environment, they'll have to work
with many to a city block -- or even single apartment building. That is, about
the same density as wifi access points. I can see 7 SSIDs right now from my
kitchen table; from the roof of my building I can see 20-something. (Of course
only a fraction of these are usefully connectable.)

So why not a femtocell in the ACC everywhere there's a wifi access point? That
would seem to mirror the best case for deployment once they're for sale to
home users.

Or at least a half-dozen in the corners of the venue? So at least a few people
can report back about islands of good coverage?

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dustineichler
what else is new, even around the apple campus service is laughable. with att,
i've come to expect nothing so i'm surprised by everything.

