AT&T Can't Cover 3G iPhone Demand At SXSW

By Jack McCarthy, ChannelWeb
9:20 PM EDT Mon. Mar. 16, 2009

The South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin is getting to be a well known and well liked gathering for music, independent film and interactive technology, including its Interactive Web Awards. But the rush of 3G iPhone users at the festival quickly overwhelmed AT&T (NYSE:T)'s networks over the weekend, outraging festival goers at the "unprecedented" the tech failure.

An embarrased AT&T had to act fast to try to remedy the situation, with spokesman Seth Bloom sending this message Sunday to GigaOm:

"To accommodate unprecedented demand for mobile data and voice applications at SXSW, we are actively working this afternoon to add capacity to our cell sites serving downtown Austin. These efforts are ongoing, but we anticipate that customers should see improved network performance this evening and for the remainder of the event. We will continue to monitor network performance throughout the event, and will do everything possible to maximize network performance throughout. We apologize to customers who were inconvenienced during this surge in local network demand."

The carrier said it was acting quickly to restore capacity to its network in downtown Austin and promised to get service restored as soon as possible.

While festival goers wait for service, at least they can check out the music and films.