Another year, another major festival, another embarrassing fiasco for AT&T.
Last year, iPhone-wielding South By Southwest (SXSW) festival goers brought the Austin, Texas AT&T network to its knees with their barrage of 3G network usage. Needless to say, lots of people were upset, and AT&T took even more flack than it usually does.
Apparently not learning from its past mistakes, AT&T dropped the ball last weekend at Indio, Calif’s massive Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Reports of dire network situations flooded in over the weekend, as AT&T users complained of text message delays up to six hours, as well as total loss of 3G coverage.
Ironically, the 2010 Coachella iPhone app was also rendered useless by the lack of 3G coverage. Unable to tweet, text, upload photos, or access social networking sites, AT&T users were forced to actually focus on the music the festival is famous for. All jokes aside, it’s pretty disappointing that AT&T lacked the foresight to beef up its network for one of the nation’s largest music festivals—especially after its experience at SXSW. While AT&T did offer free Wi-Fi service for its customers at the event, many report that the service wasn’t reliable, or flat-out didn’t work.