As anyone following at attendee or two of South by Southwest 2009 on Twitter can attest to, AT&T’s network down in Austin Texas is completely hosed. The tweets speak for themselves; Dropped call number 833, AT&T’s data network is down again, ^*%)*&%^)% AT&T!, and so on. Apparently the complaints aren’t isolated to Twitter as AT&T has responded publicly to the situation and stated that it intends to address its troubled network by upping capacity immediately. In fact, it expects the improvements to be felt already today:
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.
Wow. If it’s that easy, AT&T, how about doing something about the disaster your 3G/3.5G network in the New York Metro area has become?
