San Francisco: The EDGE of madness

What happens when tens of thousands of Mac geeks, Apple fans, software developers, booth personnel, and journalists crowd into downtown San Francisco on a sunny week in January?

Macworld Expo happens, yeah. But that’s not what I mean.

Speaking as someone who works approximately five blocks from Moscone Center (I can see it from my window), I’ve spent the past six months getting familiar with how my iPhone works in various south-of-Market locations. More particularly, I know how fast my iPhone’s EDGE connection is.

But this week? Forget it. This week, the San Francisco EDGE network appears to have been demolished, exploded, gnawed by beavers, bitten by chiggers, murdered by pirates. Loading even as innocuous a site as PocketTweets has become a nightmare.

Apparently, every single one of the people at Macworld Expo has an iPhone. (Okay, everyone except Jacqui Cheng.) Hello, iPhone. Goodbye, EDGE network.

I’m excited about all these snazzy new WebClips I’ve stashed on my iPhone, but this week touching them only makes me cry.

Next week, I assume things will be back to normal. If AT&T’s cell towers haven’t melted into slag in the meantime.

Category: AT&T

Posted by Jason Snell on Jan 17 2008, 1:34 PM ET

Comments (6)

Do you think the 3G network would have fared any better?

Curious to see how those with Verizon or Sprint offerings felt about their web connections this week.

Posted by Distorted Loop | January 17, 2008 2:56 PM

Well i thought EDGE was slower im in Las Vegas i thought it might have been the update but no its been slower. MUCH slower.

Posted by edden | January 17, 2008 3:29 PM

My EDGE connection is slower now, since the 1.1.3 update, and I'm not anywhere near Frisco. :-)

EDGE just sucks. I was getting a pretty consistent 57k. Now I get 15.5k

Posted by Gavin Anderson | January 24, 2008 2:50 PM

Okay, I need to adjust my last comment, I tried a more iPhone-friendly speedtest just now and got 105k. But it sure seems slower. Maybe if I had run the same iPhone-friendly speed test before the update, I would also have gotten a higher number.

Posted by Gavin Anderson | January 24, 2008 3:03 PM

Speaking of the EDGE of madness, -- this is maddening! I just took the same "iPhone-friendly" EDGE speed test two more times, and I got 27k and 17k respectively!!

Is there an Apple Convention going on in Downtown Memphis??

Posted by Gavin Anderson | January 24, 2008 3:29 PM

My EDGE has been down for MORE than the past TWO WEEKS! I live on Market St. near Moscone too.

Does ANYONE know what's going on with AT&T?

PLUS, does it also seem that AT&T is adding a TON of extra charges? My mom has an iPhone too and hardly uses it... her bill was $170!

Posted by Joe Benjamin | February 15, 2008 10:37 AM

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