AT&T trying to prevent mobile meltdown

AUSTIN (KXAN) - A sea of people swarmed outside the Austin Convention Center on opening day of South by Southwest.

The crowds are a welcome sight for Mike Lapagria who owns and operates Austin's Chicago Dog stand across the street from the Paramount Theater on Congress Avenue.

"I keep spicy mustard, sauerkraut for folks from New York, and do chili and cheese for all the Texas folks," said Lapagria.

He opened the stand during last year's festival and said business doubles and can even triple some days.

"We'll stay open til there's nobody left on the street," said Lapagria.

Speaking of streets, those surrounding downtown are already growing more congested. As drivers slow down so do cell phone signals.

"Clearly you've got high density power users of technology and smart phones here," said Travis Stiba.

Stiba said the Internet on his iPhone is not up to speed but others said their phones are working fine.

"I'm completely shocked," said Amber Raelambke. "Because I figured, bring all these nerds to South by Southwest and we're just excessively using our phones and its' pretty decent. So no complaints so far."

During last year's festival AT&T customers experienced a mobile meltdown. Dropped phone calls and slow Internet access were not part of the plan.

This year the phone company beefed up service to make the broadband better. Two temporary cell towers have been parked downtown along with a rooftop system.

Even more antennaes have been placed inside the convention center and AT&T said they have quadrupled communication between the cell sites and the network.

"Think of that communication as a two lane road that's now an eight lane highway," said AT&T spokesperson Mike Barger.

And that is a move SXSW fans can tweet about.

"What you don't want to do is have a bunch of techies angry with you for not being able to hold up your end of the contractual bargain," said Stiba.