According to a post on ZDNet’s Apple Core blog, so many people attending the MacWorld conference in San Francisco this week are using the highly touted cloud data-driven features of Apple’s iPhone that it’s almost impossible to access AT&T’s 3G network.

Phone calls are hit or miss… About half of my calls don’t connect, fail in the middle or otherwise have weird silent dropouts throughout the call… Data connections on AT&T are brutally slow… I thought SF was supposed to be wired?

Maybe it’s just as well Apple is dropping out of the show next year. With attendance this year already down, it should really fall off when the main vendor doesn’t show up — if the conference happens at all. So maybe next January there’ll be no problem at all making pizza orders on your iPhone.

AT&T has backed down on their plan to install 850 large utility vaults throughout the city. As reported back on July 15th, there was a supervisors meeting on July 29th, and several neighborhoods organized a significant opposition and showed during this Supes meeting. The following report from one of my neighbors who was there:
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Many San Franciscans have waited a long time for utilities to move underground, at great expense of time and money to each homeowner who was lucky enough to have the utilities undergrounded in their neighborhood. The effort to underground utilities has made the city safer and cleared the skies of overhead wires.

Now AT&T would like to nullify that effort by “upgrading” their services and placing utility boxes above ground, in every neighborhood of the city. AT&T intends to upgrade its telecommunications network to a high-speed data transmission technology referred to as “Lightspeed.” In July 2007 AT&T posted flyers in the Inner Sunset neighborhood notifying residents of its intention to install above-ground utility boxes.

Subsequently the San Francisco Planning Department issued an environmental impact report finding that AT&T could move forward with its plans. AT&T immediately requested a permit from Public Works to begin installation. However, the permit was appealed by a neighborhood organization forcing a hearing before the Board of Supervisors. The Board will hear the appeal at its meeting on Tuesday, July 29th. The Board has the authority to deny the appeal or refer the matter back to the Planning Commission for review.

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