Though I’ve only been to Austin once, in just a short time it has propelled itself to my short list of favorite American cities. On my bucket list this year was a trip down to Austin for the illustrious South by Southwest, the music, film, and recently startup and application launch/promotion conference which takes place March 9th through the 18th in Austin.
Coincidentally, SXSW 2011 took place alongside the launch of Apple’s iPad 2, and Marin was live unboxing Apple’s latest tablet on the streets in Austin. With the iPad 3 launching in the same timeframe this year, perhaps we’ll see an iPad 3 unboxing in similar fashion.
I sadly won’t be able to make this year’s SXSW, but we know many of you out there might, and we have some good news for you if you also happen to be a Verizon customer. While Verizon has arguably the biggest and fastest 4G network in America, its service sometimes struggles when events with multiple thousands of people all converging on a single location, such as the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, CTIA, GDC and many other large trade shows around the country.
Verizon has worked to enhance coverage and increase capacity at the SXSW event so that Verizon customers can enjoy the shows and share pictures and video with friends without missing a beat. Verizon launched its 4G LTE network in Austin back in 2011, though with an estimated 5% of customers owning a 4G smartphone, we expect that LTE likely won’t be a problem for those who attend. If you have a 3G device on Verizon, here’s hoping they increased capacity on their towers enough (or brought in enough temporary towers) to meet the increased demand for services.
[via Sacbee]