AT&T service FAIL at CES 2010

I was just reading Engadget’s article about the best gadgets they used to help make their reporting of CES 2010 easier and more productive than ever.  They listed the different camera setups that they used, including the Canon 7D for video, which they have some cool intro reviews for.  Sadly, at the bottom of the list, one of the things that helped the team be successful at CES 2010 was a secondary smartphone that WASN’T on AT&T.  That’s right, cell coverage for AT&T was so bad that they couldn’t rely on their iPhones.  From the article:

Another city packed with iPhone-laden convention-goers, another fail for AT&T. Seriously, what else do we have to say? We couldn’t even send a text message on the busiest days of CES, let alone make a call or use data, and the only solution for getting anything done using an iPhone was to switch off 3G and take your chances with EDGE. Pretty sad, especially considering Clear had set up its own tower on the show floor just to offer better service and Verizon straight-up told The Washington Post that adding capacity was a “simple concept.” We have no idea how AT&T boned this yet again, but we do know that editors with Droids, Pres, and BlackBerrys not on Ma Bell were the only ones who could be reliably reached — and Ross Miller spent the entire week doing his data tasks on a Nexus One connected to T-Mobile and loving life. Oh, and when the NFL playoffs came around, we watched the Packers blow that huge comeback on iPhone SlingPlayer… connected via WiFi to Sprint 3G using the Overdrive. That was deeply sad for a variety of reasons. Get it together, AT&T.