Black Eyed Peas Calls Out AT&T for Lack of Service

The Black Eyed Peas' Will.i.am recently called out AT&T for faulty network coverage when his attempts to tweet during the band's Super Bowl halftime performance were curtailed by his smartphone's lack of cellular service.

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The frontman recently bashed the Dallas, Texas-based carrier in a series of tweets following the Black Eyed Peas' halftime performance during the NFL's premium sporting event.
"Att crashed ... ahhhh!!!! The worse," tweeted Will.i.am, who has more than 800,000 followers of his Twitter account. He followed up that tweet with another, saying "At&t??? Wow...no service during halftime...unbelievable."
The band leader had originally planned to connect with his Twitter followers during the performance, in a move that recognized the increasing role that social media is playing in engaging audiences.
"Here we are in 2011, and social media is very important,'' said Will.i.am, whose Twitter handle is "iamwill."
Will.i.am had built up anticipation on Twitter, sending out several messages before the show, which found the band performing hits like ''Pump It" and "Boom Boom Pow." They were also joined on stage for brief appearances by former Guns 'N Roses guitarist Slash as well as pop star Usher.
AT&T offered no comment yet on the lack of service during the performance.
Will.i.am's recent criticism of AT&T is a high-profile incident that adds upon the carrier's recent woes concerning its network performance. The company has taken a beating for the amount of dropped calls and data congestion its network, which is exacerbated by the number of iPhone users on its network, who tend to incur higher rates of data usage with their devices.
AT&T had been the exclusive carrier of Apple's iPhone handset until this month, when the handset expanded to Verizon.
Cited by Consumer Reports as the worst U.S. carrier in terms of performance, AT&T has been racing to cope with the demands on its network, especially in urban areas such as New York City and San Francisco where the concentration of iPhone usage is highest. it has also readjusted antennas to improve signal strength in office buildings, opened up new airwaves to better handle data traffic and beefed up towers with speedier HSPA-plus technology.
AT&T has even experimented with offering service over Wi-Fi in urban areas, and is rolling out more "Wi-Fi hotzones" to deal with network congestion. But apparently it was not enough for Will.i.am, who found himself without service in the middle of one of the most high-profile events in his band's career.