This year marked my first Boston Marathon.
It also marked my first experience with AT&T’s Athlete Alert System, which gave each runner the option of entering the mobile numbers up to three friends or family members who would receive text alerts at the 10K, half-marathon, 30K, and finish.
Sounds excellent, si?
Except that it didn’t work. At least not well.
My mom received one text alerting her that I had passed the 10K mark… over an hour after I had passed it. She also received a text saying that I had finished, which was symbolically pretty nice, but it was little help in actually getting to the finish line in time to see me cross. My other two alertees never received anything.
AT&T promoted the fact that the alerts worked on any network, but I suppose it’s unsurprising that my mom is on AT&T, and the other two are on Verizon.
With over 25,000 runners with three peeps a piece, that’s no small text messaging campaign; regardless, 2 out of 10 messages delivered are some disappointing numbers.
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