If I had to guess again, I would guess that there were not enough channels available on the closest cell site to handle connections from 50 handhelds, in addition to whatever other handhelds are close to the site. I know on Rogers GSM/GPRS network, there is always 1 frequency with 8 channels dedicated to data, but if the other frequencies are tied up with voice, and you have more than 8 GPRS clients, someone ain't gonna be happy...
cd.