It’s the height of tourist season in the Flathead Valley, and locals are posting to social media about overloaded towers, infrastructure that can’t handle the traffic and a music festival with no cell data.

“We notice with these types of events, the cell systems sometimes don’t hold up real well,” Sheriff Brian Heino told us.

We called around to local cellphone stores, and workers say the spotty service stems from a combination of issues, including increased network traffic from the Under the Big Sky music festival, a tower problem in northwest Montana and new towers not turned on yet.

“I know the cellular providers are working more and more on trying to upgrade those systems,” Heino said.

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