Filed under: iPhone
Watch out AT&T: Operation Chokehold is coming
After Ralph de la Vega, chief executive of AT&T Mobility, stated earlier this week that he wants iPhone users to limit their data usage the web exploded with anger. The New York Times sided with AT&T, but others thought that was bogus. Now Fake Steve Jobs is getting in on the action. Fake Steve is telling iPhone users to go crazy with their data usage this Friday, December 18, to teach De La Vega a lesson in for trying to stifle his customers contract-given-rights for unlimited data usage.Subject: Operation Chokehold
On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. The idea is we'll create a digital flash mob. We're calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!
I'm in the UK where we have multiple providers to choose from (as many countries do), but I can understand the frustration US users have with being limited to only one carrier with poor network performance and then being lectured about their data usage.
So TUAW readers. What's it gonna be? You going to do a little choking come Friday?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Olly said 7:50AM on 12-15-2009
Bear in mind emergency calls may not be able to go through if the network is crippled; though I doubt it will effect it to that extent.
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Jeff Court said 8:04AM on 12-15-2009
Emergency calls are on dedicated towers, etc. They have nothing to do with the performance of the network. For example: my friend was lost in the Mojave desert and his cell had absolutely no signal. He called 911, and the call went through fine. That network is different and "hidden".
BigC said 8:15AM on 12-15-2009
@Jeff Court
ROTFLMAO!
Unless I missed a smiley, that post made my day :-))
Nick said 11:19AM on 12-15-2009
the emergency call post is correct. tower priority is given to 911, and if there is a tower in range that will support your frequency it must pass that call through.
nikhilvgs said 1:13PM on 12-15-2009
Give me a break - there are no dedicated towers. The reason why your friend got through is that there was a rival operator who had a tower in the neighborhood. 911 calls search for signals from all possible operators. In fact, you can call 911 even if your service is canceled by your operator.
CHRiS said 1:14PM on 12-15-2009
They are not hidden nor dedicated - its more or less a QOS. The same with "VIP" flagged calls (e.g. FEMA during a FEMA emergency).
Peter Cucchiara said 6:57AM on 12-16-2009
I think that is a stupid idea. I depend on this for a business. Why would I want to bring this network down I think it's ignorant. There are other ways to do the same thing.
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Heimbachae said 8:01AM on 12-15-2009
i'll be there.
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Care Bear said 8:04AM on 12-15-2009
I think its a fair enough comment from the fake steve. If you pay for the service, the company should not complain when you take full advantage of it.
Im sure ATT has made a great deal of money out of the iphone, and some profits should be pushed back into the infrastructure to please the customers.
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Sonia said 10:50AM on 12-15-2009
The thing is, they are begging to keep the iPhone. Let's be real, the only reason AT&T is doing well at all is because it has the iPhone. Once AT&T loses exclusivity they will lose a lot of money. They should not complain about data usage. 65% of internet usage from smart phones is through an iPhone. It's kind of an oxymoron complaining about usage but begging to keep exclusivity. Work on your network and EVERYONE will be happy to stay with the carrier. How difficult is it to grasp that. People go to Verizon, not because it is cheap, but because up until now it has had the most reliable network with the most coverage and people are willing to pay a premium for not having dropped calls and to have good call quality. I would be glad to stay with AT&T if they innovated and worked on perfecting the network they currently have in place. Until then I don't give a damn about their bitching and moaning.
Fubar said 8:04AM on 12-15-2009
CRIPPLE AT&T!
I love it!
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Noah Ramon said 2:25PM on 12-15-2009
Yeah, "cripple AT&T" seems a little redundant.
Joe said 8:07AM on 12-15-2009
I use the hell out of my iPhone and rarely go out of my way to find a WiFi access point and I don't come near my 5Gb a month limit.
Much like Comcast's 250 Gb/mo limit, I wonder how close the people that complain come to these caps.
As a power user who does consume tons of bandwidth, yet never comes close to my caps, I'm actually beginning to tire of these rumored "top 3%". I say screw 'em.
Thought in AT&T's case, if you dropped users over 5Gb down to EDGE, I'm pretty sure your problem would be solved.
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iansltx said 11:26AM on 12-15-2009
AT&T is actually thining of scaling down iPhone data plans further. 5GB if fine for the iPhone, but 500MB or wouldn't be...
Kurosan said 6:48PM on 12-15-2009
Thank you for posting Mr Industry Shill...and now back to our regular comments...
Joe said 7:19PM on 12-15-2009
Not so much.
I'm just saying that I, as a heavy data user, don't come near my 5 Gig limit. This makes me think that AT&T and Comcast (the only ISPs that I have first hand experience with) may not be entirely lying when they talk about how it's only a very small % of the people that use most of the bandwidth.
What's the harm in dropping a user who crosses a threshold to EDGE? I'll agree that there should be an option for the superuser to pay more to not have that happen but if AT&T set a reasonable limit, as they have, then it shouldn't be a problem.
I sit at South Station in Boston EVERY SINGLE DAY with full bars and
Jk said 8:22AM on 12-15-2009
Ummm. Won't that prove his point??
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chrono said 8:20AM on 12-15-2009
This isn't about usage, it's about charging heavy users more and not charging light users any less... it's about squeezing more money out of iPhone users before AT&T's exclusivity contract runs out...
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Jack said 8:23AM on 12-15-2009
I think speedtest.net is the best app to use the data, just spam it~
http://appshopper.com/utilities/speedtestnet-speed-test
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David said 4:18PM on 12-15-2009
There are plenty more data intensive ways of doing it. Personally I would say speed test is not very intensive. It only sends a small packet of data.
If you have a mobile me account you could put a 100 meg file on your account then download it with the mobile me app.
Youtube would also be much worse, you could find a few long videos and get going on that.
Jailbroken Iphone users can download a "trail" of TomTom over 3G / edge.