Operation Chokehold Fails to Cripple AT&T

The digital flash mob assault on AT&T's network that began at 12:00 noon Pacific Time on Friday rushed in like a roaring three headed monster, but ultimately limped off into the horizon without ever bringing AT&T to its knees as promised.

Many of the 4,300 members of the official Operation Chokehold group who rallied to the Fake Steve Jobs inspired revolution, kept anxiously looking for confirmation throughout the golden hour, hoping their efforts were having the desired effect. A screen shot pointing to outage in Colorado offered little proof that AT&T took a significant hit from the iPhone onslaught.

For the iPhone Savior news team, it was spotty AT&T service as usual. We rode the chokehold wave for the entire hour here in Seattle, data hogging video after video via YouTube. We experienced no real change in download speeds, even after loading up videos of ten minutes in length or longer.

In the end, the exhausted Facebook leaders of the iPhone flash mob revolution ended up being the ones toppling over, informing their legion of protesters that they were going to take some much needed rest.

"Thanks to all who participated. The 3 of us running this have had almost no sleep since Tues. So we are going to check out for a bit. We will be back in a few hours to announce the usage winner. Thanks again!" - Operation Chokehold

Although there were a flurry of reports claiming network slowdowns from the Chokehold coalition, AT&T's 3G network seemed to plug along just fine Friday. When the data hogging smoke cleared shortly after 1:00 PM PST, the number-two wireless carrier was still standing strong.

Fake Steve Jobs, who originally sparked the entire OpChoke shiteree reported that his iPhone service was unchanged at 12:19 PM. Lyons is clearly the ultimate winner of the media glut surrounding "Operation Chokehold", as it should be since he birthed the ingenious two hundred pound baby gorilla.

"As far as I can tell, there’s been no impact at all," Dan Lyons on his The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog at 12:19 p.m. "My iPhone is working just the same as ever."

Even if Operation Chokehold failed to have the devastating impact on AT&T that most of us rallied for, the huge win that every iPhone user can gloat over is the fact that AT&T has been put on notice by its smartphone shareholders. iPhone fanatics are not going to continue to pay a premium for spotty, substandard service. End of story! We are a force that cannot be ignored or taken lightly.

I would expect that AT&T's CEO Ralph de la Vega, will take much greater care with his comments to the media when the end result could affect the pocket books of iPhone users. Bullying customers over data usage in the press is truly careless and irresponsible. Calling for a digital flash mob revolt against AT&T, not so much.

"Yes AT&T Survived, But now that we have this much press its time for round 2, hopefully they will take note and invest in their network, rather then spending it on sloppy ad campaigns." OpChoke member Mend Stern wrote on Facebook.

Well said Mr. Stern! My thoughts exactly.

Comments

[skin moles]

Oh! That's to bad. I hope that they could fix that as soon as possible.

[phone lookup]

I somehow never got the memo for this. It must not have been that big.

[ClubPenguinCheats]

Bring the press and notoriety to bear on issues like broadband penetration, quality, and net neutrality, or try to keep doing the same thing over and over again to diminishing returns.

[E.J. Sadler]

The true win is that OC proved a few 'bandwidth hogs' are not slowing things down, and that the forewarned tiered pricing is just profit motive.

[BD]

Ma Bell probably made use of peering arrangements in those metros with the highest concentrations of iPhone users.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peering

To my mind, the real question is whether the minds behind this thing are willing to make common cause with the wider technology community, and bring the press and notoriety to bear on issues like broadband penetration, quality, and net neutrality, or try to keep doing the same thing over and over again to diminishing returns.

There's so much potential here to educate the public on the real issues surrounding telecommunications policy. It'd be a terrible shame to waste it.

But, time will tell.