Regardless of the results of Operation Chokehold — blogger Fake Steve Jobs’ call to overwhelm AT&T’s wireless network at Friday afternoon — the point has been made, at least according to the site that spearheaded the effort. Reports on The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog and at the Operation Chokehold Facebook page reported some slowdowns, but they weren’t overwhelming and couldn’t be attributed to the protest.
At 4:29 p.m. Eastern, a user called Lastangelman posted this comment, “Appearance-wise, it looks like a fail. The network is holding, at worst it’s about the same as before. On the other hand, the Twitter feed is going nuts, lots of people united on this. Now can we please switch from AT&T? Nothing gets a company chairman’s attention [quicker] than 30 million users opting out of the revenue stream, especially in one day.”
An AT&T spokesman, in response to an e-mailed question, said the network “saw no impact” from Operation Chokehold.
Anger Over Service
Bill Ho, research director for wireless service at Current Analysis, said the protest was a reaction to AT&T Mobility President and CEO Ralph de la Vega’s comments at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference last week. De la Vega appeared to blame the well-documented difficulties AT&T is having supporting the iPhone on a minority of users, and hinted at a surcharge.
De la Vega said about three percent of iPhone users consume about 40 percent of network usage. Columnist Dan Lyons, aka Fake Steve Jobs, and protesters appear to think the company’s strategy is to blame the victim.
“Certain people believe they have the right for something for free or to say it is overpriced, that it should be cheaper,” Ho said. “They are really angry that the network is not performing to the level for what they are paying, and I guess they…