Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

g0dsp33d writes "Fake Steve Jobs, the alter-alias of Newsweek's Dan Lyons, is calling disgruntled AT&T users to protest comments from AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega that smart phone (specifically iPhone) usage is responsible for their network issues and his plan to end unlimited data plans. The post, dubbed 'Operation Chokehold,' wants AT&T customers to use as much data service as they can on Friday, December 18th at noon. While Fake Steve Jobs is notable for its satire, many Twitter and Facebook users seem to be rallying to its cry. It is unclear if there will be enough support to cause a DDOS."

Comments

I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

"Internet braces for even higher levels of smug Apple douchebags"

Re:I read this as

[sopssa]

Well what are they going for? 19th is saturday, not friday. Maybe they should had check little facts like those before yelling everyone to join their clause.

Re:I read this as

[Pojut]

I agree. While I personally agree with Fake Steve Jobs in that the iPhone isn't the cause of AT&T's crap network, the lunacy that people defend the iPhone with is...well, it's baffling.

EVERY phone has issues, and the iPhone's issues are glaringly bad. It's a decent device that does its job well, but to claim that it is perfect is like saying 360's don't get teh red ring...

Re:I read this as

[Lumpy]

Um no, I use the unlimited data plan to afford it. it's $15.00 a month on my Nokia 5800 I use it for 90% email and 10% other. If they drop the unlimited plan then they will lose me as a customer.

The douchebags are the AT&T executives. I'm tired of them trying like hell to screw the customer.

Re:I read this as

[CharlyFoxtrot]

From the Fake Steve website : "On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees." Also every other site has managed to correctly report the date. You might want to check little facts like that before assigning blame.

Re:I read this as

[bsDaemon]

You forgot to note that he said "join their clause", rather than "join their cause", thus making himself just as guilty of typo's as the submitter of the article. And at any rate, the 19th was a Friday last year. Close enough for Zune timestamps.

Re:I read this as

[svtdragon]

Mod parent up. Informative.

Re:I read this as

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Except the iPhone get blamed for the wrong things. Does it have problems, sure, but don't blame the phone for problems on the network. I'm on an iphone in Europe and 99% of the criticism out there doesn't apply to me because I'm on a decent network. Most of the "problems" are pretty minor though so why do people feel the need to talk thrash about the iPhone instead of just accepting they don't like some aspects of it and getting another damn phone ?

Re:I read this as

[jitterman]

I actually do have an iPhone, purchased about 6 months ago (and while I like it, it's far from perfect - overall I dislike Apple as a company). Before that, my service was still AT&T using a Motorola handset. They both drop(ped) calls at about the same rate. I'm all for AT&T users demanding that the company provide service for ALL of its customers via a reliable, properly scaled network. If they're willing to sell the hardware that consumes the services, they need to buck up and provide the infrastructure to support those customers.

I really don't care WHICH phone Mr. Asshat Bossman of AT&T thinks is the main cause of his company's illness. Point is, they constantly rate dead last for reliability AND customer service among all national carriers. I can tell you this - ATT doesn't fix their problems in a fair (to the consumer) manner, when my contract is up I'll sell this little bugger to a "fanboi" and get a Droid phone, or even just a fucking regular handset, to get away from these clowns.

Re:I read this as

[Albanach]

If they drop the unlimited plan then they will lose me as a customer.

Really? What if the new plan offers more data than you currently still use in a month?

If you do leave, where will you go to? You realise other networks are likely to follow suit?

The problem in the US isn't the proposal to cap data. It's the complete and utter lack of affordable data in the sort of quantities the mass market needs to encourage mobile internet use to take off.

Re:I read this as

[Pojut]

I'm not talking about its internet performance, I mean as a device it has some fundamental issues.

I did accept that I don't like some aspects of it...that's why I don't own one :P

Re:I read this as

[NikLinna]

Perhaps because the closer something is to what a person wants, the more they're likely to notice and bitch about what's missing. Why bother bitching about the crappy products, after all? You know their makers aren't even trying.

Re:I read this as

[DJRumpy]

Mod this guy up. It's insightful on a few different levels. One for noting that AT&T had these issues before the iPhone came along and the other for noting that the problem is with the network and not the phone. You don't oversell your capacity. I was with AT&T and have been for about 8 years. The network hasn't changed. It was spotty then and it's spotty now. The last I heard most businesses don't complain when they have too many customers. They don't blame their problems on their customers either.

It just seems insane to me that a company would make their customers out to be problems.

On a personal note, I think this is just bait that AT&T is hoping will take, so that they can get on metered plans, just like Comcast threatened to do earlier this year.

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

join their clause.

He's making a list, and checking it twice...

Re:I read this as

[kailSD]

That's Muphry's law for you.

Re:I read this as

[Low Ranked Craig]

Please detail these issues. I've been using one since 2007, and the ONLY issue I have is the lack of multitasking, which is a big issue, but really, that's it, and on the original iPhone, multitasking would have been painful based on the start up time for apps and the slowness with which some of the mexecute.

Most of the "issues" are missing features that apparently, most people don't care about. Like me. Here's a list of a few things that I, and apparently a lot of people, don't really care about:

• more megapixels on a phone camera
• a flash on a phone camera
• MMS when you have e-mail
• copy and paste. I've used it one time and i won't have a need for it until the next time someone e-mails me the password for a wireless network

I'm not suggesting that the phone shouldn't have had these features, and others, from day one, but when people say the iPhone has "glaringly bad" issues, that is generally from their narrow, technophile's perspective. I like the minimalism and simplicity of the iPhone. That and the fact it plays Doom.

Re:I read this as

[Pojut]

Again, I don't think the iPhone is crappy, I just think it is ludicrous to act like there is nothing wrong with it.

yes, yes, I know...that's what fanboys do...but this trait seems to be exacerbated by Apple fanboys moreso than other groups.

Oh, except for Browncoats. Try telling one of them that Firefly is nonsense...it will likely be the last thing you ever say, lulz

Re:I read this as

[sonnejw0]

So, the retaliation against the AT&T CEO saying that iPhone users use too much data ... is for iPhone users to use too much data? How is that going to ensure that the unlimited pricing stays in affect? There's a clause in the terms of service that allows them to cut you off at any time if they deem you've used too much data... I hope these 14 year olds with iPhones are willing to become martyrs ... of course, it's the parents that are paying the bill, anyway. Hell if I've ever known a 14 year old that earned $150 a month.

Re:I read this as

[Cheeko]

I completely agree. I've had the unlimited plan for about 5 years, since my Original Rzr. I've since been using it with my iPaq and was just about to buy an HP netbook that I could drop my SIM into for data connections.

I've been an ATT customer for about 12 years, and if they drop the unlimited data I'll just switch to Verizon or Tmobile. I've been waiting patiently for a 'Droid phone I can use on ATT anyway, this would be the perfect time for me to just get one and switch carriers.

Re:I read this as

[Sylver Dragon]

You realise other networks are likely to follow suit?

I doubt it, it only takes one carrier to realize that they can pickup a ton of customers by offering an unlimited plan. They will simply need to figure out the price point at which it works for them financially, and get ready to deal with being crushed under the rush of customers. Take a look back to '96 when AOL became one of the first ISP's to offer unlimited plans. It was a disaster for a short bit, but drove sales like mad. In short order the other ISP's followed suit. And while several have threatened to go back to a per minute charge, it has never happened and it is never going to happen. The first ISP to do it will see their customers desert them in droves. Even if all of the ISP's out there get together and decide that they will all go to a per minute charge, it just becomes one huge game of chicken with the first one to break the trust winning the top market position.

The genie is out of the bottle on unlimited data plans. AT&T was happy to help remove the stopper, they are just pissing and moaning now because they didn't expect such high user demand and it's expensive to play catch-up. While having the iPhone as an exclusive device might keep a few customers, if they follow through on this threat, it's still going to kill their wireless division.

Re:I read this as

[novastar123]

What did you say?

  Mal: "I just wanted you to face me so she could get behind you." (Zoe punches the thug out) "Drunks are so cute."

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

What's sad is this comment is modded "funny" instead of "insightful" (and will be modded "troll" pretty soon when the Apple mob is out).

And it's insightful, because:
1. Apple douchebags think they are entitled to everything.
2. They went for this shiny toy from Apple when they knew they were moving to a shitty network.

Stop whining. You wanted the jesus phone and you went to a shitty network for it. Now live with it, or move to better networks (Verizon - better coverage, T-Mobile - you are treated like humans). But you can't do that - they don't offer the same shiny toy from your favorite company.

Re:I read this as

[timepilot]

* Tethering
* Voice Dial

My Fricken Razr can do these things.

And please don't tell me that you don't need tethering because the iPhone is such an awesome web client, because I DO need tethering since the iPhone has no good keyboard options.

Re:I read this as

[BuckaBooBob]

There is something seriously wrong with the contracts your signing if you need to wait untill your contract is up to switch carriers.. If you are paying for a service they cannot provide you should not be bound by the contract.. If they also change the terms (Eg get rid on unlimited data) that should also void the contract you signed and you should be able to switch providers without termination fees. There are laws that are put in place to prevent companies to abuse contacts in manners like this... Or are Carriers exempt in the US from these types of laws?

Re:I read this as

[Emb3rz]

* Tethering
* Voice Dial

My Fricken Razr can do these things.

A) Jailbreak (http://blackra1n.com/)
B) I have a 3GS, and it most certainly does have Voice Dialing.

Aren't geeks supposed to be knowledgeable and have a penchant for solving perceived problems through creative methods?

Re:I read this as

[Low Ranked Craig]

True. However, the device is perfectly capable of tethering - it's in the 3.0 iPhone code. I think you should look at the networks for this lacking feature. I think this have more to do with AT&T "protecting" their network than a flaw in the device. The 3gs has voice commands for dialing and other things... I've never been able to get voice dialing functioning with more than 80% accuracy on any device, so it's a feature I've not looked for in a phone

Re:I read this as

[immakiku]

Just a couple of points:

• Part of the startup time problem is that there's no multi-tasking. The app has to write all the stateful information to primary storage and then later load it on startup to give the appearance that it's multi-tasked. I bet if Apple allowed multitasking, many apps would load significantly faster (not that I advocate that, because the battery drains quickly enough as it is).
• The iPhone camera is actually very decent. Although no DSLR, sometimes I rather take pictures with the phone than my normal point and shoot even when I'm carrying it. So if the capabilities of the camera were enhanced I would absolutely notice and appreciate it.
• Actually AT&T allows MMS now, at least in NY.

Re:I read this as

[Low Ranked Craig]

That's true, and I hadn't really considered that aspect. I do find that switching between apps is a pain in the ass, especially the map app loads slowly. The camera on the 3Gs is decent. The camera on the original is very noisy and very slow. Not sure about the 3G. AT&T allows MMS all over, it's just one of those things I find fairly useless in light of the full e-mail client...

Re:I read this as

[jimbolauski]

The best part of you leaving is if you signed a contract and still are serving time you can get out, since ATT changed the terms you can break contract with out penality, then just jail break your iphone and go to tmobile for much cheaper unlimited spotty service.

Re:I read this as

[idontusenumbers]

Because almost everyone that 'likes' the iPhone is blindly following the popular crowd and not actually evaluating how crappy the phone is for themselves. People like myself who are able to independently determine how absolutely crappy the phone really is make a point to tell the sheep to get a clue as to hopefully improve the phone. My complaints with the iPhone are mostly service-unrelated.

Re:I read this as

[jitterman]

@BuckaBooBob: I agree. Unfortunately I'm as guilty as almost all other people in that I simply skim over or wholly ignore the fine print. I'm motivated now (horse gone, close the barn door!!!) to see if there are ANY ways out that avoid massive fees.

@DJRumpy: Thanks for the positive comments on my negative comment!

Re:I read this as

[asdf7890]

You don't oversell your capacity

Every service based business plan that hopes to compete and make a profit is based on a certain amount of over-selling these days. The question is how much to oversell while still m,aintainnig reasonable service 99% of the time (or what-ever you decide your margin is here).

Re:I read this as

[stdarg]

Well most likely there will be no impact from this stunt so they can say "See it's all BS."

On the other hand if there is an impact they can say "See AT&T sucks, iPhones shouldn't be locked into their network."

Re:I read this as

[Nikker]

The kernel multitasks fine its the window manager and the UI that won't allow it. If you jail break it you can multitask all you want.

Re:I read this as

[timepilot]

Yes, geeks are supposed to be knowledgable and have a penchant for solving perceived problems through creative methods:

Is spending $300 to update my 1yo phone to get voice dialing that already works on my 4yo razr "creative" or "stupid?"

Jailbreaking an iPhone may be considered creative to some. To me, needing to jailbreak an iPhone to get basic functionality is flawed, not creative. Really, are people still patting themselves on the back for jailbreaking?

Re:I read this as

[DJRumpy]

True. When you end up at the bottom of the list for service, reliability, and satisfaction, it's probably time to evaluate if you've oversold ;)

Re:I read this as

[Tyr_7BE]

More than a day of battery life?

Re:I read this as

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Tethering is a network operator issue. My operator allows tethering, works great. If you needed Voice Dial, why buy a phone that doesn't have it ? I'm sure some of those razr's have FM radio's too, the iPhone doesn't. You evaluate the spec and then choose the phone that's right for you.

Re:I read this as

[thrawn_aj]

You forgot to note that he said "join their clause", rather than "join their cause", thus making himself just as guilty of typo's as the submitter of the article.

*cough* =)

Re:I read this as

[cez]

The idea is to have many many people use their data plans at the same time... not to have them keep up the usage or do anything particularly wrong our out of line with the TOS. With a DDOS attack, the premise is to (pardon my old school reference) "ping -f"* a target, here the ATT Network, from many different unique sources. Wherein 1 person pinging the target is fine and falls under normal operations, 100,000 people pinging the same host at the same time... well not so good, despite the fact that each individual is doing nothing wrong, in unison and as a whole is when you have problems.

*IRC Wars were fun and edjoomacational... and a ping -f back in the day from an OC3 could alone take out a users dial-up or cable connection causing an effective DOS, no need for these newfangled botted DDOS techniques that are out there today... but eh, get off my lawn!

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

"Fake Steve Jobs" aka Daniel Lyons is well known to hate Apple in actuality. He's basically a MS shill in disguise.

Re:I read this as

[timepilot]

Yeah, I know. I'm just cranky today. There is a lot I like about the iPhone. I like that it's got an iPod, the GPS and Maps have saved me a lot of time and aggravation. I get good call quality. I can actually view some web traffic cameras when I walk out to my car after work. These are the things that made me choose the iPhone over other options when I got it, and they're still good today.

It's just that while the iPhone is a really great device, it is just not a really great phone. And it makes me cranky.

Re:I read this as

[jo_ham]

I'll just shoot you..... politely.

Re:I read this as

[torstenvl]

1. Customers paying $100/mo think they are entitled to $100 worth of network services and reliability

Fixed that for you.

Re:I read this as

[jo_ham]

My iPhone has tethering, and it's not even jailbroken.

Don't the blame the phone for being trapped in a country with shitty cellular providers.

Re:I read this as

[benjamindees]

That's funny that, for your rant, you randomly chose an age that is below the legal work age in most (all?) of the US, then proceeded to harangue this randomly-selected group of iPhone users for being irresponsible because they don't earn enough to pay for iPhone service, because they are legally prevented.

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does every post making fun of typos seem to include a typo itself?

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, its not even like they are "willing to sell the hardware that consumes the services" they went out of their way to get contracts with Apple to create a freaking monopoly so that you can only use an iphone on their service! In addition to which, the only thing they offer is the unlimited plan and as iphone user you have to buy that... So they really set themselves up for this problem and know they want to complain about it!?! I really don't understand what they were/are thinking...

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. That's like blaming some random Nazi dude for the faults of his political party.

The iphone and at&t are connected are they not?

Re:I read this as

[644bd346996]

If AT&T starts fining or dropping any customers for excessive use of the unlimited plan, that's a pretty easy way out of the contract without the early termination fees. Just drop the terms "breach of contract" and "false advertising" when complaining to customer service and they should realize that it's time to cut their losses and let you go freely. If not, you can take them to small claims court and they will probably end up paying you the early termination fees.

Re:I read this as

[Hijacked Public]

And people like me make it a point to question why people like you care what telephone I am carrying.

Re:I read this as

[TheSpoom]

I fully expect that AT&T, if they figure enough people will do this, will just shut down data service for a couple of hours that day. Or possibly ban anyone actually using it more than a certain amount.

Re:I read this as

[Low Ranked Craig]

Well, I don't have the 3G, but my 2G routinely lasts for over 2 days with regular phone usage, e-mail and some browsing, and it's 2 years old. Unless I play a lot of Doom or watch a movie. That significantly shortens the amount of time.

However, I agree. I'd prefer that the next iPhone be 2-3 mm thicker and that volume dedicated to a bigger battery.

Re:I read this as

[farble1670]

really. make a choice eh?

1. limit data usage for the top 5% of users

2. increase the cost of everyone's data plan so the top 5% of users can continue use 3g as their broadband connection via illegal tethering

all providers will face this problem, at least in the short term. at&t is just feeling it first because of the popularity of the iphone.

Re:I read this as

[iron-kurton]

Wow sounds exactly like my story. In fact, I still own my Motorola Q with a different number. The dropped calls are exactly the same (I'm on the phone every day on my two-hour-long commute, and sometimes switch phones, but the service drops at exactly the same spots on the freeway).

The exception is that the Motorola Q will randomly decide to reset itself, for no apparent reason (but we can blame that on Windows Mobile).

However, I would like to note that even though I have data plans on both phones, it feels like I use the data plan on the iPhone a heckuva lot more than on the Q. Partly because of AppStore/ITMS, and partly because browsing the internets on the iPhone doesn't make me want to gouge my eyes out and throw the phone against the wall. I have no hard evidence (i.e usage numbers), but I can tell you whenever I need to look something up on the internet, drive to a destination, download music, or anything internet related, I reach for the iPhone first.

In a sense, it's the iPhone's fault for all the alleged data usage, because it makes access to the internet easy and intuitive. If increased data usage causes more fees for the iPhone (and less eventual iPhone users), it would be truly ironic.

Re:I read this as

[Deosyne]

Then those customers should be happy. AT&T is providing the same level of service that they have been providing to their customers for a couple of years at the same price point. I finally left AT&T a little over a month ago after five years of using their service on my work phone and had no idea how bad they actually were until now. I figured all of the poor connectivity and dropped calls was either because of the phone I was using or a natural result of using a mobile phone. Turns out I was wrong on both counts.

Re:I read this as

[BACPro]

Please explain this to me.
The phone is less than perfect, you dislike Apple as a company, yet you still purchase the iPhone.

If you don't support a position a company takes, don't give them your money. Money is all they have to guage their success.

I purchased an iPod Touch Gen 1 then discovered how poorly they treat their customers, and won't get bitten again. $10 upgrade for cut and paste? 10$ upgrade for slower response? No thanks. Nice device, good UI, but the company sucks. iTunes is a bloated, slow, buggy piece of software (on the PC, unsure on Apple hardware)

Ditto for Sony. Proprietary and expensive gear, rootkits on audio disks, and so on.
They make some nice looking and performing gear, but I won't give them a dime because I disagree with their corporate tactics. /rant off.

Re:I read this as

[r_jensen11]

If they drop the unlimited plan then they will lose me as a customer.

Really? What if the new plan offers more data than you currently still use in a month?

Good question. I switched from T-Mobile to AT&T because I didn't perform enough homework and got shafted by T-Mobile's 3G network frequency. Apparently, T-Mobile decided they wanted to use 1700/1900MHz for 3G whilst AT&T went the more standard (for the Americas) 850/1900MHz. I, being the not-educated-enough consumer, purchased the 5800 whilst still a T-Mobile customer because I figured "It has a SIM card and is for North America, I should be good!"

Wrong.

If you only use WLAN and are fine with Edge, you can move your phone to T-Mobile. Otherwise, you're either stuck with AT&T or a regional GSM carrier.

Re:I read this as

[bkr1_2k]

Who said it was perfect? What I read is that Ralph de la Vega is blaming the iPhone for AT&Ts shitty performance when it performs just as shittily using other smart phones and when iPhones used in other locations don't have the same issues. Nobody said the iPhone was perfect.

Re:I read this as

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I'm wondering whether the exclusivity contract between AT&T and Apple has a "get out clause" in case AT&T is unable to provide sufficient service. Apple must be getting tired of this anchor around their neck by now.

Re:I read this as

[bkr1_2k]

Perhaps next time you should buy a phone then, not an "all in one" device that doesn't do any particular task as well as a dedicated unit would.

Re:I read this as

[Pojut]

Nobody said the iPhone was perfect.

I backed up my statement by invoking the "fanboy" clause...an obvious thing to do when discussing technology, but done nevertheless.

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPhone seems to drop calls way more than other devices on ATT under heavy tower load. It's not that it sucks or the network sucks but the combo in certain places is less than ideal.

Re:I read this as

[Itchyeyes]

So, the retaliation against the AT&T CEO saying that iPhone users use too much data ... is for iPhone users to use too much data? How is that going to ensure that the unlimited pricing stays in affect?

The point is not to prove that iPhone users don't use a lot of data, the point is to call attention to the fact that AT&T is nowhere near capable of providing the service that they are advertising and selling. It's entirely disingenuous for AT&T to use "unlimited data" in their advertising as a lure to attract new customers, then turn around and play the victim when their customers actually choose to use the service that both parties willingly signed on for.

AT&T wants the extra revenue that comes with these unlimited data plans and the customers that come with high-profile smart phones, like the iPhone, but they don't want the operating expenses that come with actually supporting these services. They don't get to have it both ways.

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

more megapixels on a phone camera
a flash on a phone camera

Hey! Speak for yourself.

I, on the other hand, happen to frequently enjoy a nice self-portrait taken with a cell-phone, and it’s helpful when the photographers had decent cameras in their phones.

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope these 14 year olds with iPhones are willing to become martyrs ... of course, it's the parents that are paying the bill, anyway. Hell if I've ever known a 14 year old that earned $150 a month.

I find your post to be so damn stereotypical. I'm an "apple douchebag" who happens to be over 14. In fact, I'm 35, have never owned another single apple product in my LIFE and paid $600 for the god damn thing because I waited so damn long for a "good" phone.

So no, you don't seem to know EVERYTHING... way to smear one demographic with the broadest brush you have, dipshit.

Re:I read this as

[bsDaemon]

What's life without irony? Just another episode of Law and Order, that's what.

Re:I read this as

[Brannon]

I promise you that I know more about whatever it is that you think you've got all figured out than you do.

And I still carry an iPhone. Suck it, fuck-tard.

Re:I read this as

[idontusenumbers]

Damn! Found your button!

Re:I read this as

[jmnugent]

> "Because almost everyone that 'likes' the iPhone is blindly following the popular crowd and not actually evaluating how crappy the phone is for themselves." Hyperbole much?.... I like my iPhone..I'm not "blindly following" anyone. I use it for basic stuff (phone calls, SMS, Twitter/Facebook and websurfing).. and it does all of those things pretty much flawlessly. (I've been a Windows guy for almost 20yrs )

Re:I read this as

[StikyPad]

It's one thing to expect them to provide a service as set forth in the contract. It's another thing altogether to expect them to work miracles to provide perfect service.

There are a multitude of reasons for dropped calls, only one of which is an overloaded tower, and even that may not be within the control of the provider. Interference, atmospheric ducting, zoning regulations, broadcast power and directionality of the cellular device, etc. All of these tend to be overlooked when considering "poor service," and the provider is arbitrarily blamed for variables outside of its control.

By its very nature, a cellular network cannot provide 100% reliable communications in all locations. There is a compromise between quality and convenience. If you can't accept dropped calls, use a hard line.

I'm not trying to defend bad business practices, just the reality of wireless communications. At some point "put up a new tower" is simply impossible or impractical. One could possibly argue that providers shouldn't oversubscribe their service, but due to the mobile element, you never know where people may be congregating at any given time. To prevent oversubscription entirely, you'd have to limit your customers to n per tower, and tell them they can only get service at that single tower, which is something that probably wouldn't play too well.

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: "I tried to buy an iPhone, but failed the credit check"

Re:I read this as

[acklenx]

How about

• folders to organize apps
• the ability to see what apps I've previously paid for (and deleted from my phone because I ran out of room) before I have to click to buy them again (and risk having picked the wrong app for which I will then be charged).
• The ability to put files (pdf, doc, etc) in one place that other apps can also access instead of each app having to download it from the internet itself
• The ability to turn off ALL sound before the app/video starts to play.
• The ability to record a call (they don't have to build it, just allow that app on the store).
• how about NOT putting the main speaker under the left side of the phone where I'm likely to block it when I'm holding the phone in my right hand
• how about filtering in the app store (I'll say it again - indicating previously purchased apps would be huge... before you purchase them)
• How about actually downloading that visual voicemail message so I don't have to be "connected" to listen to it

Nothing terribly difficult there. And there are a bunch of things that Apple could make better that they wouldn't even have to do themselves

• A better music/podcast interface (pocket tunes anyone? - apple only allows the radio only version)
• How about Google Voice
• How about moving contacts from one list to another on the phone
• How about moving photos from one list to another on the phone

It's not that the phone can't do the things people want (it can - just jailbreak it), it's that apple doesn't want the phone to do things people want. All that said the iPhone is awesome. It is a platform for greatness and therefor it is great. It is only diminished in so much as Apple restricts the apps that can run on it. What's wrong with google voice? Do you really think ANYONE will mistake it for the built in phone app after begging and pleading simply to get an invite? Really? Even when their phone rings every time they make an outbound call? Really?

I loved my treo and the apps on my treo (and I had hundreds), but the iphone blows it away with the sheer number and quality of apps (with a few notable exceptions - no astronomy program approaches the quality of astromist (at any price), and I still keep my treo around just so I can play ackwire)

Re:I read this as

[jitterman]

You are correct of course, that there are inherent problems in building a reliable cellular network. I work with a Motorola reseller right now (though not on that side of the business) and have had a *small* amount of training on tower and broadcast technology, so I do understand to a limited degree it's not as easy as setting up new towers (that's incredibly costly, for starters, and even when you ARE making a boatload of cash it's hard to earn the investment back). I simply note that at least for now other carriers seem - based on admittedly unscientific surveys that I've read - to have a more stable setup. There will still be dropped calls certainly, and as phones that do more than make calls continue to rise in popularity, we'll likely see a number of other carriers eventually suffer some of the issues AT&T is feeling today.

Perhaps they'll all want or need to go to metered usage at some point until some currently-unknown solution is found. Remember when minutes used to be twenty cents/minute or higher in the earlier days, rather than slightly more or less than a penny that is charged in the bundle options today? I'm hoping that eventually tech will emerge that will ease the data crunch. The companies will make a reasonable profit, the consumers will receive what was agreed upon in their contract.

Re:I read this as

[mrxak]

Maybe you could elaborate, so we know what you're talking about?

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you don't use more than the limit does not mean the limit is good for you. Who really wants to keep track of how much data they are using? If they establish a limit, how often will they change it on you, will it adjust upward as time goes on to keep up with applications? Unlimited service provides a feeling of freedom, one less thing you need to keep track of.

Re:I read this as

[Cyberllama]

Moreover, it's not as if iphone users aren't paying more for unlimmited data already anyways. Now AT&T thinks we might pay more to get less? AT&T only thinks they can away with this shit because, when it comes to 3g data on the iphone, they have a monopoly. I can't get it from anywhere else.

Re:I read this as

[nneonneo]

I got the 3.1 upgrade for my first-gen iPod Touch, and I have to say it's faster and more responsive than the 1.1 firmware. For me, it was worth it for the apps: I have nearly 100 applications, all obtained for free, and their total utility easily beats out the $10 I spent on the upgrade.

While I don't necessarily buy the "subscription accounting" argument Apple uses to charge for the upgrade (it really should be free, like upgrades for their other iPods, or upgrades for Zunes), I really can't argue with the increased utility.

I will agree on iTunes, though; it is quite a bloated piece of software, which is why foobar2000 plays my music, and iTunes syncs the iPod.

Re:I read this as

[Blakey Rat]

I've gone my entire life on ATT/Cingular and I think I've had one dropped call... ever. Maybe two.

What are you guys doing to get dropped calls? Or is it extremely location-specific? I've never understood this complaint.

Re:I read this as

[Penguinoflight]

3. Realize that you're still making bucketloads of money due to the overpriced nature of cellular and broadband services in general and stop whining.

Re:I read this as

[n2art2]

Yes there is a method, of "fixing" your iPhone without jailbreaking it to get tethering, as long as you don't upgrade past the 3.1 firmware update. Also Tethering on the iPhone is supported in many markets around the world. The phone is capible of it. Apple made the phone to do tethering, and I've used it, and loved it. It's AT&T, that doesn't want to allow on their network, because it would bring the network to it's knees faster than anything. Why? Because it is good. Because many people would use it. If I was willing to downgrade the firmware on my iPhone, I'd get tethering back again.

Re:I read this as

[Emb3rz]

Sorry if I came across the wrong way. Your comment sounded like: "I want it all, I want it now, and I want to not do any work whatsoever." I can see now that this is not your attitude. In light of that, my comment re: geekiness clearly missed the mark. Had that been your attitude though, all I meant by it was: if you want something to do what it does not yet do, find a way to make it do that, don't merely complain and expect that someone else will give you a magic bullet every time.

Re:I read this as

[bhtooefr]

The problem is, I can tether a Windows Mobile phone on AT&T if I want.

(AT&T sucks for other reasons, though, so I'll still avoid them.)

Re:I read this as

[Low Ranked Craig]

yep. AT&T knew that they were going to sell millions of iPhones and constructed the iPhone data plan accordingly. As someone else mentioned above, tethering works in other markets...

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, except for Browncoats. Try telling one of them that Firefly is nonsense...it will likely be the last thing you ever say, lulz

I can promise that if someone told me that, they wouldn't be standing long.

Re:I read this as

[jonaskoelker]

They both drop(ped) calls at about the same rate.

Could you please explain to a confused European what dropped calls look like? Is it (from both ends) as if the other party hung up?

(I hope I'm not coming off as smug about our wønderful telephøne system; I'm just curious.)

Re:I read this as

[Spazztastic]

Maybe you could elaborate, so we know what you're talking about?

You can't remove the battery. I want to be able to swap the battery if the lithium ion cells begin to die, which happens a LOT with lithium ion batteries. I don't want to have to send it away for 6 to 8 weeks.

Re:I read this as

[jitterman]

That's correct. What usually happens is you begin to have trouble hearing each other - the voice will fade away then maybe come back. Eventually your cell phone will basically think the call has been ended, and it will look at if the other person hung up - only it happens to both people this way. Anyway, that's the most common way it looks/happens.

As for being smug or not - ha! I wish the United States would be as progressive in some ways (especially technology) as Europe and Japan are. You are justified in being happy your system is more reliable :)

Re:I read this as

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you ever think to DROP AT&T? Don't like them? Hit them where they hurt in their pocket. If you don't drop them and keep paying them well its your fault your being f_cked bt them. I don't have a bit of problems out of AT&T's phone service. I don't use them and NEVER will. Before I use them I will go without a phone.

Really if you are paying them bastards shit like this is youe fault too. Your paying Mr. Asshat Bossman of AT&T salary and as long as he gets paid do you really think he cares about your service?

Re:I read this as

[plover]

The flaw in the device is not in its lack of tethering on AT&T's network, the flaw is that the device is entirely built upon the premise of Apple's locking down features that prevent you from fully using it. We all know what a general purpose computer is capable of. We all know what a general purpose smart phone is capable of. And we all know what a general purpose music player is capable of. We all are aware of feature after feature after feature that could exist, but don't in order to support some company's idea of restrictions, whether that be Apple, AT&T, the RIAA, or the MPAA. And Apple is at the core, supporting and even encouraging these restrictions, no matter how ridiculous they are.

Tethering is just one glaring example from the parent post, but there are other restrictions that are equally annoying. USB access cannot get to the phone's music via the folder structure, limiting music I/O to iTunes, which then prevents you from moving music from one place to another. It's capable of it -- you can get to the photos using USB mass storage -- but not music files. Bluetooth support is pathetic: There is no OBEX support; other manufacturer's A2DP implementations find ways to audibly bridge poor reception gaps, but Apple just leaves jarring holes in the sound; and Apple's AVRCP support consists of the "play" button -- not "previous track" or "next track", even though Apple recognizes those functions are of such importance in the music player world that they have been elevated to be available at the double-click of the button.

For a demonstration of the depths these ridiculous restrictions can go to, consider the "emoji" keyboard featuring the emoticons that are so popular in Japan. It is not available on the international keyboard list. The keyboard is actually present in every iPhone and can be access from the keyboard list if you flip a certain bit on, but to flip that bit there's a $0.99 app you have to buy (assuming you don't get a different app that includes it as a freebie function.) Why would Apple go to such lengths to restrict it? The only possible answers are sleaze and greed. And that's enough to make me regret owning the damn thing.

The problem is not that Apple doesn't recognize these as important features, because it's obvious they do. It's that they deliberately cripple the device to keep them out of our hands. Furthermore, third-party improvements that would add back these functions are strictly prohibited as long as Apple remains the gatekeeper of the iTMS.

Re:I read this as

[zioncat]

So, to protest AT&T planning to end unlimited data plans, some iPhone users will attempt a stunt "to call attention to the fact that AT&T is nowhere near capable of providing" the unlimited data plans. Yeah, makes perfect sense.

Should be

[Yvan256]

This thing isn't only for iPhone users. It's for every user of the AT&T network with a 3G device. And if AT&T had trouble with casual usage, wait until a lot of users try to bring the network down.

Can't wait to hear how the whole thing went for both sides of this story.

At least you guys have a choice of providers. Here in Canada, we almost have government-backed monopolies with even higher monthly bills.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry we have cable companies for that.

Re:Should be

[dorque_wrench]

All hail TWC!

Re:Should be

[NotBornYesterday]

Great. If this guy goes and speaks truth to power with a "digital flash mob", I can picture two outcomes. One: AT&T's digital network is brought to its knees, normal customers who are not part of the flash mob are pissed off, and AT&T issues a press release saying that unlimited data plans are obviously having a negative impact on the network and will therefore be terminated. Two: AT&T's network sees little or no disruption, and therefore they realize they have nothing to fear from angry customers. Unlimited data plans are terminated anyway.

Re:Should be

[Yvan256]

If they change the terms of the contract then those contracts are no longer valid, allowing customers to cancel them prematurely.

Given that those contracts are used to subsidize the cost of the phones, I don't think it's going to happen.

Re:Should be

[Shakrai]

At least you guys have a choice of providers. Here in Canada, we almost have government-backed monopolies with even higher monthly bills.

What do you think we have here in the US? Three of the four big providers have very little difference between them. They all have the exact same price plan for minutes. The only difference is the extra features offered. T-Mobile is the only one that actually offers more minutes/cheaper plans.

They are all government-backed too. Think you or I could start a cell phone plan? Think again. The spectrum is auctioned off the highest bidder. For a few billion dollars the entrenched interests can just gobble it all up regardless of whether or not they need it or intend to deploy on it.

Re:Should be

[Monkeedude1212]

Here in Canada, we almost have government-backed monopolies with even higher monthly bills.

In Soviet Canada, YOU supply PROVIDERS!

(I wish I was joking... grumble mumble Telus grumble)

Re:Should be

[sexconker]

Don't forget option 3:

AT&T's network is fucked over more than usual, and some people die because they couldn't make 911 calls. What, you thought taking down the data connection would have no effect on voice? HA!

Re:Should be

[Mister Whirly]

I thought Time Warner was bad until they were bought up by Comcast in my area. Comcast reduced the amount of channels I get, raised the price of cable by about 30%, and raised the cost of internet services by about 40%. I would kill to have Time Warner again.

Re:Should be

[Yvan256]

It's the same problem here with the spectrum... frankly, the airwaves should be controlled so it isn't total chaos, but it shouldn't be reserved to a handful of users (i.e. specific companies). We can manage to have multiple users of wireless networks living close together (apartments), wireless technology is now capable of jumping to free/less noisy ranges, split the bandwidth into multiple chunks, etc...

Why can't it work the same way for the other spectrums, and simply allow everyone to use other frequencies?

Re:Should be

[tverbeek]

Exactly. This smacks of someone getting very very angry and lashing out without giving any thought to what he's trying to accomplish, and how to achieve them. Sometimes an uncivil riot gets results. This isn't one of them. Stupid tactics, stupid strategy.

Re:Should be

[massysett]

hree of the four big providers have very little difference between them. They all have the exact same price plan for minutes. The only difference is the extra features offered.

Tell that to the ATT iPhone customers who wish Verizon would get an iPhone because the ATT network is no good, or to the Verizon customers who think they don't have any good devices available, or to the Sprint customers who are enjoying 4G.

Re:Should be

[ElectricTurtle]

If doing nothing will produce a negative outcome, and doing something will produce the same negative outcome, then why not do SOMETHING especially if it could at least shake some people out of AT&T's grasp through dissatisfaction?

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

Three (actually regardless of One or Two): AT&T presses charges against Fake Steve for organizing a DDOS attack against their network.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

not all iPhones are not subsidized by the plans.

you can buy an iPhone outright, and then get a plan, and the plan doesn't change. or you can renew your plan for an older iPhone, and the price doesn't change.

this is one of the glaring problems with cell carriers. they say that they must charge tons of money to make up for subsidized phones, but in cases where the phones are bought or are owned outright, the customer sees no relief.

Re:Should be

[bmearns]

I really want to reiterate the point of your first case, because I haven't heard enough people catching on to this: AT&T is blaming network issues on what they consider to be the high bandwidth that smart phones use. To protest this, smart phone users are going to try to bring down the network by hogging as much bandwidth as possible. With their smart phones.

Just wanted to make sure everyone understood exactly what's going on here...

Re:Should be

[maxume]

The plans aren't unlimited (at least as far as I understand reality), they are just unmetered. If the end game results in ATT charging people for what they use, who exactly suffers?

(I don't expect ATT to actually charge people what I see as reasonable prices relative to their costs for providing services, but that's just smart business on their part, there are many people who are willing to far more than what I see as reasonable, to the point that they pay large amounts to use a congested network)

Re:Should be

[Shakrai]

Valid points, but meaningless for the vast majority of users whom just use their cell phone for voice services. For those users there is effectively no major difference between AT&T, Verizon and Sprint.

Re:Should be

[countertrolling]

At least you guys have a choice of providers.

Incorrect. Dig down a couple of layers and you will find we, and everybody else, only have one. One, that collude on prices, collect all data for government and the "market" (government, but I repeat myself), and control what you see. There can only be one. Things might change if we ever take conscious control of our governments. Until then, suck it up.

Re:Should be

[canajin56]

Are you kidding? It's not like we're limited to the big 3 (Rogers, Telus, Bell), we have all sorts of other providers! There's KOODO, their ads lead me to believe they don't do all that nasty hidden fee stuff. Oh, rebranded TELUS to seem less evil? Oh, well, there's always FIDO, they make the same claims about being not as evil as Rogers in all their ads! Oh...they're owned by Rogers, to rebrand and seem less evil, too? Well, there's always Solo Mobile. Oh...same deal with Bell? Virgin Mobile? Oh, Bell again? Why do they need TWO sham fronts? My favorite customer gouging one was the guy who ran up the $60,000 monthly bill, because they sold him an "Unlimited* Data** Plan!" that didn't cover any data usage other than the phones built in browser, so all that smartphone shit that also used data was billed at dollars on the kilobyte. The best part of that was the way Telus or whoever it was was unrepentant "It's not our fault he did not fully read the contract, but out of sheer generosity we will reduce the bill to a mere 6 grand!" A close runner up is KOODO/Telus's promise of "No activation fee", while there is a cancellation fee that is due in advanced when you sign up! Sort of like Blockbusters "No late fee *cough*but-there's-a-restocking-fee-if-you-return-it-late*cough*"

Re:Should be

[pckl300]

The spectrum is auctioned, but the companies bids aren't made public to the other bidders. This attempts to ensure that fair market value is payed for the channels.

Re:Should be

[Coren22]

I love my Verizon Storm. Maybe people should stop thinking the iPhone is god and realize that they were quite late to the game with an ok offering.

Re:Should be

[AnotherShep]

We dropped Telus almost completely, and this is in Alberta! Vonage, Shaw, and Rogers now. The only Telus phone we have is a PAYG that we use when traveling because of back-asswards SaskTel, and crappy Rogers coverage in Sask.

Re:Should be

[nxtw]

Think you or I could start a cell phone plan? Think again. The spectrum is auctioned off the highest bidder. For a few billion dollars the entrenched interests can just gobble it all up regardless of whether or not they need it or intend to deploy on it.

US cellular/PCS licenses do have buildout requirements.

And yes, you can start your own cell phone plan by buying wholesale voice/data usage from an existing carrier. Think of devices like the Amazon Kindle.

Re:Should be

[Hynee]

If they change the terms of the contract then those contracts are no longer valid, allowing customers to cancel them prematurely.
Given that those contracts are used to subsidize the cost of the phones, I don't think it's going to happen.

Not really, there is always force majeur. They could use this "digital flashmob" to change their plans permanently, and carriers and ISP's in the US have been wanting to introduce bandwidth caps for a while now...

Either Dan Lyons is a complete fool, or is a man on the inside trying to change the attitude to bandwidth permanently. So who is Newsweek owned by?

I strongly suspect this is a stunt for the corporations, not to humiliate them.

Re:Should be

[davester666]

You forget, since AT&T cell network is considered critical infrastructure, everybody using their cell phones during this hour will automatically be declared domestic terrorists for trying to disrupt it.

Re:Should be

[lowrydr310]

Sprint has the lowest priced rate plans, without a doubt. I've been with them for over 10 years, and every year or so I think about switching just to try something new, and then I compare the prices of their plans and Sprint always wins.

Re:Should be

[tyrione]

I love my Verizon Storm. Maybe people should stop thinking the iPhone is god and realize that they were quite late to the game with an ok offering.

You lost me at ``I love my Verizon Storm.''

Re:Should be

[Monkeedude1212]

Shaw pulls the same Crap as Telus. I haven't tried Rogers but the flier they stick in my mailbox sounds about the same. And Vonage... I don't see why I'd go Voip if I've got a computer and Skype.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

They can change the terms of the contract for all new contracts signed. There's no reason why they can't selectively grandfather in the users who are still bound to AT&T by their contract.

They can also selectively change the terms of the contract for their heaviest users if they determine that those users are costing them more resources than would be lost if they asserted their rights to void the contract.

Re:Should be

[NotBornYesterday]

AFAICT (can't RTFA, slashdotted), the comments this guy is protesting are not for canceling contracts immediately, but more like "in the future, we'll probably stop offering that, and then sunset the existing contracts when they come up for renewal". Either way, I don't think this kind of protest is going to have any positive results.

If they did want to terminate the existing unlimited data plans and change them to metered plans, I suspect that wouldnt be as hard as you think. I don't know what the terms are of the AT&T contract are (are there any informed folks out there willing to share?), but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bit in there that allows AT&T to amend certain parts without negating the whole thing. They also probably have something in there that limits the consumers' recourse to 3rd party arbitration, which isn't really 3rd party, since it is a 3rd party of AT&T's choosing. Plus, if the consumer terminates early, they'll be hit with a termination fee to cover at least part of the subsidy. Would that be fair or nice? No, but so what? Most consumers would get the notice in the mail, get a little angry, and put up with it. Most iPhone customers aren't about to leave their iPhones behind to switch carriers, and most don't know how to jailbreak one.

Re:Should be

[ckaminski]

If the storm didn't have that clicky screen, and maybe had a real keyboard, ala the Palm Pre, I think it would have been a much more commanding hit than it was. It was sold as the iPhone killer for Verizon, but it failed to achieve much of it's goals. Most of the Storm early adopters I know were long-time Blackberry fans, and they HATED it.

An okay offering? I don't know if you remember smartphones around 2006, but messaging and browsing was absolutely horrid - the best probably being the WinMo smartphones, but even those were arguably horrible. The iPhone redefined ease-of-use mobile internet, just as the Pre has redefined connecting to people (whether the Pre has any staying power depends on Verizon getting some very soon, IMHO).

Re:Should be

[i_ate_god]

This thing isn't only for iPhone users. It's for every user of the AT&T network with a 3G device. And if AT&T had trouble with casual usage, wait until a lot of users try to bring the network down.

Can't wait to hear how the whole thing went for both sides of this story.

At least you guys have a choice of providers. Here in Canada, we almost have government-backed monopolies with even higher monthly bills.

In Montreal, I can get mobile service from Videotron, Rogers, Fido, Telus, Bell, Virgin Mobile, and their discount spinoffs like Koodo. There are plenty of companies to compete against each other.

The problem isn't the lack of companies to compete, it's the fact that there is very little motivation to compete HARD when every customer is locked into 2-3 year long contracts. I have 2 years left on my Fido contract, so why would Bell or Telus try to woo me away from Fido when I simply can't do it.

You want competition to explode in Canada? Remove these long term contracts or, remove the penalty for cancelling them ahead of schedule. Do that, and suddenly customers are as mobile as their phones and can move around to different companies, especially now that we can keep our phone numbers regardless of the company we sign up to.

Re:Should be

[spatley]

When I got My iPhone from AT+T I was told that the iPhone data plan is required for all iPhones on the AT+T network, regardless if they are in contract or owned outright. So AFAIK there is no way to have an IPhone without the AT+T data charge without jailbreaking it and violating my TOS with both Apple and AT+T.

So in effect, yes all iPhones are subsidized by the plans.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

In Canada, cable providers supply our cell phones. Therein lies the rub.

Re:Should be

[Sylver Dragon]

The spectrum is auctioned off the highest bidder. For a few billion dollars the entrenched interests can just gobble it all up regardless of whether or not they need it or intend to deploy on it.

This has always been one of my biggest complaints about the FCC's wireless spectrum auctions. There really needs to be a use requirement attached to the sale. For example, anytime a company/individual purchases a chunk of spectrum, there are required to put it to use. If they don't utilize it or under-utilize* it it gets taken back from them (no refunds) and then re-auctioned.

* - Under utilization would cover buying a chunk of spectrum which can carry far more information on it than a company does regularly. In which case, that chunk should be stripped from them and a less valuable one given for their current use. This is to avoid the purchase of a valuable chunk and then using it to send control messages or the like to avoid it appearing unused.

Re:Should be

[NotBornYesterday]

Exactly. Until now, the only reason for capping / metering bandwidth has been money - the cost to pay for bandwidth & the cost to upgrade the network, as well as the increased revenue they could net if they charged more. If AT&T's network is swamped by malicious (remember, they are trying to cause problems) usage, it lends legitimacy and support to AT&T's potential decision to end the "unlimited" plans.

Re:Should be

[NotBornYesterday]

and some people die

Yup. And AT&T will blame it on the flashmob, not on their network. Presto, another nail in the coffin of unmetered data bandwidth.

Re:Should be

[AnotherShep]

True, but around here as far as quality goes, Shaw is way ahead. And it's nice to have a real phone to use around the house. Skype is just way too inconvenient.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

In their Terms and conditions there is this section

Data Plans: An eligible data plan is required for certain devices, including iPhones and other designated Smartphones and PDAs. Eligible data plans cover data usage in the U.S. and do not cover international data usage and charges. If it is determined that you are using an iPhone or other designated Smartphone or PDA without an eligible data plan, AT&T reserves the right to add an eligible data plan to your account and bill you the appropriate monthly fee.

which for most corporate lawyers would give them the out of saying that the unlimited data plan is no longer an eligible plan so we are switching you to X plan now which is eligible.

Re:Should be

[Abreu]

Vader is altering the terms of the contract. Pray he doesn't alter them any further.

Re:Should be

[computersareevil]

Um... Have you read the contract? One of the terms of the contract is that they can change the terms of the contract anytime they want, with or without notice. Sweet, huh?

Re:Should be

[BuckaBooBob]

Auctions are a good way to disperse spectrum.. But There needs to be guidelines put in place.. like "Use it or Lose it" and usage guidelines aswell to prevent companies from just simply occupying spectrum to prevent competitor use. There is just not enough competition to promote a customer service oriented Cell service.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in Canada for 3G we can use Telus, Bell, or Rogers. At least out here in BC...

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

So who is Newsweek owned by?

The Washington Post.

Re:Should be

[cthulu_mt]

There is no such thing as unlimited supply of anything

I have my own suspicions to the contrary regarding human stupidity.

Re:Should be

[Yvan256]

No they don't. Not all of them anyway. And you can get cell phones from non-cable providers, so I don't see why you even brought that up.

Re:Should be

[segin]

or to the Verizon customers who think they don't have any good devices available

Does Verizon's devices have a pad of buttons numbered 0 to 9, and if I push 7 of them, will I hear a voice come out of the speaker? Yes? Well, I just can't see why you say Verizon has no good devices available.

Re:Should be

[compro01]

Here in Canada, we almost have government-backed monopolies with even higher monthly bills.

How do you figure that? I see no monopoly in wireless, not even on the vaunted iphone, given that I could go get a phone from Bell (iphone), Rogers (iphone), Telus (iphone), Virgin, or Sasktel, and I think I am forgetting one.

Re:Should be

[Yvan256]

"Disperse spectrum"? Auctions just make sure that only the one with the biggest pockets can use certain frequencies... that's insane.

All companies can use the spectrum for 802.11n, no single company can block others from doing their own 802.11n hardware, and so on.

I'm saying that all spectrums should be the same (non-military spectrums, anyway).

Re:Should be

[Kemanorel]

Interesting... I think that just might be my first Troll mod. Offtopic I would agree with (even though it was based on the previous comment). Flamebait would be a possibility too. Didn't really think of it as a Troll though. I always thought a Troll mod point was for stuff like GNAA, goat.cx, or some other RickRoll-ish action. Yes, I know there was bile and vitriol in there, but that shouldn't make it straight up Troll. The complaints I have with TWC are quite valid given the similar complaints I hear in my admittedly small circle of friends and in my larger group of coworkers that have to deal with the local monopoly that is TWC. As U-verse rolls in, people are beginning to switch over left and right.

Not to mention, the connection back to AT&T does make it at least slightly relevant. I plan on getting some kind of bundle deal with my home phone, iPhone, U-verse, and internet, just as soon as AT&T gets their shite together and upgrades my neighborhood. The upgrades needing to be done are a valid complaint as well. The wires are so old in my area that the rubber laced with braided cotton (or some other fabric) has been falling off the lines in long strips for several years now. Fun times.

Oh well. Mods are funny around here.

Re:Should be

[guruevi]

The thing is, with electronics and the Internet, there is such a thing called 'unlimited'. Once the infrastructure is in place and you have fleshed out the support and maintenance costs there is nothing further that gets consumed - whether you use it or not, the switches, the routers and the firewalls all have to stay in place and they all keep moving bits in their silicon substance, a transistor doesn't break because it's being used.

It might not be unlimited 10Mbps which is what they try to upsell but there is definitely unlimited x-bps for x-connections per second. The problem is that the providers have been overselling beyond their capacity and when even just a handful of users actually uses what they have been sold, they flood the network and the network slows down to a crawl. When you see that most cell towers are connected to the "Internet" with a single 64kbps line or that DSLAM's have 1Mbps connections for a whole neighborhood (while selling 3Mbps connections) then there is a problem when you try to offer 100 customers the capacity you have x 10. I used to work for a large ISP troubleshooting DSLAM's and street-level connections so I know what I'm talking about.

In the apartment complex I used to live management started selling internet in the units (capped at 2Mbps, 10Mbps peak). There were 500 units for which they installed a redundant 10Mbps dedicated line straight to the backbones of AT&T, Time Warner and Level3 with the expansion capacity to 100Mbps. The service was excellent - downloading usually went at 2 or 3Mbps at the worst, no downtime. They did this for under $30 per subscriber while not every unit wanted this service and while having a 3rd party handle the hardware, support, installations etc. Is there a reason AT&T, TWC or any of them can't do that? I pay TWC double that for 3Mbps at my house but can hardly get 800kbps through.

Re:Should be

[samkass]

Welcome to reality. The amount of electricity to your house is not limited, but if everyone in town pulls down every Watt of power they possibly can at the same time the system will fall to its knees. Ubiquitous networks are just too new for "normal" to be well-defined yet, and are just starting to have enough capacity to be effectively "unlimited".

So it's not really about capacity, it's about billing.

The big difference between electricity and bits is that the electricity is not "all you can eat". And I think network usage has to go the same way. The reason that's scary to a lot of people is because most "per-megabyte" rates are way, way too high. Once costs are pennies per gigabyte we won't be worrying so much about metered internet access and you'll just have those dials on the outside of your house that count up gigabytes like we have for Watt-hours.

Re:Should be

[Yvan256]

I can get mobile service from Videotron, Rogers, Fido, Telus, Bell, Virgin Mobile, and their discount spinoffs like Koodo. There are plenty of companies to compete against each other.

Multiple choices doesn't mean there is any actual competition...

Fido = Rogers.
Koodo = Telus.
Virgin Mobile Canada = Bell Mobility.

And thanks to the CRTC, companies such as Globalive had a hard time coming to Canada. And no thanks to Videotron, they won't be available in Quebec.

The only question is, which of the three big companies, Rogers, Telus and Bell, will buy the other two. The way things are going, it seems to only be a matter of time.

Re:Should be

[compro01]

You could go to Virgin Mobile for Saskatchewan coverage if you want to completely ditch Telus. They run off Sasktel's network.

Though that should be moot soon as Sasktel finally seems to be getting with the times and rolling out UMTS/HSPA.

Re:Should be

[potat0man]

Hey, if I owned the company and knew all my customers were such suckers I'd do the same thing.

Stop paying them!

Re:Should be

[Mister Whirly]

Sure, and settle for crappy DSL that is slightly less expensive, or city Wireless that is absolute crap, even when it is working. Love my choices. If I want any speed over 1MB, and service that works more than 80% of the time, Comcast is my only real option. So if by wanting reliable fast internet I am a sucker, so be it. See the problem here?
The world I actually live in has issues that are mostly shades of gray, not the black and white one you live in. If only it was as easy as "stop paying them".

Re:Should be

[pRtkL xLr8r]

No, sorry...TW sucks and I am actually more than happy now that I dropped them and am receiving OTA HD which is not only free but better quality than TW's, as well as what other shows I need off the Internet. I got a letter from a collection agency a mere two months after the last bill was unpaid -- if I didn't hate them before, I do now even more -- which I didn't think was possible. The only way I can hate them more now is if I found out the CEO of TW anally raped my grandmother...

Re:Should be

[demonlapin]

wouldn't be surprised if there is a bit in there that allows AT&T to amend certain parts without negating the whole thing

If they do, then the contract has undergone renegotiation - depending on how it's written, you can either choose to conclude the terms of the previous agreement with service to be cancelled at its end (this is what happens, e.g., when your credit card co. changes terms), or you can cancel the contract at this moment without penalty. Even under the relatively weak consumer protection laws of the US, they can't arbitrarily and without consequence change the contract. (Otherwise, why don't they raise everyone's ETF to $1000 and term of contract to 10 years immediately upon signing?)

Re:Should be

[dissy]

AFAICT (can't RTFA, slashdotted), the comments this guy is protesting are not for canceling contracts immediately, but more like "in the future, we'll probably stop offering that, and then sunset the existing contracts when they come up for renewal".

Of course. But as the GP you replied to stated, one side effect of AT&T violating their contract with customers by canceling the unlimited data plan, is that the contract is no longer valid.

If you sign up and get a new phone for $10 which cost them $200, with the expectation of having the phone paid off over the 2 year contract (Standard operating procedure), then once AT&T violates the contract it is canceled for both ends.

At that point you can cancel services and there will be no termination fees. You also literally got a $10 phone, as AT&T will need to eat the extra cost.

Now multiply that by the number of customers with unlimited data plans who will be out of contract early, and that is a significant sum AT&T will owe to the phone makers that they won't be getting from ex-customers now.

Please to note that this is ON TOP OF anything caused by the protest.

Re:Should be

[brainiac ghost1991]

erm, you do realise that calls to the emergency services have priority over all other traffic, a 999/911/112 call is guaranteed to go through, even if it kicks other users off the network. Also, emergency calls are able to use other service providers networks. If there is congestion and an emergency call is made, the tower will drop a call/data packets to allow them through.

Re:Should be

[dissy]

If the end game results in ATT charging people for what they use, who exactly suffers?

Ironically, only AT&T suffers.

The 3-5% of their customers with smart phones who use bandwidth heavy will now have to pay a bit more, or cut back usage.

The other 95-97% of their customers that previously were paying a lump sum for data they did not use, will now all be paying next to nothing.

If you are charging 100% of your data plan customers say $20/mo, and now are changing things so you only charge 3-5% of them say $40 (The $20 plus extra usage), and the remaining 95-97% who USED to pay $20/mo will now be paying for what they use, so only a dollar or two a month.

Multiplied out, AT&T will be losing millions of dollars a month, in exchange for a couple thousand dollars a month.

Re:Should be

[CodeBuster]

If they change the terms of the contract then those contracts are no longer valid, allowing customers to cancel them prematurely.

There is usually a clause in your contract that says something to the effect of, "you agree that we have the right to change the agreement at any time with X days notice and all early termination fees remain in effect no matter what changes we make". You can cancel anyway, but they will charge you and if you don't pay then there will be a brouhaha with the credit reporting agencies as you insist that they charged you unfairly and they insist that you broke a contract and owe them a debt.

Re:Should be

[Mister Whirly]

Well, I can only speak from my own experiences and after being both a TW and Comcast (have you had both companies provide service to you?) customer, I can say the Comcast is worse and more expensive. Like I said, I had thought Time Warner was bad until Comcast showed me what true suckiness is all about. I am ready to cut off the TV part of Comcast (live sports being one of the last remaining factors why I haven't yet, the rest I can mostly find on the Internet), but if you can explain how I can get free Internet service OTA with a pair of rabbit ears, I would love to hear about it. And yes, my city does offer wireless, but not only is it terrible, I live in a stucco house, so that is pretty much not an option even if the service was acceptable.

Re:Should be

[maxume]

As long as they still charge a profitable rate, I'm not real sure they actually suffer (I realize this is splitting hairs).

Re:Should be

[sexconker]

When the tower goes down (and they do) the tower is down - that's the end of it.

Have you used AT&T? Has your phone shown full reception only to drop it to 0 when you attempt to do anything? This is what happens.

Voice and data are supposed to be separate anyway - the issue of emergency calls getting priority shouldn't come up. But IF a successful DDoS attack is launched, the tower will be spazzing out and shit WILL go wrong.

Your phone will see the tower, try to make a call, then realize the tower is convulsing on the floor and your call won't go through. Your phone will continue to use the AT&T tower, because it's retarded.

It isn't supposed to be that way, but that's the way it is.

Re:Should be

[Culture20]

Here in Canada, we almost have government-backed monopolies with even higher monthly bills.

Don't worry we have cable companies for that.

What do the cable companies control? The higher monthly bills, the monopolies, or the government?

Re:Should be

[brainiac ghost1991]

I've not used AT&T, but I have used both a normal and emergency service (they get priority) phone (both mobiles, obviously) at a very busy festival in the UK, the normal phone was unable to connect the call, but the emergency service one was, so even if everyone was trying to connect (which they were), priority calls still go through

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

And this just goes to prove that it's *LONG* past time to bring about the *DEATH* of the smartphone. Cellphones are really only meant for 2 things: receiving phone calls and making phone calls. Get rid of the smartphone crap and bring back the affordable PDA.

Re:Should be

[thepooh81]

I don't know what the terms are of the AT&T contract are (are there any informed folks out there willing to share?), but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bit in there that allows AT&T to amend certain parts without negating the whole thing. They also probably have something in there that limits the consumers' recourse to 3rd party arbitration, which isn't really 3rd party, since it is a 3rd party of AT&T's choosing. Plus, if the consumer terminates early, they'll be hit with a termination fee to cover at least part of the subsidy.

It's federal law that if a wireless phone company changes a contract on a customer then the customer has 30 days from the time of the change to get out of the contract without being stuck with an ETF. There's no contract that's above federal law so there's no way around letting those customers go sans fee. Much to AT&T's dismay I'm sure...

Re:Should be

[AnotherShep]

For that matter, we could just do SaskTel, too. It's actually just my old Telus phone from when I was on contract with them, and it matters so little that it's not worth the trouble to switch. Also, if I could just tether my iPhone when I make a trip down to Climax, that would be *awesome*. None of my family left down there has internet service.

Re:Should be

[Stewie241]

You may be right... I only wonder then how ISPs would deal with a situation where it may be to their advantage to have machines infected with malware or trojans that covertly eat up bandwidth. ISPs would also benefit from spam because it means more money for them. The consumer would shoulder the cost rather than the ISP.

Re:Should be

[fm6]

Though I imagine that iPhone users account for most of the pissed-offitness. Imagine spending all that money for such a fancy toy and it just not working.

My first thought was that I too would participate with my LG Incite. But the fact is that AT&T has always been badly managed. (Yes, I know that most of the company is just SBC-rebranded, but the wireless operation dates back to the original post-breakup AT&T.) It's typical that they can't manage such a simple thing as network capacity. And stupid CEOs like this guy are never held accountable for their stupidity.

We need to do some de-monopolization of telecom in this country. Until that happens, AT&T laughs at your petty data disruption.

Re:Should be

[Thing 1]

I would kill to have Time Warner again.

Okay; just don't tell the University of Minnesota mortuary department...

Re:Should be

[Rich0]

Lovely. Too bad that centuries of court rulings say that they can't do that - regardless of what is written in the contract.

Of course, the way credit reporting companies work, it is effectively up to the consumer to try to fix their own credit damage when the phone company claims an ETF and the consumer refuses to pay it. It isn't like the credit bureaus care who is in the right.

Re:Should be

[merreborn]

If they change the terms of the contract then those contracts are no longer valid, allowing customers to cancel them prematurely.

Given that those contracts are used to subsidize the cost of the phones, I don't think it's going to happen.

Changes to the contract do give the consumer the right to terminate without penalty, but few people are aware of this, or take advantage of it. It's not like they call you up and ask "Hey, we've changed the contract. Do you want out of it for free?".

Think back to the SMS rate hikes over the last few years, from 10 cents to 15 to 20. How many people canceled their contracts then? It certainly wasn't many.

Granted, I'd expect *more* response to any sort of data-usage billing change -- it's obviously a higher-profile issue -- but frankly, I wouldn't expect even 10% of iPhone users to cancel their contracts in such an event.

Re:Should be

[citylivin]

Except when they put in the contract that they can change the terms of the contract at any time. Like this women found out when they started charging her for incomming text messages. Sure you can pay $3 a month to resume your normal operation, but I think the time has come to have iron fisted regulation on most of these companies. There is way too much collusion and "industry standards".

Of course the solution is never to ever buy a contract. Personally, i can calmly laugh at all these locked in slaves, but it shouldn't have to be this way!

Re:Should be

[vux984]

The thing is, with electronics and the Internet, there is such a thing called 'unlimited'. Once the infrastructure is in place and you have fleshed out the support and maintenance costs there is nothing further that gets consumed - whether you use it or not, the switches, the routers and the firewalls all have to stay in place and they all keep moving bits in their silicon substance, a transistor doesn't break because it's being used.

It still has a finite fixed capacity. It is limited not unlimited.

It might not be unlimited 10Mbps which is what they try to upsell but there is definitely unlimited x-bps for x-connections per second.

This doesn't make sense. Its still limited. x bps max x 24hours x 7days a week x 31 days/month = Y, the limit.

The problem is that the providers have been overselling beyond their capacity and when even just a handful of users actually uses what they have been sold, they flood the network and the network slows down to a crawl

Providers should oversell. Its totally absurd that they wouldn't. 2000 users can all surf the web for a month "at 10mbps" on a single 100mbps connection, and for the most part they won't even notice they are sharing. It would be ridiculous to sell them all dedicated 20kbps connections instead.

"and when even just a handful of users actually uses what they have been sold"

That's just it. Nobody was ever sold a dedicated 10bmps down/ 1mbps up channel for $45/mo. Its absurd to REALLY believe the ISP is selling you a connection an order of magnitude better than a T1 line 2 orders of magnitude cheaper. Only an idiot would argue that. Its like walking into an 'all you can eat salad bar' placing an order, pulling out a box of glad bags, and taking enough foood to feed your herd of elephants. And then doing this again every feeding time.

What the fine print, for comcast, for example, says: "Many factors affect speed. Actual speeds vary and are not guaranteed. PowerBoost provides bursts of download and upload speeds for the first 10 MB and 5 MB of a file, respectively."

They sell a connection, there is no limit on how much you use it, and while it can go up to speed X, it may not.

The average consumer wants a "fast connection for surfing the web, email, instant messaging, maybe download a bit of music or stream some video, and an inexpensive bill with no surprises".

They don't need a dedicated 10mbps link with guaranteed service, and they can't possibly afford one.

What they can afford, is a "a 24x7 connection, with variable bandwidth based on overall network utilization, suitable for intermittent bursty traffic, with speeds up to 10mbps, no hard usage caps, and subject to reasonable qos and network shaping" for ~$25-50/mo.

But the ISPs can't successfully advertise that technical mess. So the advertise what the average consumer wants "high speed internet, unlimited usage, $50/mo", and honestly if your an average consumer they deliver what you want.

The problem is that this other group of users see what they advertise and think that the service being offered is a "24x7 dedicated connection at 10mbps", and then piss and moan when the ISPs can't and won't deliver that... at least not for less than $50/mo. On the one hand you can argue the advertisers are being misleading... and to a point they are, but on the other side caveat emptor... Tide doesn't realiably get chocolate stains out of white shirts, when I put a full bowl of rice into an overloaded dishwasher my crystal comes out with rice stuck to it instead of sparkling clean, there are several iphone applications for which there isn't 'an app for that', and my ISP isn't really selling a commercial grade internet service that would normally cost thousands of dollars for $50/mo.

Re:Should be

[kramerd]

To be fair, blockbusters now matches netflix and charges a monthly rate, so there are no due dates or late fees.

Re:Should be

[computersareevil]

I don't think there are centuries of relevant court rulings. At least not ones that come down on the side of the subscriber. If there were then these terms wouldn't be in the contract.

Read the Terms and practically every other sentence says "We reserve the right not to deliver any service of any kind, change your plan and terms at any time for any reason, or terminate you for even using your service in any way we don't like as strictly decided by us."

Heck, they say outright that service is entirely at their whim: "The purchase of an iPhone does not guarantee service." That seems like a 100% escape clause.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

If they change the terms of the contract then those contracts are no longer valid, allowing customers to cancel them prematurely.

Given that those contracts are used to subsidize the cost of the phones, I don't think it's going to happen.

Isn't there a clause in the contract that says something like "we may change the terms anytime we want and limit your usage whenever we want without notice at AT&T's discretion"?

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

If they change the terms of the contract then those contracts are no longer valid, allowing customers to cancel them prematurely.

Given that those contracts are used to subsidize the cost of the phones, I don't think it's going to happen.

Actually, that happens more often than you think and you can in fact get out of the contracts. Do not expect them to tell anyone though. You as a consumer just have to be paying attention because you usually only get one month after notification of the changes to do things like terminate your contract.

Sprint is going through this right now due to a regulatory fee change and many people are getting out of their contracts. Certainly a way to get a cheap phone but it's a gamble because you would have had to already been on a contract and you never know when or if the terms may change.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

You want competition to explode in Canada? Remove these long term contracts or, remove the penalty for cancelling them ahead of schedule. Do that, and suddenly customers are as mobile as their phones and can move around to different companies, especially now that we can keep our phone numbers regardless of the company we sign up to.

Indeed, this would increase competition amongst the providers -- however, NONE of the providers would be willing to subsidise anything more than a "disposable" cell-phone without a multi-year contract. Gone would be the days of smartphones for less than $200 -- you'd be paying the full retail cost of $600 or more to buy the phone. I'm not saying I'm totally against that, mind you, I'm just saying be careful what you wish for. You'll pay for it, one way or another...

Re:Should be

[Coren22]

All of the other blackberries have keyboards, the iPhone does not. The touchscreen works the same way as the iPhone's, but with a minor difference.

iPhone: hover over selection, press to select
Storm: touch screen for selection, click to select

They are very much alike, and yes, I have used both. The great thing about the BB is that the system is open, I can load software from many sources on the web without concern about the software not being blessed by Apple. Why is it that there are like 400 fart applications in the iPhone store, but we can't get Firefox because it duplicates functionality?

ps, I hate the capitalization in iPhone, it looks totally moronic...

Re:Should be

[Coren22]

I realized I missed some of your points, so an additional post.

Yes, I have been in the smartphone industry since before the phone was built in, I worked with many of the earlier Windows CE devices and I find WinMo to be actually quite good. My previous phone was a WinMo flip phone that I cannot recall the name of, and it worked pretty well, with some odd quirks occasionally that I think were hardware related.

Re:Should be

[steelfood]

To paraphrase: two guys are going to start streaming TV to their smart phones while everybody else attempts to do the same but ends up timing out.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

I have an unlimited supply of love.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not a huge fan of "there oughtta be a law"...

Neither am I, especially when it should be able to accomplish something just by enforcing existing laws properly. Aren't we supposed to have truth in advertising?

Re:Should be

[pdusen]

Or he was, you know, joking. Like he said. Just sayin'.

Re:Should be

[StuartHankins]

Depending on your location an aircard may be another option. I think they're around $60 per month on our corporate plan. Mine's Sprint/Nextel. I'm using it now.

Re:Should be

[mgblst]

It is a protest, what do you not understand about this? It is the same when you get people complaining about traffic by driving slow. Or cylists complaining about cars by driving in a huge pack in peak hour.

How do you suggest the protest, by building extra infrastructure to improve ATT network, so they get better calls? Or maybe not using their phones, so they miss out on business and personal calls? Genius, bloody genius.

When you protest you have a limited number of things you can do. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT COMPLICATED CONCEPT??

Re:Should be

[mgblst]

Or even better, the same people who buy the spectrum can't sell directly to the customer, they have to be seperate customers. This encourages competition.

Re:Should be

[Hynee]

Or he was, you know, joking. Like he said. Just sayin'.

Whoops, you busted me not RTFA. I thought it was Dan Lyons and not his alter ego. Actually I thought Fake Steve Jobs was retired after we found out who was behind it. Oh well, consider me a troll.

Re:Should be

[bmearns]

It is a protest, what do you not understand about this? It is the same when you get people complaining about traffic by driving slow. Or cylists complaining about cars by driving in a huge pack in peak hour.

First of all, protesting traffic by driving slowly is also stupid, but for different reasons. Second, cyclists riding in a pack is not at all the same as this AT&T protest. They're trying to be disruptive to demonstrate, yes, but in that case they aren't protesting the idea that cyclists clog up traffic. With the AT&T protest, they're out to demonstrate exactly the point they're trying to protest. It's pointless.

How do you suggest the protest, by building extra infrastructure to improve ATT network, so they get better calls? Or maybe not using their phones, so they miss out on business and personal calls? Genius, bloody genius.

Don't straw man me, those are your ideas, not mine.

When you protest you have a limited number of things you can do. DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT COMPLICATED CONCEPT??

That's small minded. When you protest, there are an infinite number of things you can do. How do I suggest they protest? I suggest they stop being such little dinks and have a real protest. Picket the AT&T offices; have a real flash mob; challenge AT&T to some public discourse, make them prove that smart phones are really responsible. They could do it Abbie Hoffman style with dramatic street theater to disrupt and inform. They could do it ELF style and physically attack the network which would be at least as disruptive as the proposed tactic without proving the point that smart phones are the problem. Or, gee, I don't know, they might also consider the fact that any given communications network can only handle so much information at a time, and that maybe, just maybe mind you, excessive smart phone use really is causing the problems.

Re:Should be

[Rich0]

I don't think there are centuries of relevant court rulings.

Uh, the whole idea of a contract is that you agree on something and then it is a done deal. Further changes require the consent of both parties. Contracts require a "meeting of the minds" and you can't have a meeting when one party decides something and just tells the other to live with it.

If there were then these terms wouldn't be in the contract.

I don't see how the one follows the other. There is a clear understanding in law that slavery is illegal, but I can write up a contract for you to sell yourself into slavery, and you can sign it if you'd like to. It isn't enforceable at all, but anybody can write whatever they want on paper.

Lots of contract terms are ruled illegal by courts. That rarely keeps them out of future contracts. Look at how many contracts disavow liability for even gross negligence. At best those kinds of terms are designed to discourage people from seeking redress in the courts (and it probably works).

If you want to know what your legal rights are with regard to a contract you've signed, call a lawyer that YOU pay. Don't call the guy who wrote the contract. They're under NO obligation to tell you that their own lawyers laughed while they were writing it up since it was a joke.

Now, the problem is that while you have the theoretical freedom to get out of your deal (assuming that AT&T does make a unilateral change), the fact is that AT&T could make life very difficult on you. First, they could just refuse to cancel your contract and demand an ETF. You could of course refuse to pay it (if they have a credit card number for you be sure to cancel the account or be sure you can reverse the charge later, and heaven help you if you have EFT set up). They could then turn you over to collections and write a nasty gram to the credit agencies.

You could of course write a letter explaining the situation. The fact is that this letter won't do you much good - some guy lending your money is going to be just as upset about you actually holding a company to the letter of their agreement as they would be about you not paying your bills. After all, maybe they'll want to screw you over in the future and they can't very well do that if their customers don't bend over.

The only way you're going to get that record expunged is to wait 7 years, or to sue in court, which is very expensive.

On the other hand, AT&T will never be able to actually collect that ETF. To do that they would need to get to court and get a declaration of judgment, and no court would side with them. However, they already have lots of leverage by messing with your credit history. They know that most consumers will just capitulate.

And this is why credit agencies need more regulation. They're basically people paid to gossip about you, and you have VERY little recourse if those records contain incorrect information. In fact, companies can discriminate against you even if you take actions that are perfectly within your legal rights.

Re:Should be

[bmearns]

Dad? Is that you?

Re:Should be

[guruevi]

What I was getting at was that ISP's (AT&T, TWC, Comcast...) are selling connections with a certain level of service (say unlimited 10Mbps) to their customers while not having the capabilities of even servicing a single customer at the end point with what they sell - the distribution point in most areas are not connected with 10Mbps. So if you are the only person on your block using the Internet at a certain point in time, you cannot get the bandwidth promised because it's simply not there and that is so in 90% of the cases.

Same goes for '3G' connections. AT&T promises HDSPA and while the tower might accept HDSPA connections from the customer, from the tower on, everybody shares a bandwidth similar to dial-up. If then you are in a very populated area (like say San Francisco) and you have to share 64k with 300 users at a time you can see where the problem is.

On the other hand, companies (large office buildings or apartment complexes) can get a dedicated line (including laying a few miles of fresh fiber) for 1/2 the price per customer while offering way better service.

What I want companies to do is be more honest about their packages. They can sell me 3Mbps and they can sell me 10Mbps which is 1000 times overbooked but if they can't offer 10Mbps because they do not have the physical infrastructure to support 10Mbps in my area, then they shouldn't try to sell it.

What TWC and them is trying to do is put up a download limit so I am more careful what I download in order for them not to have to expand while still charging the same or more for a worse service. However the same problems remains that if everybody decides to use their limit on the first day of the month, they still do not have the infrastructure for it.

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there's always Solo Mobile. Oh...same deal with Bell? Virgin Mobile? Oh, Bell again? Why do they need TWO sham fronts?

Virgin Mobile (Canada) was originally a join venture between Bell Canada and Virgin (UK). Bell bought out the UK stake earlier this year.

I suspect Bell left Virgin as-is so that uneducated consumers think there is competition.

You can trace most of the crappy Canadian mobile market back to when the Liberal government of Jean Chretien allowed Telus to buy Clearnet, and allowed Rogers to buy Fido, reducing the number of competitors from 5 to 3.

Sadly, Canadian telecom policy for decades has been that it's better for Canadians to be robbed by Canadian companies than charged a fair price by foreign companies (T-Mobile, Vodafone, etc).

Re:Should be

[Sylver Dragon]

That's another one of the things which I think could help our current situation in the US for a number of markets. Disallow vertical integration in communications. For example, if you are providing communications services you cannot own the network and vice versa; nor can one parent company hold one of each. This would include phone, internet and TV. AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, etc. would be broken up into different companies. One would be a network provider which just sells access to the network and the other would be the service provider who buys access to the network and resells it to the customers. The network companies would then become similar to other public utilities which are private companies given exclusive monopolies in a region in exchange for government oversight.

Re:Should be

[Nevyn]

Welcome to reality. The amount of electricity to your house is not limited

Not true, even ignoring the physical problems there's a main breaker (which you can't play with without the electric companies approval) which has a limit. But I've also never seen the electric company advertise "unlimited" electricity.

And I think network usage has to go the same way. The reason that's scary to a lot of people is because most "per-megabyte" rates are way, way too high.

That is a worry ... but the biggest problem is still "we sold you unlimited, but have now realized we can't give it to you".

Re:Should be

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot 3: legal proceedings against anyone using the data plan at that time, regardless of their intentions. They can probably have it classed as terrorism.

Friday, December 19?

[Vrallis]

Obviously they aren't doing it in 2009, since Friday is December 18th, so they're going to do this in 2014?

Re:Friday, December 19?

[jasonwc]

The article says the 18th. The summary is incorrect - or the article has been edited:

"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!"

Re:Friday, December 19?

[Anonymous Coward]

An incorrect summary on a Slashdot article?
Please say it ain't so! :p

Re:Friday, December 19?

[countertrolling]

"...Join us and speak truth to power!"

Yes, tell them, "We'll suck your dick if you bring back Futurama!" Try to get it. You all spoke the truth when you gave them your damn money. You all will give up anything to be dazzled by their shiny objects, and they are taking that to the bank.

Re:Friday, December 19?

[barzok]

Yes, tell them, "We'll suck your dick if you bring back Futurama!"

OK, fess up - who performed the service? Futurama is coming back.

Re:Friday, December 19?

[Ksevio]

Yeah, one important thing when trying to get lots of people to do something on a specific date is to make sure you've picked a real date.

Friday, December 19?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... which is it? Friday or December 19?

What will change?

[Culture20]

I already use my data connection at maximum quite often at lunch. It's called reading /. *waits for all the JS to download*

Re:What will change?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean render.

Re:What will change?

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh* Yes, yes, "Lo, why didst the Internete create unto itself that which ist not The LORD'S plaine ASCII files? Verily, this Script of Java doth bring mine moderne Victorian-era computational device to its knees!"

Re:What will change?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Sounds like you need a second urchin to shovel coal into the boiler of your data mill. Or a stout switch to motivate the first one. Don't worry about overdoing it, there are plenty of orphans who would be lucky to have the job.

Counter-Productive

[Akido37]

And if they can, AT&T will just say "I Told you So", and continue their plans to gouge iPhone users anyways.

The only way this can go well for AT&T customers is if a large, well-documented group gets together, attempts a DDOS, and fails. Then what can AT&T say? "Well it's not THOSE iPhone users, it's the ones who live in their parents' basements..."

Re:Counter-Productive

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this is the plan, if a coordinated effort to bring down the networks fails then the point has been proven.

Re:Counter-Productive

[Anonymous Coward]

What time/day do we throw flaming trash cans through store windows?

Re:Counter-Productive

[nicodoggie]

Well, if that were the case, it's most likely that they feign a successful DDOS on the date itself then continue on with the "I Told You So"

Re:Counter-Productive

[Anonymous Coward]

all day, every day!

Re:Counter-Productive

[Anonymous Coward]

Except these ARE the ones who live in their parents' basements.. I doubt the highly-outgoing users will even hear about this.

Re:Counter-Productive

[FyreWyr]

Counterproductive, but perhaps for another reason. The NYT ran an article on Dec 13th that indicated that AT&T's network is *better* than Verizon's, it's the iPhone's hardware that's the problem.

"Roger Entner, senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen, said the iPhone’s “air interface,” the electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that “affect both voice and data.” He said that in the eyes of the consumer, “the iPhone has the nimbus of infallibility, ergo, it’s AT&T’s fault.” AT&T does not publicly defend itself because it will not criticize Apple under any circumstances, he said. AT&T and Apple both declined to comment on Mr. Entner’s assessments." and "The data seem incontrovertible: AT&T, while meeting 4,000 percent growth in data use, has acquitted itself quite nicely. But the company is saddled with an awful public image as the perennial laggard."

So...if I read the summary right...against a little article in the NYT...the plan is to attack AT&T with the exact devices that *cause* the problem, thereby proving that..I'm sorry...that seems an awful lot like stomping on the ground to teach it a lesson because you slipped on an ice patch.

Re:Counter-Productive

[jellomizer]

Protesters are STUPID. We are protesting against AT&T response that their infrastructure can't handle the load By DDOSing them. Isn't that like beating the crap out of person who says you are too violent.

Re:Counter-Productive

[Karlt1]

Roger Entner, senior vice president for telecommunications research at Nielsen, said the iPhone's "air interface," the electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that "affect both voice and data." He said that in the eyes of the consumer, "the iPhone has the nimbus of infallibility, ergo, it's AT&T's fault." AT&T does not publicly defend itself because it will not criticize Apple under any circumstances, he said. AT&T and Apple both declined to comment on Mr. Entner's assessments." and "The data seem incontrovertible: AT&T, while meeting 4,000 percent growth in data use, has acquitted itself quite nicely. But the company is saddled with an awful public image as the perennial laggard."

Don't you find it a little bit strange that of all the carriers worldwide, AT&T is the only one affected by this?

Re:Counter-Productive

[Anonymous Coward]

My question: Will this do any good, or will it give AT&T more justification for more restrictive policies? Rather than a car analogy, I'm going to liken this to a tavern analogy. This is akin to trashing a pub because the bartender cuts people off after 3 drinks, since the bartender only has a limited supply of booze that night. Will trashing the bar get the bartender to buy more kegs? Probably not. Instead the bartender may offer fewer drinks, but have more bouncers and security instead.

I fear that this would give AT&T ammo to institute more restrictive stuff, be it lower bandwidth caps, throttling, DPI, or perhaps just tossing people off their network who they believe are tethering. At the extreme, this gives more justification for Draconian laws/treaties like ACTA to pass because it gets lawmakers to think that AT&T is a poor beseiged merchant needing protection from the evildoers who want to trash their criticial communications infrastructure. This sort of has popped up already. For example, the previous /. articles likening jailbreakers to terrorists. I'm sure some bigwigs somewhere will liken the people hopping on this service disruption as terrorists too.

Want to know how to make AT&T change their ways without running the risk of catching a felony charge? Walk. Pay the ETF, jailbreak your device and move to another GSM provider. If you are wanting a new iPhone, buy one from a store in Taiwan where locking a device to a provider is illegal. Yes, this takes money (ETFs and paying the premium for an imported, unlocked phone is pricy), and will benefit AT&T this quarter, but next quarter, accountants will be scratching their heads and throttling someone because the quarter numbers are not up to spec.

If not attached to the iPhone, use another provider. T-Mobile isn't perfect and their phones are yawners as of now (hopefully they will fix this with something like the new Google device), but their GSM network is good. If you don't care about unlocking or moving providers, consider a CDMA provider in the US. Their phones won't work overseas, but they have excellent coverage here in the US.

Disclaimer: I don't work for T-Mobile or any cell providers.

Re:Counter-Productive

[dissy]

Protesters are STUPID. We are protesting against AT&T response that their infrastructure can't handle the load By DDOSing them. Isn't that like beating the crap out of person who says you are too violent.

I think you are on to something here. I like your idea much more!

We should instead just beat the crap out of the people at AT&T!

Re:Counter-Productive

[ktappe]

Protesters are STUPID. We are protesting against AT&T response that their infrastructure can't handle the load By DDOSing them. Isn't that like beating the crap out of person who says you are too violent.

So your response to AT&T providing crappy service is to just sit back & let them keep buggering you up the ass? Some of us actually get motivated to speak up and/or take action when we see wrongdoing. Funny how the rest of you who sit on your butts don't hesitate to enjoy the fruits of our labors....

Re:Counter-Productive

[Blakey Rat]

Funny how the rest of you who sit on your butts don't hesitate to enjoy the fruits of our labors....

Your "labor" is downloading YouTube videos for an hour? That counts as "labor" now?

This whole thing is pathetic.

Pirates

[Krneki]

At least for once the P2P users are not blamed for excessive network usage.

Of course when we pointed out that the pirates were only the first one to encounter network bandwidth limitations we were told to buzz off and the whole net neutrality debate was pointless too. :/

Re:Pirates

[Anonymous Coward]

I want to add that it's NOT a DDoS if the network is supposed to handle the load!!!! If ATT didn't have the network space to accomodate the data plans they sold to their customers, then they are commiting fraud. Those customers have every right to use the data transmissions sold to them. Far from a DDoS.

Re:Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they forgot to download a calendar app?

Thank heavens for poor service!

[Erik]

Thankfully for AT&T, my phone gets utterly crap reception at work. I'll be lucky to have enough bandwidth to sent out a few text messages, let alone cause bandwidth problems for them.

Re:Thank heavens for poor service!

[Culture20]

Fellow /.s, don't be fooled. Parent's a four-digit; he wrote that on purpose.

Re:Thank heavens for poor service!

[th1nk]

As opposed to by accident? I'm with him...I also get crap reception at work, but it seems to be an odd gap in coverage since I can go 200 yards in any direction and get 5 bars. Overall I've been satisfied with AT&T and I've been with them for over 10 years.

Re:Thank heavens for poor service!

[Culture20]

The joke in GGP's comment: X doesn't work well enough for me to make X worse.

Clogging the bandwidth

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Don't fall for the crap that network bandwidth is somehow limited because of usage problems. That's never been the issue with AT&T's network. The problem is simply that they don't have enough cell tower capacity to handle that many simultaneous users. This is why your phone service cuts out in very crowded areas.

So if a bunch of people simultaneously try to use the network, the cells will max out and a lot of people will be out of coverage, but the network as a whole will continue to run just fine.

Getting AT&T to increase cell density is a nice goal, but so is getting cells to remote areas. It's a matter of priorities, but a covered area that has insufficient capacity is better than an uncovered area with zero capacity.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[TheSeventh]

This is already happening anywhere you get a bunch of them in the same area, like a stadium or arena. At the University stadium here, a connection with an iPhone during the game was just about impossible, and they blamed it on the fact that they didn't know so many students would bring iPhones to school with them ?!

But they just put up a new tower about 5-6 miles away, so that should help . . .

I'm so glad I bought a g1 instead.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[0100010001010011]

I just got back from a trip to India. In terms of mobiles, the US is lightyears behind them.

I went out to Sikkim for the first week, closer in geography to Colorado than NYC (or the rest of India). I don't think I ever lost cell reception once. We're talking about an area that is about as densely populated as farm towns in the Midwest. I was standing on top of a mountain and could get 4 networks. 4. Vodaphone, Airtel, Aircel and some other local one. I got better reception at the top of the mountain that I can get at my own house in a subdivision (I don't live in the sticks).

Not only that EVERYONE had a cell phone. Some of the monks, every farm we were on, etc. Everything was prepaid and the SIM cards 'never' expired (They had an expiration sometime in 2025). Meaning I could add $1-2 and it would never expire. Compare that to the US where if I want to get the cheap $10 prepaid plan I have 30 days to use that before it expires. Calls were around $.01/minute anywhere.

Then they had the 'data' plans. Stuff for $10-20 a month with unlimited 3G. I had an 'unlimited' GPRS plan that cost me $0.20 a day. Not only that I could turn it on and off at will. Going to not need it: *567#, going to use it: *567#. No locked in plans, no monthly fees, nothing.

It's depressing coming back to the US and realize how much we're getting screwed by the phone companies compared to else where.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[g0dsp33d]

I was standing on top of a mountain and could get 4 networks.

That is not necessarily a meaningful metric. Mountains tend to be the highest point in the area so you get bonus distance due to a clear line of sight.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[socrplayr813]

It's not just that we're getting screwed (though we certainly are, to some extent). A lot of parts of the world don't have the extensive infrastructure the US has for wired phones, which sped their adoption of wireless technology. When enough of your population relies on a technology, progress comes faster. The US population has only recently started to shut off their wired phones and, for some groups, it could be decades before they give them up.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[ptbarnett]

I just got back from a trip to India. In terms of mobiles, the US is lightyears behind them.

That's because in terms of landlines, India is light years behind the US.

In the developing world, landline phone systems are in shambles. Many of them are state-run monopolies, and quality and availability is non-existent. People had to literally wait months or years to get new phone service.

Mobile phone services were a way around that: private companies could build out a cellular network without running wires. Once the price of cell phones came down, it was affordable for almost anyone. For those that still can't afford it, "renting" a handset for a few minutes at a time has become a cottage industry.

In the US, cell phone networks were developed for a completely different market: the businessman (or woman) that needs a phone during the working day. That market still exists, and is lucrative for the cell phone providers. All the alternatives are designed to avoid cannibalizing that market.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[KefabiMe]

I can confirm that S. Korea and Sweden have better service than us. In fact, my trips out of the US have helped me realize that other countries aren't catching up to our standard of living. Many have already surpassed the US.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[sexconker]

I went out to Sikkim for the first week, closer in geography to Colorado than NYC (or the rest of India). I don't think I ever lost cell reception once. We're talking about an area that is about as densely populated as farm towns in the Midwest. I was standing on top of a mountain and could get 4 networks. 4. Vodaphone, Airtel, Aircel and some other local one. I got better reception at the top of the mountain that I can get at my own house in a subdivision (I don't live in the sticks).

Have you ever stopped to think that it was the fact that you were at the top of a mountain in an uncrowded area that made reception so great?

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[ElectricTurtle]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking... 'clear signals at altitude with clear LOS? What's next in this mad world... barking cats?!' I mean the real test is how good is your reception in basements and elevators.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[XorNand]

Out of curiosity, how's the quality of the landlines in India? In the US, practically every household has access to a landline, regardless of how far out in the backwoods they live or how poor they are. US telecoms networks have built/maintained a physical network (with five nines of up-time!) across a huge geographic span for about 100 years.

I'm not saying that telcoms haven't squandered their profits to some extent. And it makes me sick to think about how they've abused their subsidies on the backs of the taxpayers. But anyone who's ever had to modernize a corporate LAN/WAN, or refactor an app written in a dead language knows how much, much easier it is to move quicker and cheaper if you don't already have a legacy platform to worry about. I can't imagine how much inertia a hundred year-old system has.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

I just got back from a trip to India. Calls were around $.01/minute anywhere. Then they had the 'data' plans. Stuff for $10-20 a month with unlimited 3G.

Yeah, doctors in India make about $6000 a year and the common man much less. I would hope things are cheaper there.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[weave]

Mountains tend to be the highest point in the area so you get bonus distance due to a clear line of sight.

I beg to differ. I think the towers are somewhat directional and don't point up. I've hiked up quite a few mountains and have trouble placing calls. Even in places that are somewhat close to an urban center, like Picacho Peak near Tucson, AZ a few times, and getting a signal there can be problematic. Other areas, like Yellowstone and Glacier National Park I can understand, but Picacho Peak is right off of busy I-10.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[LandDolphin]

So... To sum it up, you agree that the U.S. Carriers are screwing the U.S. Market over.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Bengie]

I just got back from a trip to India. Calls were around $.01/minute anywhere. Then they had the 'data' plans. Stuff for $10-20 a month with unlimited 3G.

Yeah, doctors in India make about $6000 a year and the common man much less. I would hope things are cheaper there.

That still doesn't explain why India has 4 carriers with clear signal in the middle of no where and the US can't even get near that. The technology behind the towers/3G network is the same as over here, the only difference is how much they pay their admins to monitor their networks.

If a country that can afford to pay doctors $6k per year can afford to spam cell towers everywhere, even locations that have almost no users, then the USA where a doctor makes $200k+ per year can afford at least 10xs as many towers and 10xs the coverage in remote areas.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[nine-times]

It's depressing coming back to the US and realize how much we're getting screwed by the phone companies compared to else where.

The US is looking more and more like a 3rd world country just as 3rd would countries are starting to look modern. We haven't invested in building and infrastructure. Our trains are useless. Public transportation is a joke. Train stations and airports are in terrible. Our internet is substandard in most places; you can't even get FIOS in most of NYC while some places in the country don't have anything better than dialup. Our cell phone networks are crappy and overpriced.

How do we expect to compete with the rest of the world? If I owned a company and was free to pick a location anywhere in the world, I don't think I'd put it in the US.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize that it's much easier for a tower to cover LESS developed areas, right? Buildings block cell signals. Urban areas are the worst-case scenario as far as radio signals go, not the best.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Really? Because I have stood on the top of Half Dome in Yosemite in California once a year for the past seven years and my phone has literally no service save 911. I can climb to the top of Bishop's Peak, one of the highest points in San Luis Obispo County, and still get no reception until I get back down to my car, where I get a whopping 1 bar of service from Verizon. Oh, there were also all those times that I went snowboarding in the Sierra Nevada on the California side and never got any reception at the top of the mountain. No reception going over the I-80 pass when I visited my g/f for Christmas last year up near Truckee.....

...The list goes on. I was born and raised in the mountains. I visit the mountains regularly. I climb to the top of mountains regularly. I do this all in America, in fact, in California, one to the most developed and populated states in the country. I almost never get decent reception in the mountains.

There most certainly is something wrong with America's wireless communications infrastructure.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[TheCaptain]

I beg to differ. I think the towers are somewhat directional and don't point up.

I've never looked at what type of antenna they are using on those towers, but I really don't think this is the case. Cellphones would work just fine in planes, several miles straight up. We're obviously not allowed to use them due to FAA regulations, etc...but they would (and do) work up there.

HAM radio repeaters are often put up on mountain tops and things like that for the same reason that g0dsp33d pointed out.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[TheEvilOverlord]

As various people here keep saying, you have to consider the whole lifecycle.

I'm not defending the entrenched oligarchy of providers in the US, as they probably are gouging customers to an extent and not being as flexible as they could be. However when quoting all the amazing price deals available there, you have to consider how this is linked to pay levels, because to a certain extent the amount you pay is going to be affected by how much it costs to run the infrastructure, and paying people is a large part of that.

There are also probably far fewer regulations on cell tower placement and power. Building anything probably costs less because labour is again cheap and there are fewer building regulations, environmental regulations and labour laws to comply with. It all costs money.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

Which mountains in the US can you get 4 network coverage on? It's usually only one here.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, you and three other guys had the entire cell to yourself, no wonder you got good reception. The problems happen when 10,000 people are trying to use the same cell.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[yabos]

I fly small airplanes and I can get a cell signal at 4000 feet above ground. I'm not sure how high the mountain he was on was but it's far from just ground level where the signal reaches.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

Cambodia is the same way, the cell phone service is so much better there that I was flat-out embarrassed. In Cambodia you can buy *any* brand of phone from *any* store, insert your SIM card and bingo, you're on the air. That's right- you can use any phone on any network from any carrier. You can buy minutes very, very cheaply, recharge them whenever you want, and switch numbers just by buying another SIM card. The numbers only cost a few dollars, and they and your minutes never expire. Thailand and Vietnam are the same way.

My wife (who's Cambodian) was astounded that one brand of phone wouldn't "just work" on any network here, and how incredibly complicated it was to change numbers, switch phones, etc etc. Yes, we put a man on the Moon, but f*ck if we can do something crazy like use a Sprint phone on an AT&T network.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Ma8thew]

I was standing on top of a mountain and could get 4 networks.

Same thing happened to me. Standing at the top of a mountain and noticed that I had full signal. Then I turned around, and noticed that the restaurant behind me had a radio mast on top of it.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Bengie]

I don't know for sure, but I bet cell towers have semi directional antenna to keep/reduce from signals needlessly shooting into space or adding echo by bouncing off of the ionosphere.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[0100010001010011]

True, but how about the "I never lost signal" metric? Top of the mountain, bottom of the valley. And it's not like this was a single mountain surrounded by plains. Sometimes I wasn't on the tallest peak. I was in a 'valley' of peaks around me.
And how does one build a cellular network without running wires? Are all of the cell towers in a mesh network?

The landlines do suck. I saw numerous downed land lines that on one has bothered to repair. But saying that the US has great landline service is like bragging that we have the best typewriter availability around so it's acceptable that we can't get good computers.

I'm not seeing where TracPhone has 2 year plans. I am seeing where you can pay $6 and get a 30 day extension. India has 20 year expiration for free. "Customers already enrolled in Service Protection (previously called Lifeline Plan) will continue paying the original price of $4.95/mo each time they are Past Due."

I had to put $100 on a prepaid Cingular cellphone to get a 1 year 'expiration' and I still had at least half that when it expired.

TracPhone has $9.99, 50 minute planes. That's $.20 a minute. In India that's around 500 Rupees. At present you can get 50p/minute (.5 Rupee) per minute plans, which is around $0.01 a minute. The US is 20x more expensive. I got the 60p/minute plan. That included ALL calls, including incoming international. (I couldn't place international calls).

So congratulations, we can get plans that are 20x more expensive and get to pay $6 just to extend another 30 days of service.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[weave]

It's always possible that AT&T just sucks around Picacho Peak.

Nah.... couldn't be THAT!

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Psarchasm]

I suppose if the US was 1/3 its present size it might have better coverage.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

It always struck me as extremely strange when americans complain about losing reception in populated areas... I can't remember losing reception on my phone EVER (except underground bunkers / faraday cages) here in Europe, including running around in the woods tens of kilometers away from the nearest road (which itself is in the middle of nowhere).

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder why nobody has brought up the idea that maybe part of the drop is because all your data is transmitted through At&t then through apples servers. Nobody here seriously believes Apple doesn't get a copy of ever text right?

This is not conspiracy theory, I couldn't care less, Google knows more about me than Apple, its just I was working with a company on secure encrypted texting and the iphone was out because Apple maintains visual of everything across the iphones and their network.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[DarthVain]

Also generally speaking it is a poor country.

0.20$ a day to you isn't much, but to some jerk in India it might be. Also because of the cheap labor, their infrastructure is much cheaper to build. Perhaps some Indian will do it for 2$ vs 20$ for the US. Same could be said for their support and admin for their networks.

However I hear your pain. Companies in the US and Canada defiantly gouge their customers. The government that they elect allow them to.

A better more reasonable example would be Europe, where salaries are just as high, yet somehow they manage to do it without sodomizing their customers.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[dargaud]

Mountains tend to be the highest point in the area so you get bonus distance due to a clear line of sight.

Yeah, I was impressed 13 years ago when I managed to get a GSM connection from some summit in the far north of Sweden, about 50km from the nearest tiny village. I'd built a custom parabola but didn't even need it.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[TooMuchToDo]

I fly GA, and I've used my cellphone numerous times while in flight with no problems.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had only one choice, would you rather have a landline or a cellphone?

Thought so...

So people in the US can be happy about their substandard cell service, because their landlines which they don't want are more developed. Does that

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[dAzED1]

That's because in terms of landlines, India is light years behind the US.

Fail. Fail fail fail fail holy blood hell fail. Landlines? Landlines? Not to steal from the guy above, but "saying that the US has great landline service is like bragging that we have the best typewriter availability around so it's acceptable that we can't get good computers."

Many people I know - in fact, close to half my circle of peers and friends - don't even have a landline anymore. What year do you think this is? I don't care if India has bad landlines.

Wait, scratch that...their cell service is good because their landlines are bad? So if our landlines get wrecked our cell service will magically get 20x cheaper? Is that supposed to somehow make sense?

We invented the farking landlines, cellphones, AND the internet. You'd think that somewhere along the lines in all that, we could figure out how the hell to have decent service. And ya wanna know why we don't? Because we're not really a capitalist society - we've allowed government-protected oligarchies in every major industry. How the hell much do you think they pay for textbooks in India, for example? Were I a libertarian, I'd beg for socialism around here - it would be closer to a free market than what we have now, at least.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[ptbarnett]

So... To sum it up, you agree that the U.S. Carriers are screwing the U.S. Market over.

Screwing it over? No, I wouldn't go that far. I'm just trying to point out that the market in India (and developing countries) is different than the US.

Cell-phone networks in developing countries are oriented toward replacing the (lack of) land-lines. The land-line infrastructure is so bad that there's a huge demand. The providers are doing everything they can to bring more users (and usage) to the network, at a cost the locals can afford.

In the US, the cell-phone networks are currently supplementing land-lines. Yes, many people are dumping their land-line for a full-time mobile phone. But, those same people are still using land lines for data, because wireless data is (mostly) still more expensive than wired.

The honest truth is that supply and demand is at work. US cell phone networks were originally targeted at people that would pay a high price for the convenience. To some extent, that's still true: the mobile phone networks are heavily utilized at the current price. Why should the providers lower their price, when they can barely handle the existing load in some markets (i.e. NYC and SF)?

This model doesn't necessarily work in the developing countries: there aren't enough people with enough disposable income. Lowering the cost is the only way to make it affordable for enough people to make the effort worthwhile (and profitable). But, any given individual user doesn't impose much load on the network, because they can barely afford even the 1 cent/minute or 20 cents/day.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

Um. Move there. Trade sanitary life for cell phone coverage. Is that the exchange you want to make?.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

For fuck's sake, we are not "lightyears" behind India. They offer those things to them because they cannot afford what they charge us here.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[LandDolphin]

Ticket Scalpers are just "supply and demand" too. However, that doesn't mean they aren't screwing you over. The services we receive in the U.S. could be sold to us for much cheaper, but they aren't to maximize profits. Yes, business wise, it is a smart move. On the other side, as a consumer, it leaves one feeling a little screwed over.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because in terms of landlines, India is light years behind the US.

How do you explain the mobile network and handset penetration in countries like Finland and Sweden then, which didn't exactly live in the stone ages with regards to landlines? (Please do note that they have an average population density lower than that of much of the US but they manage to have practically 100% geographic coverage.)

Just admit it. You're being royally screwed over.

Re:Clogging the bandwidth

[NelsChristian]

I was standing on top of a mountain

Standing on a high point tends to give you a clear path to cell towers quite some distance away. Flat land, like North Dakota gives great reception 30 miles from a cell tower as there are no obstructions. And even if it's populated like farm towns in the Midwest, and everybody has a phone - well most farmers spend most time working, not yakking and there aren't enough folks in a 30 mile circle to need that many cell towers.

And labor in Sikkim is probably cheaper than labor in the USA, so building that cell tower was cheaper.

You are right that the business model of locked-in phones is a pain, but your examples of better service are apples & oranges if you are comparing the sparse farmers of Sikkim to the densely packed IPhone users of Silcon Valley.

Not the best idea

[ezberry]

How could anyone really think this is a good idea? AT&T has effectively admitted that the data usage growth for smartphones is above the rate that their data network will be able to grow. Using more data intensive applications will only show them how correct they are ("Look how much data will be used in the future when more people are streaming data")

In addition, what if this actually interferes with an emergency call?

Sorry that this might not be anti-corporate enough, but Operation Chokehold really isn't a great idea.

Re:Not the best idea

[dorque_wrench]

Sorry that this might not be anti-corporate enough, but Operation Chokehold really isn't a great idea.

Agreed. Besides, I'm pretty sure a large, well-documented, attempted DDOS just makes things easier for the requisite criminal charges and civil lawsuits...

Re:Not the best idea

[Brian Stretch]

How could anyone really think this is a good idea? AT&T has effectively admitted that the data usage growth for smartphones is above the rate that their data network will be able to grow. Using more data intensive applications will only show them how correct they are ("Look how much data will be used in the future when more people are streaming data")

In addition, what if this actually interferes with an emergency call?

Sorry that this might not be anti-corporate enough, but Operation Chokehold really isn't a great idea.

What are you, a Communist? That's the same excuse we used to hear every time Reagan wanted to put pressure on the Soviets. Bring on the YouTube vids of Apple's 1984 ad on OC day! Bring the Evil Empire to its knees!

Umm, except that crushing AT&T's network would make iPhone's a wee bit useless... frack.

(satire, for the humor impaired...)

Re:Not the best idea

[PKFC]

If emergency calls cannot go through under "100%" usage of the tower, something is seriously wrong. There needs to be bandwidth provisioned and reserved for emergency calls for every tower and trunk.

If this does affect emergency calls, AT&T really does need to get their shit together. I assume there are laws in place to enforce the transmission of emergency calls. Hell AT&T gets a free stress test of their network which is something they should be doing anyway. Real world data of extreme usage. Study, learn and yes: build a better network because of it.

Re:Not the best idea

[chew8bitsperbyte]

In addition, what if this actually interferes with an emergency call?

Data and voice operate independently of one another. While 3G/EDGE service may be disrupted it won't affect end-users' abilities to make calls over GPRS. And while it may further reinforce AT&T's point that their end-users gobble "too much" bandwidth, the publicity that it could generate would be a nice way of sticking it to yet another corporation that enjoys selling "limited-unlimited".

Re:Not the best idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the AT&T network is far ahead of any others, it turns out. The real problem is with the network handling layers in the iPhone. Some independent research was recently done - using laptops with 3G cards - and it was seen that the AT&T network is the best in the US.

Here is the article if you are in a state of disbelief, like me.

The important consequence of this is that this "Operation Chokehold" is going to do little to the network, since AT&T's network capacity is NOT near its limit with "normal" usage. The iPhones are effectively throttling their own data usage by (faulty) design.

Re:Not the best idea

[socrplayr813]

You're absolutely right and I doubt the people doing this have thought through it that much, but I think the point of it is more to pound home the idea that AT&T (supposedly) doesn't want to invest in their network.

Re:Not the best idea

[harmonise]

In addition, what if this actually interferes with an emergency call?

People don't place emergency calls over 3G data connections. Those are voice calls.

Re:Not the best idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they should do the opposite: pick an hour for NO iPhone usage on another day, and compare the results.

Re:Not the best idea

[pckl300]

In addition, what if this actually interferes with an emergency call?

You might want to look into not having an emergency.

Re:Not the best idea

[DeadCatX2]

AT&T has effectively admitted that the data usage growth for smartphones is above the rate that their data network will be able to grow

Maybe if they stop suing Verizon over commercials and start investing that money in infrastructure, growth won't be a problem.

In addition, what if this actually interferes with an emergency call?

This type of risk analysis should have been addressed during the design state of the network, because it's a very real possibility even outside of an attempt by users to fight back against their corporate rulers.

Re:Not the best idea

[crashumbc]

I have a bunch of issues with that article, the first "source" has att+t has client, not Verizon.

The signal strength tests? how were they measured? using a specific signal strength device, or the cell phones? (hint: cell phones LIE very badly about your actual signal strength)

there is no actual evidence or data, just so and so said so it must be true...

Re:Not the best idea

[PaulMeigh]

True but I may need to make an emergency Scrabble move.

Re:Not the best idea

[garynuman]

will you please explain to me why using your phone exactly the way it was marketed to you amounts to a DDOS attack? AT&T has been making money by the boatload by having the monopoly on the iphone, constantly advertise how totally awesome their network is, and is willing to aggressively sue if someone is bold enough to back-sass them about the quality of their network. Yet if you buy an iphone you find that not only does the network kind of suck despite the inordinately expensive plan you've been forced into in order to have unlimited data but also that AT&T, the company that promised you all these great things on their totally awesome network, will eventually begin to tell you that its your fault that your phone doesn't work well and that not only are you ruining it for yourself but your slowing it down for everyone else too....you need to use less data, but do keep paying for that unlimited (unlimited, of course, meaning 5GB/Mo) plan, otherwise we wont have money to hire more Wilson brothers to trick new marks..... Seriously though it seems like this guy is asking people to use Pandora, not to maliciously inject packets- also they are not trying to deny service to legitimate users- these ARE legitimate users locked into contracts on a network that does not preform anywhere near the way they were led to believe it would. They will use their phones legitimately- ostensibly to run apps that they also paid for simply to prove, at least in the way that I understand it, that AT&T network does not work as advertised, and that its not the fault of some über heavy iphone data users, but that it simply is insufficient to cover the existing customer base. AT&T is treating its best customers the worst, and if their network is unable to be scaled to handle the traffic in a profitable manner why not drop the iphone and other such smart devices and let some poor other wireless provider deal with the impossible task...

Re:Not the best idea

[Blappo]

"In addition, what if this actually interferes with an emergency call?"

Oh no, what if we get DIRTY!

Seriously, I hate this argument. It really adds nothing to the conversation and smacks of Republican "what about the children" alarmism.

You really polluted your point with that, and I really don't mean to flame, but I chafe when people try to use edge cases like you have for no real purpose whatsoever.

Re:Not the best idea

[mikewren420]

It's not my problem that AT&T is selling smartphones at a rate which their infrastructure cannot support. They're compounding their problems by offering an unlimited data plan, taboot.

Encouraging users to actually use the service for which they are already paying isn't a bad thing. If this interferes with E911 calls, AT&T has a lot of explaining to do.

However, FakeSteve isn't doing anyone favors by calling it a DDoS. Is it a DDoS if everyone picks up their landline at midnight on New Years Day? Is it a DDoS when everyone goes to the post office in the week leading up to Christmas?

Re:Not the best idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like they should stop signing up new customers until they can provide for them. Think there's any chance that will happen?

Re:Not the best idea

[adamchou]

Hell AT&T gets a free stress test of their network which is something they should be doing anyway.

I sure as hell hope they have their engineers prepared to monitor and analyze the cell tower usage to see where and how to improve the network. Its not everyday you get free load testing of your production environment.

every day is a DOS day

[Anonymous Coward]

"It is unclear if there will be enough support to cause a DDOS"

It think it is pretty clear it will be - normal usage days on the AT&T network overwhelm it.

I am getting rid of my iPhone when my contract is up if I can't get away from AT&T.

This is what you get

[Anonymous Coward]

When you just have to have the shiny toy that locks you in to a single network.

Might be time to look at a smartphone that works on competing networks without having to "jailbreak" them. Namely ALL the other ones.

(love it -- my captcha is "wireless")

Don't know which day? Friday or the 19th?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's an app for that!

Angry Slashdotters May Disrupt Service

[Yvan256]

www.fakesteve.net

Error 500 - Internal server error

An internal server error has occured!
Please try again later.

Re:Angry Slashdotters May Disrupt Service

[Coren22]

He's running the web server off his iPhone, the network got a test 2 days early.

Re:Angry Slashdotters May Disrupt Service

[Anonymous Coward]

The irony!

some of the usage is ridiculous

[alen]

i have an iphone 3gs and i max out at 2GB per month if i stream pandora almost all day for a month. the 3% AT&T is talking about use 20GB or more and reading some forums people brag how they did it by jailbreaking and tethering or using some banned apps.

the unlimited data plan is if you follow the TOS. jailbreaking and tethering is against the TOS so expect almost everyone not to care when AT&T implements a 5GB or 10GB max data per month and charges you a lot of money for anything above that. my wife uses less than 100MB per month on her iphone and most people are less than 500MB per month

the only people the new charges will hurt are a small minority who aren't playing by the contract anyway

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[nurb432]

I care if i don't exceed it the new cap. It is the principle, not the practice.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Just Some Guy]

i have an iphone 3gs and i max out at 2GB per month if i stream pandora almost all day for a month.

2*1024*1024*1024/(8*3600*30)*8 = 20Kbps. That's some darn good compression they're using.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[SatanicPuppy]

I agree, and yet I don't. Unlimited means unlimited, it doesn't mean "Within reason."

AT&T needs to get it's shit together.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[rockNme2349]

Although, Unlimited does mean Unlimited, Unlimited* means Unlimited*. Read the fine print.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Amouth]

exactly - if they want a 5gb a month plan - then sell it as a 5gb a month plan not unlimited.

unlimited means without limit - a limit is a restriction - a cap is a restriction and there for a limit.

I really wish i had the resources to take them to court for fraud/false advertising/deceptive practices.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[alen]

at least during the workday. i checked my usage on my account page and it averaged 100MB per day

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[stms]

20GB pff that's nothing. I tethered my iphone to my pc and use torrented up 50GB.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[AceCoolie]

I wonder if they change the plan to remove the unlimited data, does this count as "terms & conditions" change and allow users to cancel service without paying the early termination fees?

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[bsDaemon]

I'm sorry, but this is just sort of childish. The GP is right -- under normal circumstances, it is almost impossible to hit any potential caps, and the people that this will affect aren't keeping up their end of the contractual obligation anyway, so terms can be nullified for them -- ie, they shouldn't be entitled to "unlimited" bandwidth for the same price if they're going to cheat.

Look at it like this -- back in the dialup days, if I were to pay for "unlimited" internet access, that would be with the understanding that I would connect one modem to one phone line and tie up one interface. What if I were to channel bond two or more modems, dial in, combine the bandwidth and in the processes suck up half a modem bank at the ISP? Sure, I'm paying for "unlimited" internet access, but what about the people who are also paying just as much as I am but who cannot take advantage of the service because I'm monopolizing the pipe? I actually got kicked from an ISP in high school for doing something similar, which is why I use this as an example.

I'm not an iPhone user, and I'm not on AT&T either way. I have a BlackBerry Storm on Verizon, and I pay for "unlimited data." I don't use it much, but occasionally I do. Paying for "unlimited" to me means that if I average 100-200M per billing cycle, but occasionally have heavy usage, such as a few days somewhere without my laptop, and end up pulling a gig during a billing period, then I don't get charged overages that I otherwise might have, had I purchased, for example, a 500Mbit per cycle plan thinking that I'm never going to go over it. I'm not tethering my phone to my laptop and using it as a cellular modem to run cvsup of the entire FreeBSD source tree and laughing all the way to the bank.

Just because we're technically capable of doing out-of-band things that 95% of users of the same product (such as iphone or blackberry) aren't even aware that they can do doesn't mean that it's OK to do them then bitch when our special fun time gets cut off. As a system admin at a web hosting company, I've put the smack down on more than enough users who thought that "unlimited bandwidth" meant "I can stream hi-def video at 50Mbit/sec all day every day and to hell with anyone else on that segment of the network" to know that if I were to take the side of "the masses" on this issue, it would by hypocritical. And publicly advertising a mass attempt to bring down the network to prove some sort of point just makes my skin crawl, and I'm not an AT&T employee who's probably thinking of calling out sick on Friday just to not have to deal with the crap if this gets off the ground.

Seriously, just WTF.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[alen]

Verizon and AT&T already have 5GB limits on the tethering plan they sell as an extra to a data plan. problem is the 3% of iphone users are tethering and not paying the extra fee. and now they are crying they will have to pay

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[DeadCatX2]

Why would you want to torrent over 3G? There are apps that can remotely administer some BitTorrent clients. Use your connection at home, which has meaningful bandwidth.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Genom]

There really should be enforcable consumer-protection laws against re-defining terms to mean their opposite. Unlimited should mean Unlimited, fine print or not. It should not, under any circumstances, mean "Limited".

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[saider]

Using this logic you could sue just about anyone. There are technical limits imposed by the equipment used. You could even sue your router or laptop manufacturer since they limit your ethernet consumption to 100Mbps or 1000Mbps.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[stms]

Because I don't have a home connection, you insensitive clod!

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Bengie]

WHAT? I can't hear you, you're audio stream is too garbled

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[lowrydr310]

As a system admin at a web hosting company, I've put the smack down on more than enough users who thought that "unlimited bandwidth" meant "I can stream hi-def video at 50Mbit/sec all day every day and to hell with anyone else on that segment of the network" to know that if I were to take the side of "the masses" on this issue, it would by hypocritical.

Don't advertise 'unlimited bandwidth' if you don't mean it. If you have some expectation as to what you define as 'reasonable usage,' be upfront and honest about it; unlimited means unlimited. If you don't want someone constantly streaming at 50Mb/s then say so, just don't sell it as 'unlimited bandwidth.'

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[rockNme2349]

They redefine Unlimited to mean Unlimited use, as opposed to pay by the minute or pay by the hour. Unlimited access, not unlimited data. Under their terms you can have unlimited access to the bandwidth, but if you go over a certain amount of data they charge overages.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[kimvette]

Mine is jailbroken for the following reasons: 1) so I can background (not suspend) TomTom when answering a call 2) so I could customize springboard with a 5x5 layout and skin it to MY liking rather than Steve Jobs' liking and 3) so I can get a bash script and SSH for running shell scripts I wrote for server monitoring and maintenance.

I don't use voip clients over 3G with my iPhone, and I don't otherwise abuse the network despite having jailbroken it, nor am I running any unauthorised services. I merely customized my phone, just as the first sale doctrine allows.

I watch video and listen to streamed music constantly. However I have used WiFi whenever possible. My current monthly use is 116.23MB, 21 days into the 30-day billing cycle. My average is around 250MB or so, nowhere near the unpublished caps on the "unlimited" service. My highest to date is around 900MB or so, when I was downloading apps constantly. My peak came months before I did the jailbreak (I did the jailbreak Thanksgiving weekend), so jailbreaking it has nothing to do with the bandwidth I use.

Although I am nowhere near any unpublished limit, I am very angry that AT&T is even considering blaming the customer for their network problems. THEY are the ones who ADVERTISED an OFFER to me, and they unashamedly accepted the money from me for their advertised service. Why should they be shocked when customers like me actually take advantage of the service that AT&T is so willing to sell? For the customers they plan to terminate, are they going to unlock those smartphones since AT&T the customer is acting in good faith, and it is AT&T breaking the contract? Or, could the customer sue AT&T for breach of contract and win punitive damages on top of the cost of a locked smartphone?

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Amouth]

0% of iPhone users on AT&T can get a tethering plan from AT&T.

the crying to pay is crap - what your hearing is the bait and switch complaints.

they sell it as unlimited - and are now using their lack of network growth to justify changing contracts to 5gb max meaning unlimited while pocketing the money.

As far as i'm concerned the tethering iPhone users can be cut off - they knew when they bought the phone that it wasn't allowed. In fact that is the chief reason i don't have one, because i do tether a lot.

AT&T justs wants to continue over selling their network and charge more for it too - all to fund the top people and not actual network expansion.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Cwix]

I agree with you up to a point.. unlimited means unlimited, if you or att want to cap usage, you shouldn't say unlimited. Now dont get me wrong, I think the DDOS is a poor idea, BUT I can understand the frustration behind it. (Im a Verizon customer, so im not too concerned about it anyways.)

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[nomadic]

I care if i don't exceed it the new cap. It is the principle, not the practice.

When I entered into a contract with AT&T for unlimited internet on my iphone, I assumed they were entering into it in good faith; that they would make a reasonable effort to provide me fast, well-connected internet service. For the most part they have. I don't think it's unfair for THEM to expect ME to enter it into good faith either, and not jailbreak my phone and tether it to a computer then spend 24/7 maxing out the bandwidth.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, and yet I don't. Unlimited means unlimited, it doesn't mean "Within reason."

AT&T needs to get it's shit together.

AT&T has "It's shit!" together just fine.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Amouth]

why? when i bought the router it said on the box 100Mbps Ethernet. And thats what i got. they don't say unlimited.

whats happening is they are saying Unlimited for X and then charging you X+Y where Y is usage over 5gb.

if they want to do that then they need to state that and remove the word Unlimited as that is false advertising.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Cwix]

After scrolling down I noticed others have already said similar things to earlier posts, so disregard its probably redundant.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[crashumbc]

then they shouldn't call it "unlimited" then
truth in advertising and all the jazz...

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, and yet I don't. Unlimited means unlimited, it doesn't mean "Within reason."

AT&T needs to get it's shit together.

Exactly.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Coren22]

Maybe someone should email the AT&T and Verizon execs a Definition of unlimited according to Webster:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Unlimited

Main Entry: unlimited
Pronunciation: \-li-m-td\
Function: adjective
Date: 15th century

1 : lacking any controls : unrestricted
2 : boundless, infinite
3 : not bounded by exceptions : undefined

— unlimitedly adverb

Just adding that * of the sibling post doesn't change the definition of unlimited, and it is false advertising even with the *

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

the 3% AT&T is talking about use 20GB or more and reading some forums people brag how they did it by jailbreaking and tethering ...

the unlimited data plan is if you follow the TOS. jailbreaking and tethering is against the TOS

And you know this notorious 3% exists how? You just taking AT&T's word for it? And if people are tethering so what? Is the iPhone US only? Do non-US customers not tether? Doesn't AT&T sell 3G cards for laptops?

This wouldn't be the first time they've offered unlimited data and then retracted it:

http://www.pocketables.net/2008/06/how-to-get-att.html

In fact, they still advertise unlimited data plans on their website:

http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/services/services-list.jsp?catId=cat1470003&catName=Messaging+%26+Data

http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/services/serviceDetails.jsp?wtSlotClick=1-002B7I-0-1&WT.svl=calltoaction&LOSGId=&skuId=sku1160058&catId=cat1470003&_requestid=229001

You've got it all, for just $1 a day

Stay connected anytime, all the time. For a low monthly fee, Messaging & Data Unlimited gives you unlimited text, picture, video, and instant messaging, as well as unlimited access to mobile Web, search, email, apps, and more. Now you can spend countless hours on some of your favorite Web sites like – CNN, ESPN®, The Weather Channel®, MySpace®, Facebook®, Twitter, MTV, YouTube, Yahoo!® – or download games, music, or TV clips from your favorite shows.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[greyhueofdoubt]

When I stream from pandora or last.fm, the rate is indeed between 12-20 Kbps. I'm listening right now and since I started paying attention a few minutes ago, the speed has never exceeded 22.0 Kbps.

-b

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[jgtg32a]

I didn't see anywhere that Jailbreaking was against the ToS, I only saw tethering.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Sandbags]

I don;t know... I hardly use Pandora (usually only on wifi anyway), and I might watch 20 minutes total of YouTube videos in 30 days.

I send/receive a ton of e-mail, and web surf quite a bit, including reading PDFs (tech manuals mostly for products I'm deploying or supporting), I'm also a heavy maps user.

I reset my data counter every billing cycle. I'm sitting at 3.1GB right now. Looking through my history, I've had 4 months this year well over 5GB.

I don't tether.
I don't do much video over the air (20 min a month?)
I rarely do audio over the air (a few hours a month?)
I don't twitter
I don't play any games with online connections

I exceed their cap regularly....

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure those are b, not B? Because if they are, I encourage you to leave your geek card at the door.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[a8ksh4]

Sorry, but it's not unlimited, it's unlimited*. Metro PCS here in CA has an unlimited* data plan, too, that restricts all traffic to and from the device except over port 443 and their (non-functional) proxy on 1328.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

>I agree, and yet I don't. Unlimited means unlimited, it doesn't mean "Within reason."

And yet, in the most lawsuit happy country in the world, nobody has really tried suing any carrier over the word "unlimited". Either the lawyers have decided they don't want the money or your opinion (and the opinion of the slashbots who modded you up) is brain dead. Hmmm, which one could it be?

Oh, BTW, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffery.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[greyline]

Troll, really? More like insightful. Mods r dum

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[saider]

Also consider your internet service, which is also billed as being "unlimited". The output of the modem is often only 10MBps. Clearly this places a limit on your unlimited service.

The point I am getting at is that at some point the technology becomes saturated and this places a limit on your service without there being the need for software or billing policy limits. ATT's crappy network caps your "unlimited" service without the need for policy changes.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

aww that's cute how you feel bound by a completely one sided contract that they reserve the right to change at will.
You are a tool.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Amouth]

Well i think at issue here is companies using the word Unlimited. my home cable connection isn't sold as Unlimited but rather an unmonitored 7mb/512kb - same as when you order frame circuits, they are sold at a rate either monitored or not with or without transfer caps.

AT&T sells theirs as 3G unlimited. word usage is completely different.

Re:some of the usage is ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

kbps? kBps? there's no Kbps..

So...

[awyeah]

So I can go ahead and expect to stop receiving e-mails on my BlackBerry on Friday? Great, yeah, sweet. Thanks guys!

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't like it, get a better network that can actually handle all of its users, well, using it.

Re:So...

[sexconker]

So I can go ahead and expect to stop receiving e-mails on my BlackBerry on Friday? Great, yeah, sweet. Thanks guys!

I don't see what the weekly blackberry fuckups have to do with this story, other than the fact that you happen to know in advance when your blackberry will fuck up this time.

Re:So...

[Coren22]

I can't say I have had any issues with my BB that weren't related to problems with the actual email servers it was connecting to.

Re:So...

[hguorbray]

How will the customers even notice when they already have such spotty service?

My Music studio is in an industrial area of san jose, ca

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=uVf&ei=vjYpS6mSA9OvsAbQyq2wDQ&sa=X&oi=spellfullpage&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=2&ved=0CAcQvwUoAQ&&q=495+e+brokaw+rd+san+jose,+ca&spell=1

and I have to walk 100 yards out to the street before I get a signal back -and even then I have to power cycle my Blackjack2 first.

-I'm just sayin'

Re:So...

[sexconker]

I can't say I have had any issues with my BB that weren't related to problems with the actual email servers it was connecting to.

So have you peeled the protective film off of the screen yet?

Re:So...

[awyeah]

I don't have spotty service at all, anywhere I go on a regular basis. I think it's one of those YMMV situations. I rarely drop a call, I nearly always have good signal.

Re:So...

[Coren22]

Yes, then went out and bought one that was much better. I use it daily, and receive somewhere around 300 emails a day on it.

Re:Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

[Culture20]

...and "noon" should be tied to a timezone, otherwise it's several smaller spikes.

CGI SCRIPT

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not have a CGI script that outputs /dev/urandom that everyone on AT&T can load up?.
I dunno if that would be the best way to eat up ze bandwithz or even if that works.

Ping Flood

[Anonymous Coward]

why don't people figure out what at&t's data network ip range is and have a gigantic ping flood to that entire segment? huge packets to all the ip addys? get some proper skills instead of streaming pron...

Won't work

[fandingo]

This is why we can't have anything nice. Please stop acting like children.

There isn't any way that this could be productive.

This seems like someone ones misunderstanding of civil disobedience. The idea behind CD is to do something illegal (which this is not) and then be punished for it. Then, the public is so outraged at the punishment, and that causes a policy change. The public is not going to force ATT to change its policies to allow juvenile, hacker (that's what it will be called) behavior.

Re:Won't work

[Anonymous Coward]

The public as a whole, no. The hordes who run the fuck away from AT&T when they don't hold up their end of the contract...?

Re:Won't work

[sexconker]

The public as a whole, no. The hordes who run the fuck away from AT&T when they don't hold up their end of the contract...?

As long as AT&T has the iPhone, the mindless hordes will stay. They will stay and bitch and moan.

Re:Won't work

[Genom]

This is why we need to force carriers to unlock phones upon request, once any subsidizing contract is terminated. We need to be able to take our phones to another carrier who's willing to treat us like customers, and not as the enemy.

Re:Won't work

[sexconker]

I'd like a Droid, but I can't use it on AT&T.

Even within GSM / CDMA, frequency disparity will simply replace locking. Oh, that's a GSM 2275 phone, you can't take that to Carrier X - they're on GSM 1500/1800/2100/2250 !

iPhone idiots

[oldhack]

I hope it "suceeds."

Re:iPhone idiots

[BlindSpot]

I hope it "suceeds."

Everybody sing along now: S-U-C-C-E-E-S! That's the way you spell success.

Re:iPhone idiots

[oldhack]

Well, the iPhone idiots accomplished something impossible: make AT&T look sane.

Re:iPhone idiots

[michaelwigle]

Everybody sing along now: S-U-C-C-E-E-S! That's the way you spell success.

~chuckles~ Really? You might want to try that again. :P

Re:iPhone idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironic how there is a spelling error in the spelling lesson...

Re:iPhone idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

As they say, "Whoosh!".

Re:iPhone idiots

[michaelwigle]

~lol~ Yup, had my literal hat on. Totally over my head. Oh well, it happens.

Way to prove AT&T's point

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T is claiming iPhone/etc users are using too much network bandwidth, so unlimited bandwidth plans need to end.

In response, iPhone/etc users will crash AT&T's network by using too much bandwidth.

Yeah, that'll work.

Re:Way to prove AT&T's point

[kimvette]

No, it's a very practical way to tell AT&T:

"You think we're using excessive bandwidth now? We'll show you what excessive bandwidth usage really is!"

How mature.

[demonlapin]

You know, it's times like this that I'm glad I have Verizon.

Seriously, folks, this is like crazy Berkeley behavior. All you're going to do is make sure that every other AT&T customer - like the ones whose family members are sick in the hospital, or who just got in a massive wreck, or who just got carjacked, or maybe are waiting to hear from a family member overseas - can't get service. All so you can point out that AT&T has a grossly inadequate network, which is something that everyone knows already. The completely nontechnical people I know at work all complain about AT&T service even when they don't have 3G service at all. What's your point?

Re:How mature.

[Kyrene]

I'm with you. If they don't like it, then switch service providers. I'm also a Verizon customer and never had a prob with them. Best coverage no matter where I travel.

Re:How mature.

[Blastercorps]

You have it backwards. They're going to do their darndest to hog as much bandwidth as possible, and then point out that AT&T's network was just as shitty as the day before and the day after. This is to disprove that "greedy inconsiderate iPhone users" are bringing AT&T, when AT&T is doing that just fine on their own.

Re:How mature.

[demonlapin]

I'm not sure it proves anything. Every network would collapse if everyone on it started going bandwidth-hog all at once.

Everybody knows that AT&T is full of crap when they try to blame network problems on the iPhone, but since they're not going to release internal data, what difference does it make? A better approach would be for everyone to NOT use data for an hour or two, but to start making phone calls and texts - and then tally up how many dropped calls they had. That will prove that their network just can't handle it.

Re:stay classy

[Pojut]

We are used to our politicians lying to us, but most people are still getting used to their Advertising Service Provider or Dropped Call Provider lying to them. ::shrug::

Uh oh!

[Ambiguous Coward]

Pretend-inciting a virtual cyber riot? Why, that hypothetically violates some possible public safety laws! This guy had better watch out, he might go to meta-jail for his semi-crimes!

But seriously, AT&T is going to try to sue him. :(

Bait and swtich?

[nurb432]

Selling us all unlimited *contracts* that they know they cant deliver, then later switching it to limited while we are still stuck with the contract should be something the FCC should look into.

Re:Bait and swtich?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would any organization related to the American government be against that tactic? They use use it time and time and time again.

I mean, just look at the Iraq war. "Weapons of mass destruction" was the bait for the "massive profits for various military, petrol and mercenary vendors" switch.

"Unspecified, unsubstantiated terrorist threats" have been the bait for the huge amounts of legislation switched in to remove the rights of individual Americans.

"Economic gains for America" has been the bait for various free trade agreements, with the benefits being switched over to supranational corporations and third world nations like Mexico and Cambodia.

It's one of the most useful tools in their toolbox!

Re:Bait and swtich?

[Anonymous Coward]

I do believe that in the U.S., you have a fixed number of days to cancel your contract upon any change of terms of the original contract. So if you did not get out then, or failed to read the original terms sufficiently, then you really cannot blame them, as you had the option to leave upon the modification of terms, or just not sign up in the first place, if the problem was with the original terms, that you most likely didn't read.

Re:Bait and swtich?

[Registered Coward v2]

Selling us all unlimited *contracts* that they know they cant deliver, then later switching it to limited while we are still stuck with the contract should be something the FCC should look into.

Actually, such a change in the contract would probably let you get out of the contract without early termination fees. More likely they will do it for renewals only by no longer offering unlimited plans.

Re:Bait and swtich?

[Anonymous Coward]

Any change to the plan that you specifically did not agree to gives you the right to terminate said plan without an early termination fee. Besides, you'd be surprised how far you can actually get for contacting the FCC over stuff like this. If they do change your service, complain when they try to charge you the outlandish termination fee.

Re:Bait and swtich?

[Anonymous Coward]

never mind the fact that they are guilty of treason...how u may ask...check the electronic frontier foundation website.

Re:Bait and swtich?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they're doing that in Canada and our toothless corporate lapdog the CRTC just rubber stamped it. So there you go.

Re:Bait and swtich?

[1080bogus]

I don't know if the FCC should look into it but it gives you the ability to get out of your contract without fee because it violates the contract you and ATT agreed to

Re:Bait and swtich?

[jtgd]

Me: "Hi, I'd like to complete your cancellation of our contract."

AT&T: "OUR cancellation? How do you figure that?"

Me: "Well our contract was for unlimited data access, and you have announced that you no longer offer unlimited data access, so that means you've canceled our contract."

Missing Option

[grolaw]

I'm changing my plan to the lowest pricing structure possible. I am going to log every dropped call and file a FCC complaint as it will have "stolen" minutes from me.

I have two iPhones with 3000 min day & 3000 min night + rollover, unlimited texting and the required data plan.

I'll send letters off to the AT&T consumer oversight about the obvious overselling of the data//cell service by AT&T - much like the old airlines used to do with seats and overbooking - betting that the no-shows will prevent bumping. Here, we have virtual bumping from saturated networks.

Frankly, AT&T ought to be dissolved - the Corporate Death Penalty and give the shareholders not a dime. The company has, through several iterations, demonstrated its gross incompetence too many times to exist. It is a monopoly and all monopolies must die. Let's kill AT&T - screw the shareholders. Time for "too big to fail" to take a nosedive into history.

Re:Missing Option

[Anonymous Coward]

Out of curiously and in no way I'm coming down on AT&T/iphone users but why did you choose AT&T to begin with? I think I've met only one or two people that can swear by AT&T coverage and service. I would love to get an Iphone but the complaints about their dropped calls and slow internet is astonishing considering that 17% of smartphone users have iphones. Plus the termination fee is absurd considering that coverage is relative to your location(s) or that you may or may not get the service that you paid for.

 

Re:Missing Option

[ElectricTurtle]

While I don't disagree with harassing them via the FCC about services they are obligated to provide, your 'screw the shareholders' attitude is doubtless based on some ignorant conception that those are all wealthy suits on yachts somewhere. The shareholders of AT&T in many cases are rank-and-file Americans who both directly and indirectly buy in via funds. AT&T is no doubt part of a lot of retirement portfolios both for those who are currently retired and those who will be. However I'm sure that granny won't mind running out of money to live on just so you can have your anti-corporate crusade.

Re:Missing Option

[castironpigeon]

First - no, you won't.
Second - even if you did, why should the FCC care? No, really, think about it. Do you think any government agency is going to purposely put thousands of people out of jobs, cause stocks to drop even lower, and send a great big Fuck You to the corporate bosses who pay their paychecks all to make a couple thousand disgruntled geeks happy? When those disgruntled geeks are just going to go away if they're ignored for a while?

I feel your pain. I don't have a smart phone, but broadband is in the same boat. Just bend over and take it like a good consumer whore. The only people who can change this system are the people running it and I don't think they have any intention of changing it in our favor.

Re:Missing Option

[Anonymous Coward]

If you own an S&P 500 Index mutual fund - then you are one of the shareholders. So, you're screwing yourself.

Re:Missing Option

[lowrydr310]

If either Granny or the funds that she bought into have some unreasonably large amount invested solely in AT&T, then perhaps they need a new investment strategy.

Re:Missing Option

[ElectricTurtle]

I have little doubt that the GP's attitude extends to more major domestic corporations than just AT&T.

Re:Missing Option

[rickb928]

Of course, AT&T Wireless isn't a monolith, and hasn't actually existed before, I think, 2006?

Before AT&T Wireless, it was Cingular. Before that, it was *gasp* AT&T Wireless (ATTWS).

Before that, mostly regional carriers that got gobbled up, like Cellular One in Maine, I think. Or was it Maine Cellular, they all blur together.

Which I remember well.

So AT&T has had a few years to demonstrate their slavery to the profit motive (proper for a corporation) and moderate disdain for customers (not so proper). Of course Sprint holds the trophy for putting profit ahead of service, when they canned a bunch of customers because they called too often to complain. I think that was a brilliant move on their part, BTW, as they ditched people that called more than once a day. These are dissatified customers, and giving them a get-off-of-Sprint-free card was perfect. Many didn't want to leave. They like to complain. For those, we have /. which is relatively free.

It's not so much incompetence, as it is profit-seeking. Blowing out your network to accomodate massive data use is expensive, and cuts profits. The balance is difficult to achieve.

And AT&T should probably work on detecting tethering and enforcing their TOS. At least they can defend that on legal grounds. Though they can change the TOS any time, and watch customers bail when they have the get-off-of-AT&T-free card as well. Good riddance. Every carrier dreams of having a customer base that demands less service. Doh.

Maybe they will flood to TMO. Wait, iPhones don't do TMO 3G. Darn. They will need to stay. Captives. Blame Apple.

Re:Missing Option

[Anonymous Coward]

And i will file a lawsuit against you for "stealing" my tax dollars wasting FCC resources.

Grow up, if you don't like At&T use someone else.

Re:Missing Option

[Anonymous Coward]

much like the old airlines they still do this, especially Delta

Re:Missing Option

[CodeBuster]

Let's kill AT&T - screw the shareholders. Time for "too big to fail" to take a nosedive into history.

Unfortunately, we are all riding on the same economic ship; if it goes down then we all go with it. Do you think unemployment is bad now? Just wait until the foundations of the entire economy crumble into dust after Bernanke adopts your advice. The disorderly collapse of Lehman Brothers almost pushed us over the brink. How would you feel if the doors to all of the banks were locked, the FDIC couldn't pay but a fraction of your deposits and the federal government itself was bankrupt (or effectively so)? It has happened several times in Argentina in the last 40 years and the social consequences have been extremely damaging (not anything like what most Americans who weren't alive during the Great Depression are used to or even remember). You can read about it here. I don't like bailouts or "too big to fail" either, but the modern economy and monetary system are very complex and IMHO there really are no perfectly just solutions, only some which are relatively "less bad".

Re:Missing Option

[grolaw]

You are citing the progeny of the breakup of AT&T - the telecommunications giant that was the US National Monopoly through the 1970s.

All of your sub-entities or new entities existed to fill the vacuum created by antitrust litigation beginning in the 1960s to break up the monopoly.

AT&T existed before and is doing exactly what it did to bring about its divestiture.

Kill it. Kill it dead. It only gets one chance to stop being a monopoly. Leave every shareholder BROKE.

The time is right and the entity and all of its employees, leaders and shareholders should pay the ultimate price. I'd go so far as to bar the top 3 tiers of management from working in the telecommunications industry again - just as was done with Michael Milken and Ivan Boesky - a criminal sanction for criminal acts.

FRY AT&T - the perfect way to tell the entities that are too big to fail that they are not too big to destroy.

Imagine how nice, polite and competitive the remaining providers would be if they knew they would be toast if they tried this bait-and-switch service BS.

Re:Missing Option

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for that, and thank the moderators for considering incite-ful and insightful to be homologues.
My father worked for AT&T for 30 years in many of its previous incarnations, and while i will agree that "gross incompetence" has been there all along, I have no idea why you want to "kill AT&T - screw the shareholders." The company has for decades used stock options in lieu of monetary bonuses, and many employees and ex-employees have been waiting nervously for over a decade for those contracts to be worth something. In 1999 we cashed out a portion and put me through college; my brother is due to go next year and we're glad that some AT&T stock is worth close to its 90's bubble price. If you or any reader here has money in a mutual fund or 401k at your employer, you can bet you have a personal investment in big T.
The problem is a lack of regulation, as has often been a problem with AT&T through the years. As long as you continue to pay your bill to AT&T, no amount of complaint will get their attention.

Re:Missing Option

[rickb928]

That AT&T was broke up before cell phones were a dream.

But why kill ATTWS? You now have competition. Go get a new plan when AT&T changes your plan.

Re:Missing Option

[grolaw]

RT SEC finings...

The animal is the same animal as we split up. It is showing the same spots it showed 40 years ago.

Kill it before it grows more powerful. Look, how many wiretaps are you willing to allow? Time to burn this baby monster. They have paid fines for changing their tower frequencies to interfere with competitors - we ought to bust them for that, alone.

BTW, radio-telephone existed LOOONG before cellular radio-telephone - says the guy who had his 1st 'phone at 16 - signed by Ben F. Waple of the FCC.

Now, take the b ig dog and put it down. Nothing makes the rest of the pack respect you more than offing the top dog.

AT&T is a monopoly and has to die!

Re:Missing Option

[grolaw]

The current "Great Republican Depression" is not felt on Wall Street - but Main Street is bleeding.

In 1929 the bankers had the decency to jump from high buildings. Today, they borrow from the FED (Federal Reserve, a PRIVATELY HELD company) at 0.0% interest and can buy T-Bills at 3%.

FDIC/FSLIC are federal insurance companies.

We (the USA) used all sorts of tricks to impose high-interest loans on Argentina post the Malvinas/Falklands war. It was Hugo Chavez who (with vast profits from the Bush Administration run up of oil prices by speculation) paid off those debts and restructured them.

I am an attorney, over 50 years old and I think that this nation has become an oligarchy serving only the top 30,000 citizens. Consider that they command more assets than the entire lower median income population - 30,000 have more assets than 150,000,000.

The French (and, all other empires - especially water empires) overthrew their rulers at asset ratios far lower.

This is a nation formed "Of, By and FOR the People" not corporate empires. I could go off on the railroad tax cases of 120 years ago that conveyed "human" standing to corporations - but I won't.

Off AT&T - we broke them up once and they are pulling the same BS today. Burn them. Burn their shareholders and bar the top three layers of management from ever working in telecommunications forever - as a criminal sanction similar to Boesky in the 1980s.

The rest of the employees could easily fill the demand for experienced workers in the competitors.

But, burning the investors - 0.0% return and no tax deduction for the loss - that's what will start changes in our corporate culture.

What, Maddoff didn't do worse?

At least this time, there will be a point to the crash & burn....

Re:Missing Option

[rickb928]

AT&T / VERIZON

These two control a lot of market. But not all.

Monopoly is not the card you want to play. Try net neutrality after you play the disclosure and terms for life of the contract vs change with notice.

AT&T isn't a monopoly any more. Being evil is enough.

Re:Missing Option

[grolaw]

Oh, status quo.

The FCC doesn't have the power to nullify the corporate charter of AT&T and its affiliates.

The DOJ does.

In the past we have rarely used the Corporate Death Penalty - and your argument is AT&T is too big to fail - or be killed off?

I'm for thousands of managers out of work - and out of the industry as a criminal sanction. The rest of the workers will find jobs with the competition.

We are the people who control our government. Time to make a stand. Burn AT&T - twice is twice too often.

Liability for missed 911 call?

[jestill]

If this works and someone can not get through for a 911 call, is fake Steve Jobs going to real jail?

Re:Liability for missed 911 call?

[cruff]

Presumably voice traffic has priority over the data traffic? Do the individual cell towers have enough smarts to be able to identify emergency call traffic?

Re:Liability for missed 911 call?

[Amouth]

if AT&T's tower switches fail to prioritize a 911 call ahead of generic data traffic then AT&T should be liable for not providing the required 911 service.

some funny things happen with cell phones when you dial 911 - they are not treated as a general phone call.

Re:Liability for missed 911 call?

[AndrewNeo]

Mod parent up. There is a certain amount of reserved bandwidth for emergency calls, and an emergency call being trunked will drop normal calls on the tower to let it go through.

Re:Liability for missed 911 call?

[Bengie]

I use a small midwest carrier called US Cellular and their customer service told me to hold onto any phones that I deactivate because I can still use them to call 911.

Re:Liability for missed 911 call?

[Amouth]

that is true - when ever i get a new cell phone i donate my old one to the domestic violence shelter so they can pass them out as 911 usable phones.

Re:Liability for missed 911 call?

[jgtg32a]

One of the better moves by the FCC, 911 always works

Re:Liability for missed 911 call?

[dwightk]

some funny things happen with cell phones when you dial 911 - they are not treated as a general phone call.

Yeah, like when I dialed 911 on my cell-phone in Durham, NC and it rang 29 times before I gave up and hung up.

Re:Liability for missed 911 call?

[Amouth]

that might just be the Durham police being them selves - either way i would report them (the cell provider) - give time/date/location/number called from.

that is a serious issue - on another note when 911 doesn't work you can use *HP in NC and the cell tower will drop you to the closest Highway Patrol station dispatch, its great to report drunks.

Fastest way to solve it?

[MikeRT]

Disconnect those users. The iPhone zealots have nowhere else to go. Telling them to go for the Droid is like telling a crack addict to drop their habit by smoking pot and slurping vodka. Take down a few thousand users, and the majority will quickly stop complaining.

Re:Fastest way to solve it?

[Amouth]

how about they start using the money to build their network instead of lining a couple people's pockets?

Re:Fastest way to solve it?

[Algan]

And give up at least $80/mo/user? I don't think so. Plus they won't be able to charge ETF, since nothing these users do is against the agreement. Plus the bad publicity they'll get. Nah it'll be like shooting themselves in the foot.

Besides, the users who are susceptible to pull this prank are the ones that know how to jailbreak/unlock their iphones. They'll go to T-Mobile in an instant. I know I would.

Re:Fastest way to solve it?

[ktappe]

Disconnect those users. The iPhone zealots have nowhere else to go. Telling them to go for the Droid is like telling a crack addict to drop their habit by smoking pot and slurping vodka. Take down a few thousand users, and the majority will quickly stop complaining.

Ok, so how about if the NHTSA decides that you're driving too many miles each year? You're putting too much stress on the highways compared to your fellow drivers. You're costing the Feds too much money and contributing to traffic jams. Let's disconnect you from your car: You're no longer permitted to drive. Telling you to take the train or bus is like telling a crack addict to drop their habit by smoking pot and slurping vodka. Take away the licenses of a few thousand drivers and the rest will quickly stop complaining about traffic jams and potholes.

Hey AT&T - upgrade your 3G network!

[ekimminau]

I have had a Motorola KRZR for about 3 years with an "unlimited data plan" I paid an extra $10.00 a month for. I tehthered and constantly connected my company VPN for Lotus Notes email. When I switched to my iPhone I have to pay $20.00 a month more for "unlimited data" yet I couldn't tether (until I jailbrooke my iPhone). If AT&T honestly thinks that me switching from my Motorola to my iPhone increased my usage of their network, they are sadly mistaken. If anything I use it less because the tethering isn't as stable and I mark this up to their 3G network, not the phone. They need to upgrade their 3G network and I fully intend to max out my 3G connection driving around town during lunch on Friday. P.S. I love the Verizon map commercials. I wish they would double the number of times they show them every day.

Huh?

[BlindSpot]

Okay so let me get this straight... show a company you hate their product by creating more demand for it? Does nobody participating understand economics?!? Well don't be surprised when they jack up your rates again and cite "increased network demand" as the reason. Keep at it at you might get to have the same high rates we have here in Canada.

Cutoff sentence

[93 Escort Wagon]

It is unclear if there will be enough support to cause a DDOS...

... or, if they're successful, whether AT&T wireless customers will notice anything has changed.

Re:stay classy

[tthomas48]

While I can't understand your statement due to the lack of subjects, verbs, and agreement, it appears to be tea party rhetoric which is not based upon the news.

Minutes and Data

[fermion]

ATT charges what is really huge amounts for the iPhone. They make the users buy a significant voice package, then add on the data. Even without many extras, these bills can approach $1000 per year.

Here is the thing with heavy data users. Some of them don't use a huge number of voice minutes, so it looks like we are paying the $1000 a year mostly for data. Additionally, many plans are unlimited minutes at off peak times, , sometimes with nominal charges. Given unlimited voice, unlimited data, especially at the less than 1/2 mb per second rates.

If they are saying the heavy users are the problem, and they want to move to limited data plan, then they should more honest about the basic plan. For instance, sell 100 minutes and 100 mb of data for the same price of the current low end plan. This will give an incentive for users to limit data usage in terms of a real savings. It is really disingenuous to charge for data usage, and then complain when users actually make use of the data. In the case of the iPhone, ATT could sell such a plan for $50, even throw in text messages, and probably solve all their problems. I would cut into revenue, but if ATT is not able to service the product, then they should not sell it.

Hah! Like I'd be able to tell the difference.

[jtownatpunk.net]

That sounds like AT&T 3G service on ANY Friday afternoon around here. As well as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. That's why I'm no longer an AT&T customer. Every weekday, I'd see data speeds start to fall off around mid-morning. By 10-10:30, 3G data service was virtually unusable and stayed like that for the rest of the day. I couldn't even keep a telnet session open reliably. (And, yes, I was paying damn good money for tethering using a non-iphone 3G smartphone.)

Why does everyone hate to pay for what they use?

[patrickthbold]

As long as the price for byte was fair I would have no problem not having an unlimited plan. Based on the above post, maybe charging $10-$20 per GB downloaded might be fair. Everyone seems to want unlimited access, but the only people who benefit from that are a) the people who use a lot of bandwidth, and b) ATT who gets lots of money from low usage users.

Charges?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the difference between this, and running a botnet?

Apple phans are no different from infected windows boxes, intellectually.

If this works, I doubt I'd want to be in this guys shoes. I don't know what kind of damages at&t would claim for an hours worth of lost services (huge).

DDoS......

[Shakrai]

.... there's an app for that ;)

Re:DDoS......

[ae1294]

.... there's an app for that ;)

It's on sale in the iPhone App store today for only $1.99!!!!

Re:DDoS......

[angelwolf71885]

thought it was 9999.99 usd damn i had auto purchase enabled

More Ammo for Verizon

[allometry]

We all know that Verizon likes to touch itself while poking fun at AT&T... Now they'll have even more enjoyment when the iPhone becomes available on the VZW network. "See, our network can handle pussy DDoD attempts, while AT&T's can't!"

Re:More Ammo for Verizon

[ShatteredArm]

I'm not sure that's really true:

More evidence that AT&T’s data network is head-and-shoulders above Verizon’s comes from Root Wireless, a start-up in Bellevue, Wash., that is developing software for consumers to install on their smartphones to do continuous network tests. This generates empirical data for consumers who “today are buried under opinions and advertising slogans,” said Paul Griff, the chief executive. Root Wireless has no business relationship with any carrier.

This year, Root Wireless ran 4.7 million tests on smartphones for each of the four major carriers, spread across seven metropolitan areas: Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles/Orange County, New York, Seattle/Tacoma, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Washington. In every market, AT&T had faster average download speeds and had signal strength of 75 percent or better more frequently than did Verizon. (A Verizon spokesman declined to comment about these test results or those of Global Wireless Solutions.)

Re:More Ammo for Verizon

[crashumbc]

In every market, AT&T had faster average download speeds and had signal strength of 75 percent

again I would like to know how they did this test?
did they use a custom built device to measure the signal strength? if they used cell phones the results are garbage and can't be trusted. Much like that little battery indicator, the signal strength indicator is a lie.

Re:More Ammo for Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if the smartphone's signal strength indicator has no absolute meaning, it can be meaningful as an indicator of relative signal strength; i.e., if the device shows three bars, you have a weaker signal than when the same device shows four bars. You might not be able to tell how strong the signal is on an absolute basis, but you should be able to use a variety of devices to conclude that one signal is stronger than another.

Re:Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a time zone. It's noon PST.

Re:stay classy

[Mister Whirly]

I hate to break it to you, but the highly vaunted "news" you speak about IS the distracting toy.

I don't understand why AT&T VOICE sucks...

[nweaver]

Specifically, why it ends up so bad on dropping VOICE calls. Yes, data is a huge hog. But the bulk data can be prioritized much lower than voice.

I could see in Manhattan or San Francisco that the DATA service would suck: too many users, etc. But why should the voice channel suck so badly too?

To use as much bandwidth as possible?

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Well, sounds too difficult. Is there an app for it?

I Prefer

[sexconker]

Operation Cuckold.

satire may be dead, but it's not illegal

[Gary W. Longsine]

Even if satire isn't dead, reality is nipping at its heels.

Re:Hey AT&T - upgrade your 3G network!

[sexconker]

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

My current phone is 2.5 years old, and I want to upgrade, but I'd need to buy an unlocked phone I can simply swap SIMs with, otherwise they'll force me to "upgrade" my contract to something that costs about $30 more per month for less (caps, no tethering, etc., which are currently NOT specified in my contract).

Switching away from AT&T would result in similar prices.

Re:Friday, December 19? 2014? nah...

[Gary W. Longsine]

The world ends in 2012, when it runs up against the supernatural limits of the Aztec calendar. Everybody knows that by now.

DDOS, served!

[Caradoc]

Slashdot has done to Fake Steve Jobs what Fake Steve Jobs was trying to do to AT&T.

Awesome.

AT&T Hosting

[coulbc]

I wonder if AT&T does fake steves web hosting?

This is just stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of being a whiny baby and potentially disrupting service for others, here's an idea: CANCEL YOUR FUCKING CONTRACT. Whatever happens with this stunt, AT&T will just brush it off; it's harder to dismiss a mass exodus of customers.

AT&T bill

[confused one]

And on Monday, December 22nd, AT&T's billing department, with the full support of legal, bills Dan Lyons for the increase in the cost of data transfer on the backhaul for December 19th.

A novel idea for ATT

[santiagodraco]

I've got an idea for you ATT to resolve your "network problems"... upgrade the fucking thing. You've had a POS network for years, it's no wonder it's struggling.

Nothing has bothered me more since I moved to an iPhone than the fact I had to move off Verizon and onto ATT's network. Why Apple chose to work with ATT is beyond me, it's been the single biggest flaw in the solution since it's inception.

Re:A novel idea for ATT

[kimvette]

I've got an idea for you ATT to resolve your "network problems"... upgrade the fucking thing. You've had a POS network for years, it's no wonder it's struggling.

I have it on good authority (AT&T ads) that AT&T has the fastest wireless 3G network, and they sold me unlimited data service, so I fail to see the problem. Having anticipated the tremendously huge uptake of the iPhone and other smart phones, they have upgraded their network to maintain their fastest 3G wireless network claims. Right? Haven't they?

Or, are the verizon ads comparing the AT&T network to Verizon's right on target?

Implementing bandwidth caps and/or dropping users who actually take advantage of the product you advertised only goes to prove that Verizon's ad campaign is spot on.

Re:A novel idea for ATT

[Grizzley9]

I have it on good authority (AT&T ads) that AT&T has the fastest wireless 3G network, and they sold me unlimited data service, so I fail to see the problem. Having anticipated the tremendously huge uptake of the iPhone and other smart phones, they have upgraded their network to maintain their fastest 3G wireless network claims. Right? Haven't they?

Their network usage is up 4000% with the iPhone 3G intro. Seems they are upgrading their network and are still the fastest 3G network.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/13digi.html?_r=1

proof

[Elwar123]

By everyone using as much bandwidth as they can, they can demonstrate to AT&T how much money they could have made if they had a cost per bandwidth setup going. The accounting guys are foaming at the mouth for this to happen.

Re:Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

[skine]

There is a time zone. It's noon PST.

That was implied. Do you really think there are any idealistic iPhone users outside of southern California?

Don't Panic

[Gary W. Longsine]

iPhone is very popular because it works really well for stuff like web surfing and whatnot. The consequence of this intersection is that iPhone is performing a near continual DDoS on the AT*T network every day. Friday won't be all that special.

You offered, I accepted

[kimvette]

AT&T: You offered me unlimited data services in exchange for a fee. How dare you be surprised or blame me for your network inadequacies when I and other customers like me actually use the services you sold to us? Guess what? Around noon on Friday I will be watching videos on my iPhone, with the wifi adapter turned off. Will I be doing anything wrong? Of course not! I will merely be running one single Apple and AT&T-authorised application for its advertised purpose. If millions of other customers happen to do the same thing at the same time, well, I guess you had better get cracking on building the fastest 3G network you've been babbling on about in your ads!

Re:Hey AT&T - upgrade your 3G network!

[gregthebunny]

They need to upgrade their 3G network and I fully intend to max out my 3G connection driving around town during lunch on Friday.

Yes, great idea. Make sure you keep your eyes completely off the road at all times. In fact, try to steer with your knees so both hands can be holding the phone.

continued charging after closing account

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T will also charge you for an extra month of internet usage when you close your account. Of course it doesn't show up on the bill as such and they'll avoid answering where the charge came from.

I just want to make sure I understand.

[buelba]

They are protesting AT&T's announcement that smartphones are disrupting its network. By using smartphones. To disrupt AT&T's network?

Re:I just want to make sure I understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

It makes as much sense as the French striking and threatening to burn down the place of employment if wage / compensation demands are not met.

Date swinkle

[EncryptedBit]

My calendar app show that Friday December 19 will not occur until 2014. This year Dec. 19 is a Saturday. So is Fake Steve planning a massive buildup for this, with a five year effort?

Re:Date swinkle

[JustNiz]

nerd.

Re:Date swinkle

[EncryptedBit]

Thank you, you are very kind and I appreciate your compliment.

Domestic squabble...

[dbcad7]

There is something seriously wrong with all these anti AT&T people.. It's like people who stay in a bad relationship where the cops are at their door every so often, yet continue to stay together.. If you don't get along, find another partner.. Your bitching, doesn't make me think your smarter or that your partner is a bad person, it only makes me think that you like to bitch.. If i had such a relationship with a company that bothered me so much, I think I'd find another company.. For gods sake stop embarrassing yourself with screaming matches in the grocery store.. Separate, and maybe you'll both become better people.

Re:Domestic squabble...

[danger42]

If you're a person in a bad relationship, you usually dont have to pay an ETF to get away.

Re:Domestic squabble...

[Voyager529]

Two words: Divorce Attorney.

Re:Domestic squabble...

[Cwix]

Prenuptial?

Re:Why does everyone hate to pay for what they use

[gregthebunny]

As long as the price for byte was fair I would have no problem not having an unlimited plan. Based on the above post, maybe charging $10-$20 per GB downloaded might be fair. Everyone seems to want unlimited access, but the only people who benefit from that are a) the people who use a lot of bandwidth, and b) ATT who gets lots of money from low usage users.

Amen. I've been avoiding 3G phones like the plague because I simply cannot justify the $30/mo "data tax" that comes with them. If I check my e-mail and look up map directions a few times a day, I'm gonna use maybe a few hundred MB per month. I would gladly welcome $10 per gigabyte or $1 per 100 MB, etc. since that's all I'd ever use. I'm pretty sure AT&T would draw in more customers who, like me, can't justify adding nearly 50% to their monthly bill.

cause a DDOS

[countertrolling]

Is this when advocacy rubs up against the law? Y'know, like, I'm all for it an' stuff, but it will work almost as well as a Disney or Sony boycott.

Re:Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

[kimvette]

Or, you could stream video at noon for eastern, central, mountain, and pacific time! :)

Maybe it's the phone

[Mr_Silver]

For an alternative point of view, this article is interesting because it claims that the iPhone design isn't very good and that is what is causing the problems.

I don't live in the USA so I have no idea how good or bad AT&T is, but what I do know is that the RF sensitivity of the iPhone isn't very good. I can think of plenty of times (and places) where my iPhone (and not just my iPhone) will disconnect and then can't get a signal again - yet friends on the same network with other phones do just fine.

Hell there are large periods of time on my morning train commute where the iPhone claims "No Service" yet my Blackberry (on the same network) is downloading emails and browsing the web just fine.

It was terrible on the original iPhone and the 3GS is better, but like the camera quality, I do think they need to work at it quite a bit more.

Re:Maybe it's the phone

[yabos]

It would be nice if he said how he thinks that the iPhone is causing issues but he doesn't. Reception is not as good with the iPhone as some other phones due probably to the case and the fact that there's no external antenna on the phone. But even so, I don't see how low reception can cause such an issue. Rogers for example does not seem to have any problems with their network. Granted the number of customers they need to service is much lower but population density in some large Canadian cities serviced by Rogers do not have the problems like you get on AT&T.

Re:Maybe it's the phone

[Ma8thew]

By and large, international users of the iPhone are not experiencing the same crippling 3G data problems AT&T users have. The iPhone may have lower sensitivity, but AT&T users are unable to connect due to the volume of users in large cities. That, and the fact that users of other 3G phones on AT&T have the same problems.

Re:Maybe it's the phone

[ktappe]

For an alternative point of view, this article is interesting because it claims that the iPhone design isn't very good and that is what is causing the problems.

That's like blaming Airbus for Sully's ditching in the Hudson. The A320 hasn't had to ditch anywhere else in the world but somehow it's still Airbus' fault?

To point: The iPhone would only be at fault if it were dropping calls worldwide. It's not, so very basic troubleshooting tells you to look elsewhere...specifically at something unique to the U.S. where that problem is occurring.

I have read that AT&T is mounting a rather significant lobbying effort to try to throw suspicions off of their network. Thus this NYT article and Erin Burnett's ludicrous statements on Jim Kramer. And why would they be doing that? It wouldn't have anything to do with groundswells of user uprising like this would it? Noooo.....

Re:Maybe it's the phone

[bkk_diesel]

I don't live in the USA so I have no idea how good or bad AT&T is, but what I do know is that the RF sensitivity of the iPhone isn't very good. I can think of plenty of times (and places) where my iPhone (and not just my iPhone) will disconnect and then can't get a signal again - yet friends on the same network with other phones do just fine.

Hell there are large periods of time on my morning train commute where the iPhone claims "No Service" yet my Blackberry (on the same network) is downloading emails and browsing the web just fine.

I believe that is a firmware issue that has been resolved. Might want to update your iPhone.

Re:Maybe it's the phone

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty clear that article is a paid shill piece. This essay by Paul Graham explains how things like come to be. Given AT&T's deep pockets, I'm frankly surprised there haven't been more articles like that one.

Re:Friday, December 19? 2014? nah...

[Duradin]

Piffle. The 5th world ends, not 'the' world, and it happens in December 2011, not 2012.

I'd suggest making travel plans to be near Mt. Fuji to catch sight of Ryumyo.

fakesteve.net

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, fakesteve.net has been DDOS'd...

Destroy something you use...

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like the rioters who burned down the supermarkets in their own neighborhood after the Rodney King verdict in Los Angeles in 1992, how is destroying something you use going to solve anything? People in areas that had stores and business burned and looted then had to travel to great distances for basic grocery shopping, which affected innocent "non-rioters" who didn't have transportation and relied on local shops within walking distance. While "bringing the network to its knees" isn't the same as destroying it, it affects people that may need their phone service in an emergency.

Cognitive Dissonance Impaired? (Bait and swtich?)

[Gary W. Longsine]

So, uh, did you stop taking your meds, or go and leave yourself logged in or something? Idolizing John Wilkes Booth (who assassinated the U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and then apparently blogged about it) is typically a sign of libertarianism at least, or anarchism possibly. Asserting Booth was a patriot doesn't jibe with you wanting the big, bad, out of control states-rights-trampling, wasteful fraudulent and abusive Federal government to save your pathetic hind quarters from a big bad voluntarily formed privately owned profit seeking Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum worshipping corporation, now, does it?

Satire or irresponsible?

[goombah99]

Some kinds of jokes, like yelling fire in a theater, are irresponsible. I'm sure there will be many emergency 911 calls at noon that day and some of them will be on AT&T networks. Blocking those deliberately is irresponsible.

     

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[Xeno man]

If a few users could actually bring the network down with high usage, then the network itself is shit and can't support the product they are selling. During an actual unplanned event like the balloon boy or 9/11 or anything that gathers national attention thousands of people take and upload photos, video and text to website as the events unfold in addition to making actual phone calls about said events. If an actual emergency can prompt the fall of a network preventing me from calling 911 about an emergency, then the said company is endangering lives just to not spend money on network upgrades. This protest won't even be noticed by the network admins let alone be a fraction of a real peak of data usage.

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[Anonymous Coward]

If 911 calls get blocked, that's irresponsibility on AT&T's part for grossly (and illegally) misconfiguring their network, not on the part of the protesters.

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[goombah99]

I take it that you don't pull over when the you hear the fire truck siren behind you?

City streets at rush hour are not compatible with the needs of emergency vehicles but we work around this rather than saying "streets are shit". One thing we don't do is deliberately prevent emergency vehicles from getting through despite the limits of the street.

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[jo_ham]

Emergency calls can be routed over any network, regardless of the phone's contract/provider.

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[Kingrames]

You will regret forfeiting your free speech for a false sense of security, when you die in a fire in a crowded theatre because it was illegal for anyone to point it out.

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[Ed Woychowsky]

Wouldn't it be better to findout now rather than during an actual emergency? Perhaps it would wake-up the shareholders of AT&T that instead of investing in their infrastructure, management is only investing in their bonuses.

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply put, if a 911 call doesn't go through BECAUSE of the DDoS protest, then it's AT&T's fault for not properly designing their network to handle emergency calls, not any of the DDoSers or Fake Steve Jobs. There ARE laws in place to prevent this, enforcement is another matter. Think of it this way, if it's New Year's Eve at midnight and someone makes a 911 call that doesn't go through, who should be held accountable? All the New Year's revelers who are calling their friends and family at midnight or the PROVIDER of the SERVICE who did not build their network in compliance with the law?

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would be dialing 911 over a data channel?
If this distrupts 911 service, that would be akin to preventing pedestrians from walking on the sidewalk by clogging a road with cars. Possible if badly designed, but that points to the network provider's negligence, and should be fixed regardless of whether there is currently a traffic jam.

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[ktappe]

there will be many emergency 911 calls at noon that day and some of them will be on AT&T networks. Blocking those deliberately is irresponsible.

And what did those AT&T 911 callers do before they had their AT&T phone? It is not as if landlines or other carriers' phones will also suddenly vanish at noon. It's not as if the protest is going to take down the entire communications infrastructure of the U.S.

Hell, the entire point is that AT&T should not be going down at noon either. All the participants will be doing is using their unlimited mobile data devices to access data. How exactly is an infrastructure overload (if it happens) their fault and not AT&T's?!?

Further, who is to say that it's not the 911 caller whose data is the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back? Perhaps the network would juuust have withstood the other users' demands and then this one woman with a cat up a tree dials and boom?

You're calling future events "irresponsible" when you don't even know who will participate, who will have been negligent, or anything.

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blocking those deliberately is irresponsible.

Exactly. If AT&T hasn't implemented a priority system that ensures emergency calls get through (or any other trivial solution which could solve the proposed problem), they should be held as criminally incompetent.
But don't go around trying to throw the blame on the users.

Re:Satire or irresponsible?

[MmmmAqua]

City streets are a government-provided service, funded by the public and built for the public good. While your streets may very well be shitty, you have legal rights and recourse to make the government un-shitty your streets. No such luck in dealing with a corporation, even when their approach of squeezing every penny out of customers and neglecting to actually support services they are selling causes unreliable access to a bona-fide public service, 911.

AT&T's bottom-line mentality is what is irresponsible here.

Legality?

[thedbp]

Is it legal to publicly co-ordinate a DDOS attack on a major US telecom?

Re:Legality?

[mikewren420]

Is it a DDoS if users utilize a resource for which they have paid, using uncracked hardware (unjailbroken), using software which I legally downloaded from the app store, in a manner which is expected?

AT&T shot themselves in the foot by offering an "unlimited" data package.

Re:Legality?

[Bengie]

It's more like the /. affect than someone loading 10,000 bots and opening connections.

As long as everyone is using an authorized app like video streaming/etc, then there should be no problem.

Re:Legality?

[vcgodinich]

And how is a single computer opening a connection illegal?

Yet unarguably the person inciting 10,000 individuals to do so is probably on the wrong side of the law.

If you organize people to all protest their local ER by getting hurt unnecessarily, flooding the ER with cases, then pointing to the legit injuries that didn't get helped as validation of your original argument against that ER is both illogical and illegal. But most people on here have agreed that no matter what happens, it isn't going to make the network, or use of that network better

Re:Legality?

[srhill]

I'm sure there's some Bush-era-Gestapo-law that the FCC could use to lock up all iPhone users in an undisclosed location. But seriously, do you think AT&T's going to sue this guy for inciting network usage? Think of all the reporters who have iPhones. They would have a field day with that lawsuit.

Re:Legality?

[ktappe]

Is it legal to publicly co-ordinate a DDOS attack on a major US telecom?

It's legal to use your iPhone to watch YouTube at the same time as another iPhone user watches YouTube. I'm sorry if that just happens to occur at 12PM PST on Friday, but yes, that's legal.

Re:Legality?

[Magnus Pym]

The baseband chipset used in the iPhone is from a second tier vendor. Apple went with them instead of using a chip from one of the major players like Qualcomm or Ericcson Mobile because they wanted someone they could control. That is why the iPhone's reception is poor.

So the iPhone is the equivalent of a Rolls Royce with a Yugo engine inside.

Magnus.

On another note...I hate this fake Steve Jobs.

[MrCrassic]

When I read the blog the other day, I was curious about whether they switched its writer, since the content seemed so much less intelligent than what was previously there. I'm saddened to see that this is still Lyons's work.

The old FSJ was witty, creative and had just enough stupidity to make it funny. When I read it yesterday, I saw typical blogger shit. This only strengthens my point.

As for this "cause," it probably won't do anything, since only a very small percentage of iPhone users actually read that blog. If you spread that percentage across the US...yeah, not a big impact.

Well, that may explain why

[pgmrdlm]

My mobile pandora was sucking area yesterday. That, or AT&T just sucks anymore.

And no, I do not use an iPhone(hate iTunes, truely hate it).

Re:Well, that may explain why

[pgmrdlm]

Area 51 maybe... uggg, i really can't type some days.

isn't here

[jsnipy]

Isn't there an app for that?

Price is higher then the quality of service

[Anonymous Coward]

where does it say he wants to get rid of the unlimited data plan? Hes saying that we arent getting what we pay for.

These companies should be able to keep up their infrastructure to keep us up to date with the world. They are making alot of money and their network needs work. Yet they are neglecting the customers and keeping us happy with a crippled network.

If the network goes down on friday from a protest, imagine if another disaster strike the nation. We will hear busy tones all day.

The price we pay doesnt match the quality of the service. We pay alot of money for tightly worded contracts that give outline what we can and can not do on our personal devices.

AT&T is one of the big reasons....

[dentar]

...that I have no desire to purchase an iPhone.

Oh.. and it's way overpriced.

Will this help?

[palmerj3]

Ironically, ending the unlimited data plan would prevent this planned DDOS. If anything, this will reinforce their decision.

Tracfone

[IANAAC]

Everything was prepaid and the SIM cards 'never' expired (They had an expiration sometime in 2025). Meaning I could add $1-2 and it would never expire. Compare that to the US where if I want to get the cheap $10 prepaid plan I have 30 days to use that before it expires.

Tracfone offers what you describe in the US. I used one all summer/fall in a fairly remote area of northern Wisconsin because my ATT Blackberry got no coverage there - the remaining minutes and number are good for another two years without having to purchase any more minutes.

Re:Tracfone

[segin]

Yes, but TracFone's minutes are arguably the most expensive for any carrier in the US - Where every other prepaid carrier will give you 200 minutes for $20, TracFone only gives you a mere 60. The only consolation with TracFone is that the new service cut-off date after you apply that 60 minute card is 90 days after the old cut-off date, and NOT 90 minutes from the date of card redemption.

Basically, if you go spend $80 on four 60 minute cards, you have basically added another year of service to your phone, but at the same time, you only get 240 minutes. Of course, however, you can always buy an $80 minute card from TracFone. Those give you 800 minutes and a year of airtime

TracFone is nothing like Indian telecos as they price gouge their customers.

2 independant studies say AT&T better than Ver

[Caledfwlch]

Despite the Verizon ads it appears from 2 independent studies (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/13digi.html?_r=1&em) that, at least in the major metropolitan areas, AT&T does have a more reliable and faster network and the iPhone's "electronics in the phone that connect it to the cell towers, had shortcomings that 'affect both voice and data.'".

Nice Work

[Anonymous Coward]

... Dumbshit

You've given AT&T the perfect time to have a "network outage" to "prove" their point.

The fact that the iPhone had nothing to do with it doesn't mean they won't turn off the network for a few minutes to make it seem like it.

500 Internal Server Error

[skivvies]

Fake Steve Jobs should have gotten the 'Unlimited Plan' from his hosting provider.

. . .and the issues are?

[mosb1000]

"the iPhone's issues are glaringly bad. It's a decent device that does its job well"

First of all, these two statements are completely incompatible. Second, what are the iPhone's glaringly bad issues? I've had an iPhone for over a year. I haven't had any issues with it, not to mention any "glaringly bad" ones.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[navyjeff]

I can't answer my iPhone while wearing gloves. That's a glaring deficiency in my book because I wear gloves about 4 months of the year. Even then, I missed a week's worth of calls because the screen didn't register my swipe-to-answer. I'd be happy if I could just double-click the menu button to answer.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[fear025]

I can't answer my iPhone while wearing gloves. That's a glaring deficiency in my book because I wear gloves about 4 months of the year. Even then, I missed a week's worth of calls because the screen didn't register my swipe-to-answer. I'd be happy if I could just double-click the menu button to answer.

Have you looked at these gloves? http://www.180s.com/glovesforaddicts/ They've got a little nub that lets you actually use your phone while wearing them.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[mosb1000]

It's pretty hard to use any phone while you are wearing gloves, most people take them off once it starts ringing (I haven't worn gloves since I moved to Southern California, but before I came here, that's what I would do). I can't say I've ever missed a call due to the "swipe to unlock". Could you use the headphones and just click the controller to answer? That way you're hands free too.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[Pojut]

First of all, these two statements are completely incompatible

Not necessarily. Best example: The xbox 360 is an awesome gaming console, but the older versions still had horrendous reliability. Hence, it did its job as a gaming console well, but that doesn't make it a well designed piece of hardware.

Second, what are the iPhone's glaringly bad issues?

To name a few of the more obvious ones...

Sync issues (admittedly, this is more due to iTunes being bad software rather than the iPhone being bad hardware, but still...), problems with many new firmware rollouts (for example the random shutdowns and decreased battery life of 3.1), no MMS until just a couple of short months ago, Appstore approval inconsistencies (again, not an issue with the phone itself, but I doubt you could convince anyone the iPhone would be the success it is without the Appstore)...oh, and that little problem with randomly catching fire.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[Low Ranked Craig]

That's a glaring deficiency in all capacitance based touch screens. My solution is to wear a BT headset or the earbuds and keep the phone in my pocket. Clicking the headset answers the phone. Personally I've never been able to dial ANY cellphone while wearing gloves...

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

I wear the headphones and click the remote when I get a call to pick up. I can do that with gloves, of course then you can't see who's calling but it's easier than trying to get a phone out of my pocket wearing gloves.
What I really want is the option for the phone to tell you who's calling through the headphones (eg. "Incoming call: mom") while the device plays a ringtone so people around me know I'm about to pick up a call.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[mosb1000]

I've never heard of any sync issues, mine seems to work fine. Likewise, I was not aware of any random shutdowns/diminished battery life. It doesn't seem fair to hold software issues that have been fixed against the current version of the phone, however. Likewise, since MMS is now supported, it's not fair to call that a glaring issue. I don't think there is a significant problem with iPhones overheating, I heard a couple stories about it when the 3GS came out, but I haven't heard of it since then (mine certainly doesn't have that problem).

The app store approval process needs improvement. I wouldn't say that is has impaired my use of the phone in any way, but I can see that it would be an issue for other people (my coworker has an jail broken and unlocked iPhone, and she gets more functionality out of it because of it). I wouldn't call it a glaring issue, but the phones will be more useful if apple ever works it out.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[Pojut]

Just for your own information...

sync issues:

http://mashable.com/2009/11/09/iphone-windows-7-sync/
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10330485-263.html
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/intel-responds-on-iphone-sync-issues/
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/ipod-iphone-software-apps/139937-i-have-mind-boggling-iphone-3g-sync-problem.html
http://www.iphonefaq.org/archives/97665

Random shutdowns/decreased battery life:

http://www.iphonehacks.com/2009/09/iphone-os-31-problems-random-shutdown-poor-battery-life-bricked-iphone-slow-performance.html
http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/09/16/iphone-31-bugs-random-freeze-shut/
http://iphone-chat.org/31-random-shutdown-and-battery-death-iphone-3g-65401/
http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/iphone-therefore-iblog/2009/09/iphone-shutdown.html

As far as overheating/burning/asploading, it isn't a widespread problem...but...well...I'll just let the 103 million results speek for themselves:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGLL_enUS354US354&q=iphone+fire

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[navyjeff]

Ok, I'm impressed with those gloves. The ones I had seen so far with conductive tips seemed to be of lower quality. Thanks for the link.

Still, I would very much like an option to use the menu key to answer calls while the phone is locked. A little more customizability in the iPhone would go a long way for me.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[Glsai]

Well I picked up some Ice Armor Clam Gloves that have leather in the inside of the hand and neoprene on the outside that will allow me to do the swipe with the iphone. I didscovered it completely on accident, up till then I was thinking of following a howto I saw online on how to stich a certain type of thread into your gloves to make it work. Maybe it's just some leather gloves have the right resistance in the leather to simulate skin.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[nneonneo]

Sync issues:
First link: Hardware problem with the computer, has absolutely nothing to do with the iPhone
Second link: iPhoto database corruption, only marginally related
Third link: See comment for first link
Fourth link: Not a reputable news source: this is only one instance
Fifth link: That's certainly an issue, but it doesn't have to do with syncing specifically. This should belong in the second category.

I thus dispute that any of your links point to a widespread synch issue due to iTunes or iPhone, on any platform.

Random shutdowns/decreased battery life:
I don't doubt that this happens, and your links back this up. I would be interested in seeing if the recent update (3.1.2) has fixed this.

Overheating/burning/asploding:
Less than half of the first 10 results are actually about iPhone-on-fire incidents, so I'm not sure how useful your statistic really is. For the stories which are about actual fires, they make great sensational stories and so are likely to be highly linked to. The number of results does not therefore say anything about the actual incidence rate.

For the record, I own a first-generation iPod touch which has been upgraded from 1.1 all the way up to 3.1, and I have experienced none of the above-mentioned problems from the official firmware.

Re:. . .and the issues are?

[gruber_aekdb]

I thought the lack of MMS functionality was thanks to AT&T (the US carrier), not the phone itself. Something about wanting to make sure their network could handle the enhanced load it would cause if the phones had MMS, or something to that effect. Once they were satisfied with their networks, AT&T released a carrier update that enabled the MMS capability of the phone.

So, you cant really blame the phone for issues with the carrier & their network.

Of course, knowing the functionality of the phone, specifically how heavy it's going to use the network resources... one would assume the carrier would make sure their network is solid enough to handle to workload the phone will require before committing to an exclusive contract. In the article this one references mentions how AT&T was 'surprised' that iPhone users use so much data... Um, one of the built in apps streams Youtube videos, and they're surprised iPhone users stream video & other bandwidth heavy applications. The majority of the apps on my phone require some data transfer. Only a couple would be heavy users (webcam viewers), the majority are text based or other light weight (weather, etc), but it all adds up, especially if there are a lot of users....

Don't worry, AT&T has dealt with this before

[NevarMore]

AT&T knows how to bullshit and cover when their network has a massive failure and they were doing it decades before everyone else.

http://jsn13.blogspot.com/2008/07/amazon-s3-july-2008-and-bell-systems.html

Time warp?

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T customers to use as much data service as they can on Friday, December 19th at noon..

Last I checked December 19th was a Saturday....

Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no easier way to put it. Anyone planning to DDOS a telecommunications network is an idiot. Why? Because *emergency services* use those networks too. Can you imagine what it'd be like to be at the scene of a horrible accident, trying to call 911 and not being able to because Fake Steve Jobs organized a DDOS?

Oh wait, there *is* a better word. Fucktards.

Re:Idiots

[Emb3rz]

Oh wait, there *is* a better word. Frigtards.

FTFY :)

Re:Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

To whoever it was that modded this troll: "Frigtard" is a common term utilized by Fake Steve Jobs. Just FYI.

What idiot uses the word unlimited anyway

[bugs2squash]

Eventually data use was going to grow to consume whatever network is implemented. What they really meant was that they did not want to be held accountable for imposing limits, that is they did not want to be answering questions like "I've run out of limit, how did that happen ?"

It was laziness on their part and now its coming back to bite them. I'm also prepared to believe (just on blind prejudice) that the iPhone is set up to wantonly consume as much bandwidth as it can get, both by making poor use of spectrum with a radio designed more with an eye to battery life than to RF performance and by having an app-store full of applications that consume great gobs of bandwidth for little benefit.

I have some sympathy for AT&T - why should everyone pay to build out a network to serve a small minority of people with things that they should not expect to get wirelessly, or should be able to get without using so much spectrum. But the problem here, in my opinion, is that they used the word unlimited out of sheer marketing bravado and laziness.

Same experience here

[manekineko2]

Agreed, I have experienced this as well. Furthermore, you can also see this effect in the cities. If you take your cell phone to the top of the highest skyscraper around, frequently you can see it have little to no reception even while there are full bars at the base.

Re:Same experience here

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I had no reception at the 85th floor visitor deck of the Empire State Building. Dont know if it was because I was using T-Mobile or what.

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[account_deleted]

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You really have no idea what you're talking about

[Blappo]

"If you do leave, where will you go to? You realise other networks are likely to follow suit?"

You're kidding right?

Do you have any idea how much money a company would make if they could use unlimited data as leverage to pry the iPhone away from AT&T?

There's a reason they went to unlimited data in the first place, not too long ago it didn't exist.

I suppose you foresee a future of Compuserve/AOL type per minute billing for the internet too?

The point is not to disrupt service...

[nathan.fulton]

Seems as if slashdot has entirely missed the point. The goal isn't to maliciously take down AT&T's networks, it's to demonstrate that either 1) AT&T is charging for services it's not capable of offering, or 2) that AT&T claims that the iPhone/3G users strain the network is hogwash.

How stupid is this

[Anonymous Coward]

How stupid is this?? Wouldn't an increase in data usage just confirm the need for AT&T to charge for overage usage? It creates a perfect test scenario for them and they can now predict how much money they will expect to receive when they implement their charges. If anything, this is doing them a huge favor.

If you really want to protest AT&T, hit them where it hurts most...$$$. As soon as they change to the overage payment, everyone needs to switch carriers. You don't have to worry about paying the termination fee because they changed the Terms and therefore if you disagree, you can cancel your plan without termination fee. Imagine that, however many thousands of iPhone users all of a sudden cancel their plans and switch to a different carrier. That will say something. I hope AT&T does this soon, cuz I don't want to wait til April when my plan expires so I can switch to the HTC Hero.

Re:Hey AT&T - upgrade your 3G network!

[Grizzley9]

If anything I use it less because the tethering isn't as stable and I mark this up to their 3G network, not the phone.

Hmm, using the same network connection with a different phone gets you worse performance and you deduce this is b/c of the network which hasn't changed?

Yeah the extra $20 for the data for a specific type of phone is no fun, but that is what the market will accept given the enormous popularity of the phone. As a GS owner, I hope the competition and the coming non-exclusivity of the iPhone will help push this down as well.

Another zombie network!!

[Maniacal]

many Twitter and Facebook users seem to be rallying to its cry. It is unclear if there will be enough support to cause a DDOS

Gives new meaning to the "utilize a network of zombies for a DDOS attack" thing I'm always hearing about ;)

You're way off on this

[Blappo]

"but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a bit in there that allows AT&T to amend certain parts without negating the whole thing. "

The way I understand it, any substantive changes (this would be one) allow both parties a chance to terminate for a given period of time.

The language of the contract really has no way to overcome this, it's a very important part of contract law.

"Plus, if the consumer terminates early, they'll be hit with a termination fee to cover at least part of the subsidy. "

No, the same law voids the termination fee, as it was part of the contract. You pay nothing.

Dan Lyons?

[dwiget001]

Nothing to see here, move along, move along.

Wasn't unlimited part of the deal with Apple?

[crimoid]

Perhaps I'm just making things up but didn't Apple demand that the iPhone come with unlimited data?

Unlimited Data

[mikewren420]

After reading AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega's opinion of users who actually use their unlimited data plan, I decided I wasn't using enough of my unlimited data plan. I streamed online radio via my work's Internet, which seemed silly. I'm paying $30/month for unlimited data to a newly purchased unjailbroken iPhone 3GS, using software I purchased through the app store.

I now stream Radio Paradise's 192kbps stream all day, every day, to my JBL iPhone dock.

This will not end well for AT&T if they decide to charge me for additional data on top of my current contract "unlimited" data plan. If they change the terms of my contract, I fully expect to be able to terminate my contract with no ETF, and keep my shiny new iPhone subsidized by AT&T's poor business strategies.

Re:Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

[NevarMore]

Doesn't matter. The chokepoint is at the local tower not at the backhaul. So doing this at noon in your timezone should be adequate.

Now if their network is so janky that New York is still seeing problems at 3PM when LA starts in...

Re:Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

[exi1ed0ne]

Since the cellphones all connect to local towers and infrastructure, AT&T should actually see a rolling traffic spike as each tower and (possibly) it's back-haul connections are overwhelmed. I'm no wireless engineer, but I'd suspect the current congestion issues are mostly tower resource related.

Why wait till the year 2014?

[PalmKiller]

So, will the iphone even really matter anymore in 2014 (the next December with a Friday 19th). Why don't they just do that Friday 18th of 2009, or maybe Saturday 19th 2009 instead? Seems it would be a lot more timely and useful.

Re:Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article above, by jasonwc (939262), it's Noon, Pacific time.

Don't let facts get in the way...

[Anonymous Coward]

I just hope they don't let facts interfere with their puerile snitmob.
"This year, Root Wireless [unaffiliated with any mobile carrier] ran 4.7 million tests on smartphones for each of the four major carriers, spread across seven metropolitan areas: Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles/Orange County, New York, Seattle/Tacoma, the San Francisco Bay Area, ... and Washington. In every market, AT&T had faster average download speeds and had signal strength of 75 percent or better more frequently than did Verizon."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/business/13digi.html?_r=1&em

I may be far off the mark but...

[Alanonfire]

I sort of feel that this is problem comes from both the network side and the smart-phone users. The networks should be built better but also since these phones came out, a lot of people who only used computers for email, facebook, etc, pretty much stopped using computers for that and started using these phones instead.

I guess a good analogy for this would be a heatwave. The power companies are generating so much power, then all of the sudden everyone turns their AC on which starts causing problems with the power grid and causing brown-outs etc. Then the power company says, "don't use un-necessary power" but people still do. Kind of like when you see people watering their lawn in a drought. Because people have this mentality that "i'm paying for it, don't tell me how to use it." Then what they don't realize is that its effecting everyone else around them.

Manslaughter charges pending

[Anonymous Coward]

Dan Lyons started it? The police know whom to charge with manslaughter when the 911 emergency calls can't get through. The civil suits will be even easier to win.

Re:Cognitive Dissonance Impaired? (Bait and swtich

[jgtg32a]

Why can't more trolls be like you, that was rather decent, and when you take into consideration that this is slashdot it was very good, where racial and ethnic slurs are consider trolling. However it took me far too long to realize why you posted it, you need to be a bit more on topic with the thread itself and not so much replying to people's sigs. You should troll more often I found the post to be very amusing
 
I'd give you an ASCII fish but /. keeps trying to use it as some sort of markup, here's a cookie instead.
 
http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/2009/06/chocolate_chip_cookie.jpg

The meaning of "unlimited"

[Nerdposeur]

The word "unlimited" just has to come out of all advertising everywhere. There is no such thing as unlimited supply of anything so it is, on its face, false advertising.

While it's true that nobody can give you truly unlimited access due to finite bandwidth, I think that a company could still advertise unlimited access honestly. To me, it would mean "we are capable of giving you bandwidth X, and we guarantee that you can use that much bandwidth, around the clock, 365 days a year if you like. We won't stop you."

In other words, the fact that the network has inherent limits is not a problem, as long as they're made clear up front. The problem is when they say "unlimited" and actually plan to cut you off at some point. That should be considered false advertising. If the cap is 5 GB, call it a "5 GB data plan."

Poor service

[Anonymous Coward]

It's COMCASTIC!

AT&T self-created their own problems

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T Pays A 145 Million Dollar Golden Parachute To Edward Whitacre, Jr.

All of that $145M should have been spent on building out AT&T's wireless infrastructure, but what the hell, Uncle Ed is more important than all of AT&T's customers and employees. What's more, if you worked at AT&T and complained about that kind of crap, you soon found your job outsourced to India with you standing in the unemployment line.

A more suitable punishment for AT&T would not be a DDoS, but rather for every customer of AT&T to stop paying their AT&T bill for 90 days, or forever. Call it a DDoP, a Distributed Denial of Payment. That should put Ralph de la Vega on the unemployment line, right next to all those people Ed fired, but no, King Ralph has a Golden Parachute of his own. You'll have plenty of bandwidth when all you have is 100 paying customers, Ralph.

Where is Uncle Ed now? After running the RBOCs and AT&T into the ground, that stinking rat abandoned the sinking ship. He's now at GM, running it into the ground. How many shekels of silver for GM, Judas Whitacre?

BTW: Verizon will be happy to send you a new SIM for your jail-broken iPhone. That way you can stick it to AT&T and Steve Jobs, at the same time!

Re:AT&T self-created their own problems

[mkettler]

Verizon will send you a SIM for your jail-broken iPhone??? Really? Do you know anyone that has done this?

All US versions of the iPhone are GSM / HSDPA based devices, and Verizon's network is CDMA / EVDO. These are fundamentally *VERY* different technologies, and the radio for one can't be re-used on the other. The iPhone can't be used on the Verizon network, regardless of what you do with the SIM, because it has the wrong radio.

There is a CDMA based iPhone out there, but it is designed to work in China and uses differet frequencies than Verizon does (and it doesn't have the right hardware to support the US frequencies, so this can't used either).

Now, t-mobile is another story, their network is GSM based... but Verizon is a no-go without a completely different radio system in the phone. (ie: a new, different model of iPhone is required.)

Looks like AT&T got to him first

[alta]

Since his site is down, I guess AT&T has launched it's own DDoS, or at least a DoS. When you're as big as ATT, you don't really need much help from others. Just point an OC-768 at them and run "ab -c 999999 -n 999999999999999 https://www.fakesteve.net/"

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[account_deleted]

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And in this corner

[Uosdwis]

Well there is a response from AT&T:

We understand that fakesteve.net is primarily a satirical forum, but there is nothing amusing about advocating that customers attempt to deliberately degrade service on a network that provides critical communications services for more than 80 million customers. We know that the vast majority of customers will see this action for what it is: an irresponsible and pointless scheme to draw attention to a blog.

http://www.cultofmac.com/att-responds-to-fake-steves-operation-chokehold/23509

So this proves.......?

[BanjoMinnow]

All typo's aside, I'm just wondering what this "organization" hopes to prove. Wouldn't this just give Ralph de la Vega more fuel for his fire? Doesn't your plan jusr serve to prove his point? I use AT&T as my primary phone service and I really don't appreciate an organized plan to possibly disrupt MY service because of a select number of people who are angry about paying for services rendered. If you really want to protest switch to another carrier. I don't think this plan was thought through very well.

Re:Angry AT&T Customers May Disrupt Service

[Anonymous Coward]

No worries, if you own an iPhone, then you are in the Apple timezone, AST.

And in other News...

[Way2Random]

Newsweek's Dan Lyons is charged with orchestrating and leading the terrorist attack on AT&T.

Seriously it seems the days of this kind of civil demonstration or protest are over. These actions have all been chucked up to terrorism with associated jail time.

Question.

[Anachragnome]

Is this an issue of AT&T changing the plan from Unlimited to limited, or is this an issue of them simply not being able to sustain the required bandwidth of the users they signed up?

If they are changing the plans from Unlimited to limited simply because they oversold their networks, then bomb them to hell and back (and keep it up until they promise to upgrade the network and back down from limiting bandwidth).

(Might I suggest viewing this video from Youtube--You only have to reload every few hours, depending on how fast the connection buffers the video. Took me about 2 hrs on my home PC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ct8nZ6eTTiY )

If this is an issue of them blocking certain high-bandwidth apps, then they need to be sued, not DDOSed.

Re:Question.

[mkettler]

The issue is that the network is oversold to the point of instability, and it seems to be affecting their entire network.

I've had Cingular/AT&T for 5 years now, and I never had any noticeable calling problems up until this year. Over the past 3 months I've had numerous dropped calls and bad reception problems while talking on the phone (handfree, yes this is legal in my state) on the way home from work. This is the same route I've been driving for all 5 years.

I wouldn't be too surprised to have problems in places I've never tried before, but in the same places I've always used my phone in? There's only a few possible causes there.. Overload, hardware failure, and botched reconfiguration are what pop to my mind. Given that we know bandwidth use is rising, and AT&T is cutting back on large equipment purchases, I strongly suspect overload.

Re:Question.

[chicknfood]

I believe the guy mentions in the first few minutes of video that he has to be under a 100 MB file size limit... Might not do as much damage

Re:Question.

[Anachragnome]

Is it possible to open multiple instances of the browser on an iPhone (I do not own one and never will)?

If so, simply stack the video download in multiple browser instances.

The only reason I know about this video (content is simply not there, it is the LENGTH of the video that is important, 4 hrs 36 mins) is because I am a Comcast "customer". The reset packets in my torrent downloads were getting annoying(the uploads, actually. But that effects the download rates).

What I found is that the reset packets seemed to not be a problem as long as I had some other data-stream going at the same time. Basically, my torrent download rates SOARED as soon as I added some other data to the stream. I simply load the video while I am downloading torrents and the problem of reset packets seemed to go away entirely. While the video is over 4 hours long, it buffers in about 2 hrs. That gives me 2 hours of full-speed torrents. I simply clear my cache and reload the video every 2 hours.

My bookmark for the video is labeled "Fuck you Comcast".

Sure, it is a complete waste of bandwidth, and only compounds the issue of bandwidth abuse, but then again, Comcast never told me they were censoring/hindering my internet usage. When they stop, I'll stop. I have a 250GB bandwidth cap and have NEVER exceeded it, yet they still drop reset packets on me. Fuck you, Comcast.

Friday, December 19th?

[Mal-2]

Has anyone else noticed that December 19th is a Saturday?

Re:Friday, December 19th?

[greyline]

Maybe if you bothered to read the thread, you would have your answer.

Two

[DarthVain]

Well we have 2.

1) Bell (Phone/Mobile/DSL) = Evil
2) Rogers (Cable/Mobile/Cable) = Evil

Both have crappy prices and crappy customer service.

Pick one.

Bollocks

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a very hard time believing that some jackass coordinating some sort of an attack will actually bring down the AT&T network at all. I refuse to believe that given the latest rearchitecture to implement 3G, the system has not been designed to be scalable to a degree that the entire population of the United States could not take it out. What I mean is that I dont care how many phones are using a single tower, some punks using their iPhones will not be able to shut it down.

I think that AT&T saying that too much data usage was causing dropped calls is also a load of crap.

As a side note...I love the term "bollocks" because it means absolute horse crap and this post won't be deleted for it.

Everyone!

[uncqual]

Including the guy calling 911 to report the terrorist DDOS attack - oh, wait... never mind...

What Time Zone?

[Psychotic_Wrath]

I cant access the article. Does anybody know what timezone This is set for? The efforts will be a lot less meaningful if there isnt a timezone specified

Bingo.

[Anonymous Coward]

As anyone who has attended Dragon*Con, knows, AT&T _always_ gets saturated when a Firefly/Trek/etc panel lets out. Meanwhile, the Sprint and Verizon peeps manage to continue texting and talking during the mini-DOS. The AT&T saturations aren't as frequent and lengthy as they used to be, not because of network improvements, but because so many people use text messages rather than voice calls nowadays. Don't expect much improvement of network density from AT&T when they can't even fix a recurring problem that is *literally* visible from their southeast headquarters.

Re:Un-limited

[cyberfunkr]

Like all great businesses they will merely redefine the word "unlimited".

All plans will go to "unlimited" data; you can download, stream, email, and whatever all day long. However, the 3G network will be tweaked as only work at a 2400 baud speed. Get all you want, but the network will be segmented so that all users get equal access/service.

No one's listening to the engineers over there.

[jeko]

You think the precious few actual engineers AT&T has left aren't trying like Hell to fix this? Management doesn't want to fix the issues -- they'd rather pocket the money than "waste" it on gear.

Expertise and equipment costs money. Bullshit is free.

Which do you think is going to be applied to this problem?

Prepaid?

[zogger]

You don't have any prepaid there? Just long term plans? I agree, those extended range expensive plans are nonsense, prepaid is where it is at now, plus phone tech changes so fast, why get locked in?

Pretty decent selection for that in the US now, from ten bucks new for a basic phone that just makes calls to over a hundred bucks with some apps and web browsers with them, etc. Plus several smartphones depending on carrier can be made to work on the pre paid networks.

3000 min day?

[Khashishi]

That's a lot of minutes. Do you stop the sun often?

Re:3000 min day?

[grolaw]

As an attorney & federal litigator - I can top 600 min/wk without breaking a sweat.
My colleagues frequently have their Palm Pri & Samsung phones running concurrently....

It's not just towers, it's also backhaul.

[digsbo]

I was troubleshooting problems with in-network (copper connected) equipment we sold ATT a few years ago (2005-ish). They repeatedly tried to blame us for the intermittent service issues, and we were pretty sure we narrowed it down to some kind of transport problem (i.e. their T-carrier backhaul from the towers).

After incredible resistance, we finally convinced them we'd admit it was our fault if they ran a specific line test (basically sending a lot of zeroes to test they were properly provisioned for data and not just voice) and it came back clean. They ran the test, and while it was silent on the other side of the conference call (we couldn't see the test results as it ran), we noticed everything started mysteriously turning green (all our intermittent drop-outs stopped). They made up some story about us changing configuration on their network (impossible) while we KNEW they were re-provisioning their copper to transmit data, as we'd suspected they should have done weeks before. They claimed that publicly so they could avoid taking responsibility for the network outages, which would have impacted their management performance numbers.

What I learned was that ATT has a culture of blaming everyone else and not fixing the problem. This is not a new thing.

It's like the kid that's whiny for no reason...

[weston]

... to whom you say "Cut it out, or I'll give you something to whine about."

It's probably true that it's often better to be more articulate than to retaliate with a time-out or a spanking, but anyone who's dealt with an petulant child or telecom executive knows that it's tempting not to be.

Really?

[Torodung]

The post, dubbed 'Operation Chokehold,' wants AT&T customers to use as much data service as they can on Friday, December 18th at noon. While Fake Steve Jobs is notable for its satire, many Twitter and Facebook users seem to be rallying to its cry. It is unclear if there will be enough support to cause a DDOS.

So basically, he's incited the deliberate sabotage of a public communications network. Really?

I get the feeling "Fake Steve Jobs" is going to be hearing from "Real Homeland Security" soon. :^/

--
Toro

Re:Hey AT&T - upgrade your 3G network!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thankfully I have handsfree, voice activated google and a dash mount.

Hopefully you can pull your foot out of your mouth so you can shove it up your backside.

animostity toward iPhone...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would people want to thrash the iphone? Because it's forms a "Clique" of elite users who are willing to submit to the vagaries of Apple's whims. It's expensive so only those who have a fair amount of disposable cash can afford it.

  It's marketed as a status symbol in the same way that "I [Mr. I'm so cool] a Mac", pokes at "PC" on the Apple PC commercials.

Apple's controlling behavior over the years along with the advertising of their products reflects their hubris. That ticks many people off - thus people might tend to take out their frustrations on Apple's products.

Pinhead Idiots

[Anonymous Coward]

These pinheads don't realize honest people who want nothing to do with this "Operation Chokehold" count on AT&T's network to conduct business, stay in touch with loved ones, and communicate with public safety institutions. And they would pat to watch their conduits crippled because some "big mean ol' corporation" hurt your feelings? They're no better than Al-Qaeda.

Think before you speak!

If you agree "Operation Chokehold" is brain-dead, search for and join "Operation Cuckoo" on Facebook.

Alternative

[Blackjack Joe]

I was listening to the Buzz Out Loud podcast yesterday and I feel that had a better idea. Instead of causing a disruption and proving that iPhones are a problem, instead, don't use the AT&T network for an hour. That would get their notice as well.

mods are Cognitive Dissonance Impaired, too

[Gary W. Longsine]

Oh, more trolls won't be like me 'cause I wasn't trolling. I was spanking.

broken already

[Anonymous Coward]

AT&T is broken already. My calls in Manhattan fail a lot on the iPhone

If you want get your service fixed, call them.

[aristotle-dude]

It seems that most American consumers are bashing their heads against the wall for no good reason because they have not been educated on how to properly handle customer service issues with services in high school. A basic economics class that teaches you how to deal with businesses effectively should be a required class in high school curriculum.

Rule 1. Never go to the store you bought your phone from unless the phone is actually defective. They cannot help you with reception problems caused by network configuration or a lack of towers. You are wasting their time and your own.

Rule 2. Call the right person. Do not call and complain to customer service for half an hour. You are not going to get any results and you are again wasting time. Get transferred to someone who can reset your cell settings on their end.

I had a problem of not being able to call on my 3GS when at on in 3G mode despite having full bars and when I turned off 2G, i fell into GPRS instead of Edge. I called my carrier (Fido in Canada) and went through their menu until I got to a real person. I explained my situation to her and she asked me to turn 3G back on and turn off my iPhone while she reset things on the network end. Then I was instructed to turn the iPhone back on, go into settings, General, Reset and select "Reset Network Settings". This caused the phone to give a progress bar, then reboot on its own. That solved my problem. I had to enter my WiFi key again to join my home network but other than that, nothing was lost.

Seriously folks, give this a try. Try pretending that you are a polite Canadian rather that a "proud" American with a sense of entitlement when talking to AT&T staff on the phone and you will be blown away by the service you get. The golden rule of the bible will open doors while arrogance will cause them to close on you swiftly. CSRs are there to help you but they are not to blame for your problems with cellular reception and store employees are there to help you with hardware, they cannot help you with your service efficiently.