In response to Fake Steve’s call for Operation Chokehold — a flashmob event intended to overwhelm AT&T’s data network — AT&T has told Cult of Mac:
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.
Fake Steve has responded thusly:
AT&T has a much bigger problem on its hands. The problem is that the wireless data explosion is just beginning. This 3% of AT&T users who are supposedly accounting for 40% of bandwidth use? Pretty soon that 3% is going to become 30%. [...] The whole point of having these mobile devices is to consume data. This is not just about the iPhone. There’s the Droid, and the Pre, and soon there will be the Nexus One and a zillion other Android phones. Plus all the tablets. This is the future. We are going to carry these devices and use them as our televisions, our radios, our newspapers.
And finishes with:
Go look at [AT&T's] financial statements and open up the Financial Operations and Statistics Summary and look at capital expenditures over the past eight quarters. I’m no math whiz, but it looks like capex has gone down by about 30% over the time period. Scroll down a bit to the Wireless section and check out data revenues — they’re up 80% over the same period.
Irresponsible? Pointless? Yes, that sounds familiar.
Valid arguments all around, then?
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AT&T Calls Operation Chokehold Irresponsible and Pointless. Fake Steve Calls AT&T the Same.
