back to article 'Steve Jobs' repeals AT&T iPhone prank

Fake Steve Jobs has retracted the online AT&T joke that somehow morphed into a legitimate protest against the telco's wireless network. But it may be too late. In a Wednesday post to his blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, Dan Lyons (aka Fake Steve) acknowledged that Operation Chokehold is "just a joke that has spun out of …

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  1. Steve Hodson
    Big Brother

    Some words, here!

    Sounds like someone might have been threatened with legal action....

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Now if only...

    We could do the same to O2 for their craptastic 3G network which is up and down like a whores drawers.

    1. sdustbin
      FAIL

      Naa, it's down so often people wouldn't notice...

      Naa, it's down so often people wouldn't notice...

      (particularly Wimbledon Station... Full 3g Signal.... yet every data request and app times out... tried it at numerous times during the day.... v. annoying....)

  3. Blain Hamon
    Pint

    What, what?

    "provides critical communications services for more than 80 million customers"

    You're kidding me. People actually consider AT&T fit for purpose while they've got a 1 in 3 phone disconnect rate in New York?

    1. Richard 102

      80 million customers

      Considering that AT&T was bought by SBC, which provides local phone service in 13 states (including such high-population areas like California, Texas, and Chicago), that might be 80 million phone lines with 911 service, if you count business lines and government lines.

  4. Si 1
    FAIL

    Erm...

    If it only takes 2,000 customers to degrade the service of 8 million customers then there is a serious problem with capacity on the AT&T network. Perhaps they should look at fixing that?

    1. Robert E A Harvey
      FAIL

      Quite.

      The networks started offering data as another way to sell the same cow, and have made promises they cannot keep.

    2. Paul RND*1000

      Good luck with that

      Why on earth would they fix it when they can pay a fraction of the cost of fixing it to have the less-famous Wilson brother throw postcards around a giant map of the USA in an attempt to demonstrate that their 3G coverage isn't lame?

      I notice in those ads they neglect to state whether they're talking solely about their 3G coverage, or are throwing EDGE in as well to make it look better. So they cover nearly the entire population with "a network", it would kind of suck to find out after you've signed the 2 year contract that the nearest actual 3G coverage is very far from you.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    crap network

    how crap is that network?

    here in austria i get on average between 2 and 2.5mbps (actual, real throughput - the network is meant to be HSDPA 7.2mbps) at all times almost everywhere regardless of demand or time of day. why doesn't AT&T just build a proper network???

    to be honest i have never ever in my life seen any degradation in network performance even during european champions league time when thousands of people are streaming video. why all the excuses? the network in the US is simply useless by the looks of it.

    how much does the average iPhone user pay per month in the USA? I pay €19 a month for all calls, all SMS, and 3GB of data a month (calls and texts to all EU nations by the way), and i would never accept these kind of problems even when paying this amount.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Badgers

      You forgot...

      ...to mention that its free to receive a call or text message too.

  6. R Callan

    Titular title

    The only thing resembling a joke regarding Fake "Steve" a.k.a. Dan Lyings a.k.a. Dan Lyons is Lyons himself. If he was to follow the advice in the BG's song "I Started a Joke" , either physically or metaphorically, then he would do the world a service ---- finally.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    fine with me

    I just finished disconnecting my AT&T services, changing wireless providers and home landline to cable voip. So go ahead and crash AT&T on Friday. I changed services to save bucks, AT&T sucks (dollars from your wallet).

  8. Jack Ketch
    Pirate

    iFight Club

    Anyone else reminded of Project Mayhem? I wonder if the Space Monkeys will be going after Fake Steve's balls....

  9. DrXym

    If the service is so crap...

    ... how about just ditching the service? Cancel your plan and find a better one.

    1. Linbox
      Go

      RE: DrXym

      There is only one network provider in the USA. If you want a jesus phone, you can only have it on AT&T.

  10. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Gulfie
      FAIL

      Actually, no...

      2000 are selfish, 20 are anti, the rest just want to carru on using their phones as God, sorry, Steve, intended. Not sure how you can extrapolate to 99% of AT&T iPhone users from a group of 2000 who want to do something and a group of 20 who feel strongly enough the other way.

  11. Scho
    Joke

    @AC 07:19

    Yeah but if everything is blocked by the firewall who cares how fast you can download you smug sod! :o)

    1. An-D
      Paris Hilton

      Doh

      Austria, not Australia... The 'al' makes all the difference

      Paris cos she would have made the same mistake

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Joke

      al makes all the difference

      You may be interested to know that the vienna boys choir is on after the hippo races every Tuesday night.

    3. Real Ale is Best
      FAIL

      @Scho

      That would be Australia with the all encompassing firewall, not AC's Austria.

  12. BeefStirFry
    Grenade

    Won't take much...

    Won't take much to take down O2... If anyone else wants to join in, lets do the same thing at 12pm GMT on Friday.... Then AT&T will have about 5 hours to prepare for the same thing...

  13. Jacqui Smith's DVD Collection!
    Thumb Up

    T-Mobile

    Great idea, this needs to be done to T-mobile!

  14. No, I will not fix your computer
    Happy

    Is this the plot from The life of Brian?

    He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!

    I'm not the Messiah.......

    ........only the true Messiah would deny his divinity.

  15. Andus McCoatover

    Surely, all AT&T has to do...

    Is nothing.

    Voice calls will still get through, having far, far less throughput. They'll use the 2G network as a fallback, anyway. No need to worry about 'pregnant mothers' or emergency calls.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Game on...

    "attempt to deliberately degrade service on a network that provides critical communications services for more than 80 million customers" - yeh, right. You mean, a crumbling network that can't support 80 million customers and doesn't want them to be able to voice their dissatisfaction at how bad it is.

  17. -tim

    How the mighty have fallen

    Years ago the AT&T long distance network was built to deal with all the calls during Mother's Day.

    1. Jess--

      The title is required, and must contain letters and/or digits

      these days they should build a network that can handle all the traffic at midnight on new years eve

  18. JRallo

    How to know when you have a bad network?

    When 2K people can bring down the network that supports 80M by simply using up all of the bandwidth they can use.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Pirate

      Or rather...

      By using the FULL BANDWIDTH THEY ARE PAYING FOR!!!

  19. PirateSlayer
    Joke

    Project Mayhem

    Project Mayhem begins...

    Rules:

    You don't ask questions.

    You don't ask questions.

    No excuses.

    No lies.

    Don't trust Fake Steve.

  20. James Thomas

    What a pussy!

    As if AT&T are going to care if they all turn their iPhones off.

    This sort of thing is the only way to actually get their attention. Get them bad press and they might actually start to care.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    go for it.

    at&t is a company. it is your moral duty to fuck them in every way possible. they fuck their customers every day. time for some payback.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Austria?

    You mean they can build an excellent phone network that spans a whole 82000 sq km? Wow, that's amazing. Do you think they could scale it up to cover 120000 sq km? Because that's the size of just one state in the US -- and not one of the biggest ones, either. Oh, and with more people per square kilometer, too.

    So yeah, just get DT or whoever built your network to bring some stuff over, I'm sure they could deploy a top-notch national wireless network in no time flat. If they did, I'd switch -- AT&T sucks! But until you get our awesome Austria-Net up and running, I gotta go with somebody.

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