AT&T lashes out at Fake Steve Jobs' network knock-out threat

Parody blog organizing Friday protest against AT&T service

Fake Steve Jobs is taking heat from AT&T over his protest campaign to shut down the carrier's 3G wireless network this Friday.

Fake Steve Jobs, a well-known satirical blogger and Newsweek columnist named Dan Lyons who jokingly poses as Apple CEO Steve Jobs on the Internet, got the ball rolling this past Monday when he posted a fake "memo" he claimed was written by Apple employees that urged iPhone users to "turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour" in an effort to knock AT&T's 3G wireless network offline.

"We will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees," read the memo. "Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments."

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Fake Steve Jobs is taking heat from AT&T over his protest campaign to shut down the carrier's 3G wireless network this Friday.

Fake Steve Jobs, a well-known satirical blogger and Newsweek columnist named Dan Lyons who jokingly poses as Apple CEO Steve Jobs on the Internet, got the ball rolling this past Monday when he posted a fake "memo" he claimed was written by Apple employees that urged iPhone users to "turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour" in an effort to knock AT&T's 3G wireless network offline.

"We will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees," read the memo. "Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments."

Top 10 must-have iPhone business apps 

An AT&T spokesman hit back at Fake Jobs yesterday and told the Cult of Mac blog that "there is nothing amusing about advocating that customers attempt to deliberately downgrade service on a network that provides critical communications services for more than 80 million customers." AT&T also called the planned protest "irresponsible and pointless." 

Fake Jobs was unbowed by this public chastising as he vowed to continue with his protest plans while acknowledging that "irresponsible and pointless are pretty much all we do around here." On a more serious note, Fake Jobs explained that his position was that AT&T should not be blaming any particular wireless device for any of its network woes, since other carriers have comparable devices running on their 3G networks.

"The appetite for bandwidth will be insatiable," Fake Jobs wrote. "The network operators that will prosper will be the ones that can keep up with the demand. The ones who don't will get left behind… The fact that AT&T is already bonking, here in the first five minutes of a 60-minute game, is terrifying."

[Editor's note: Lyons did clarify after his initial post generated controversy that "from our point of view this is all just a joke that has spun out of control and gained a life of its own."]

Fake Jobs apparently decided to launch the campaign after becoming incensed at a New York Times article that used an AT&T consultant as a source to claim that the iPhone was to blame for AT&T's 3G network woes. Fake Jobs accused the Times of "being spoon-fed articles by flacks and corporate sources" and of "ignoring reality altogether and making up fairy tales."

Customer complaints about AT&T's voice and data services have caused the company major headaches in recent months, as the most recent Consumer Reports survey showed the carrier has the lowest level of customer satisfaction in the United States. AT&T got its lowest marks in the survey for its voice services, as it was the only wireless carrier in the United States to receive below-average marks for its voice quality. AT&T also received subpar marks across the board for its customer service while receiving average marks for its text-messaging and data services.

AT&T was given a boost earlier this month when an independent study from network performance monitoring start-up Root Wireless showed that in areas where AT&T has 3G wireless coverage it is faster than any of the other major U.S. carriers. However, the study did not refute claims that the company only provides 3G coverage in major metropolitan areas and thus does not cover the vast majority of geographical regions in the United States.