AT&T Faces Potential 'Operation Chokehold' Traffic Flood

Earlier this week, journalist Dan Lyons, a.k.a. Fake Steve Jobs, unveiled "Operation Chokehold", a mock campaign to overwhelm AT&T's data network by getting legions of iPhone subcribers to simultaneously switch on bandwidth-eating apps this Friday afternoon. The idea is to publicly shame AT&T for its spotty service coverage and general whininess over iPhone users' bandwidth consumption.

Last week, smoldering subscriber discontent over AT&T's service quality morphed into full-fledged anger after an executive hinted that AT&T may switch to tiered wireless data pricing or impose bandwidth caps. So while Operation Chokehold was apparently intended to be a joke, it's likely that many frustrated iPhone subscribers will carry out Fake Steve Jobs' orders.

But wireless experts aren't sure if this will actually lead to a denial of service situation on AT&T's data network.

"Since it's a distributed network, it's going to depend on where the traffic is concentrated and how many cell towers are involved," said Steve Beauregard, president of Santa Monica, Calif.-based mobility solution provider Regard Solutions.

This is a persistent difficulty when predicting how networks will respond to increased traffic, notes Dan Croft, president and CEO of Mission Critical Wireless, a solution provider in Lincolnshire, Ill. However, Croft says a nationwide AT&T outage stemming from Operation Chokehold is "highly unlikely, if not impossible".

Operation Chokehold will likely be felt most acutely by iPhone users in Manhattan and San Francisco, two areas where AT&T has acknowledged having problems with 3G service due to exceptionally high iPhone ownership. It's unclear if the flooding of AT&T's 3G network could have a spillover effect on its voice network, but that scenario obviously has serious implications given the large number of people that could be affected.

"What will probably happen is a bunch of people will be frustrated when they find they can't make phone calls and data apps will freeze until the traffic lets up," predicted Beauregard.

AT&T didn't respond to a request for comment on whether it plans to add additional capacity in certain areas to deal with potential Operation Chokehold-related traffic spikes.

Ironically, Operation Chokehold could actually lend support to AT&T's case that iPhone users are consuming a disproportionate amount of bandwidth and affecting overall service levels. AT&T claims that 3 percent of its smartphone customers account for 40 percent of its wireless data traffic. But that shouldn't be surprising given the $30 flat monthly rate that AT&T charges customers for unlimited wireless data.

Indeed, Operation Chokehold serves as another example of AT&T's inability to build an effective business model around the iPhone. The problem for AT&T, of course, is that any changes to its wireless data subscription model will be met with howls of protest. Still, that's something that AT&T should have taken into account immediately after Apple awarded the carrier iPhone exclusivity in the U.S.

"While pricing is a company decision, expected usage must be planned for via network architecture, protocols, and yes, pricing," Croft said.

Some analysts have suggested that AT&T's network is just fine and that its service problems are the result of iPhone design flaws. That's obviously not a popular view among the iPhone-toting faithful, but in Croft's opinion, mobile device makers share some of the blame for the service issues that today's wireless carriers' customers are experiencing.

"I'm amazed that carriers don't put more pressure on manufacturers to improve data compression techniques," Croft said. "Certain devices, like the BlackBerry, do a superior job reducing data bandwidth via compression, thereby keeping customers and carriers happy. Why don't we see more of this?"

Andrew Plato, president at Anitian Enterprise Security, a Beaverton, Ore.-based security solution provider, says Operation Chokehold participants should be focusing their anger on Apple instead of AT&T.

"Apple's refusal to open up the iPhone to other carriers is what caused this mess in the first place," said Plato. "You don't have to be a Ph.D. in economics to know that anytime one company has a monopoly, they have no incentive to improve service."