As some of you pointed out, Fake Steve Jobs’ Operation Chokehold could pose a danger to people that actually need their phones in case of an emergency. That’s completely understandable. Having said that, I think more AT&T customers — specifically iPhone customers — should be pissed off at the company. Fake Steve added up the numbers and found that ever since the iPhone launched, AT&T has been cutting its expenses while its data revenue has soared:
Go look at their 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.
That’s just ridiculous. Where’ the nerd rage?!? Shouldn’t more AT&T customers be pissed off that they’re helping the company reach record numbers while a bare minimum has been done to improve network conditions? Shouldn’t you be up in arms that days after president & CEO of AT&T mobility Darth Vega Ralph de la Vega promised that the network would improve, it gloriously crashed in San Francisco?!?
Hmmmm, I might have to think my happening/not happening percentages on Operation Chokehold. I now believe there’s a 35 percent chance of something going down tomorrow.
I wish I could start a internet company. I'd screw over all of these big companies real quick.
@Sandrock323 If I win the lottery on Saturday, I'll give you seed money.
Yeah, competition is the key in motivating these large, fat telecom companies to get off their asses and improve their network and their company. If the entire telecom industry is just an oligopoly, we will be going nowhere fast (as evidenced by AT&T's reaction to an increase in users).
The only way for this to change is to get many, many more telecom companies to compete against each other.
-M
@sandrock
You can start by buying bandwidth and servicing rural customers who the telcos don't want to mess with. Those people will kill for a 1.5 down, .5 up line for 40 per month. After awhile, you will either get bought, or grow to be a decent municipality choice. I lack the knowledge to build a network though.
According to the financials they have 1.7 billion cash on hand, and have declared 2.4 billion to be paid in dividends. (dividends payable). Damn dividends and employee pension is cleaning this company out.
Hey, I never said you guys didn't have right to be pissed. Just that there's gotta be a better way to prove a point.
@Smartguy Lack of service in rural areas is definitely a problem. Crap service in urban areas is another problem.
@Ray
It was the easiest way for him to become a competitor in the market. I'd rather start with rural markets because of lack of competition. Not too mention, the rural market will be loyal to you. Can't say that about urban markets necessarily.
I was going to say exactly what Nightshade said.
I'd rather start urban and srew with Comcrap first. Then work my way into data only cell phones. Why bother having multipe networks for services that can all work through the internet? Only problem is money, as in I have little of it.
@sandrock
franchise agreements make urban areas off limits in most cases.
Or actually, it would probably be more cost effective to do that backwards. Screw actual lines going to someone's home and just broadcast it to them. The only difference would be that the modem doesn't have a line in port and there would be no installation necessary.