iPhone Users Urged to Take Down AT&T
Apparently, AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega's recent remarks concerning the carrier's plans to “incentivize” mobile data hogs to cut back on their usage rates aren't sitting well with AT&T customers. Shocker. — Fake Steve Jobs, for one, has had enough of AT&T's excuses.
Context & Ripple Effects
AT&T has spent most of 2009 playing defense over its network: in April the Wall Street Journal reported de la Vega fighting to preserve the carrier's push to keep the iPhone, and by September PC World argued customers should blame the iPhone rather than the carrier for congestion. Alongside that, AT&T rolled out the 'Mark the Spot' problem-reporting app, opened 3G VoIP with fanfare, and promised tethering 'soon' at the Web 2.0 Summit — all goodwill plays aimed at its loudest user base.
What changed this week: de la Vega confirmed plans to 'incentivize' heavy data users to cut back — widely read as the first step away from unlimited iPhone data — and Fake Steve Jobs, the satirical Jobs persona, publicly declared he'd had enough of AT&T's excuses and urged iPhone users to take action against the carrier. Notably, the story shows no syndicated pickup beyond Mashable, so its reach rests on the persona's audience rather than broad press travel.
First-order effects
- Heavy-data iPhone users — exactly the segment de la Vega named — get an unmistakable signal that flat-rate pricing will be restructured toward usage-based incentives.
- The call-to-action hands AT&T's critics a rallying figurehead at the same moment the carrier is courting that same base with 'Mark the Spot,' 3G VoIP, and a still-unfulfilled tethering promise.
Second-order effects
- Verizon, already facing an AT&T lawsuit over its network-coverage advertising, can let the backlash do its marketing — any pricing move AT&T makes now lands mid-ad-war over whose network is actually worse.
- Apple's exclusive US partner publicly floating penalties for its flagship device's heaviest users puts strain on the very exclusivity arrangement de la Vega spent 2009 defending.
Third-order effects
- If usage-based incentives hold, the all-you-can-eat smartphone data model begins to unwind, with carriers repricing precisely the heavy users who powered the iPhone era's growth.
- Carrier–device-maker friction turns structural: when one hit handset concentrates traffic on one network, operators must choose between capacity spending and pricing changes that antagonize their best customers.
The trend: Smartphone traffic growth is pushing US carriers from unlimited data plans toward metered pricing, with consumer backlash — amplified by figures like Fake Steve Jobs — setting the pace of that shift.