As 'Operation Chokehold' approaches, readers sound off on AT&T service

What started out as a joke, or perhaps simple mad rantings, has turned into something bigger: "Operation Chokehold," which is scheduled for 3 p.m. ET today. Dan Lyons, writing as Fake Steve Jobs, has called on AT&T users to show their service dissatisfaction by trying to overwhelm the network with data-intensive tasks. The joke may be if no one participates or AT&T's network survives the data assault.

But questions remain about AT&T service quality. Ten days ago, I asked Betanews readers to share what they think about AT&T's service. I've picked a constellation of comments that hopefully reflect how Betanews readers feel about AT&T. By the way, please do stop and take Betanews poll: "Would wireless carrier quality kill the iPhone?"

With that, here are some of your comments about AT&T service quality. Please feel free to leave even more.

fkmalone: "I have AT&T currently and I am getting ready to switch next month. To be clear, I don't have an iPhone and don't want one. I don't like the arrogance of Apple and I hate AT&T...I have occasions every day where I will get a call and answer it only for it to disconnect 10 seconds later and tell me I have a missed call. What the heck? I just answered it and actually started talking to someone. I even purchased a new phone thinking it was the phone. What a waste of 2 years. Never again...I don't know about the true extent of AT&T coverage, but the quality is terrible here."

tigreseis: "Never had a problem with AT&T (I have been using them for 7 years). I have always had great customer service. I live in the country as well."

dhjdhj: "The fact of the matter is that AT&T coverage has progressively been declining, it's not just the occasional random failed call anymore. While driving on a trip yesterday, I had 4 calls to the same person get dropped within 20 miles, and two of those drops were in an area with 5 bars displayed."

nightops: "I have been a customer of Cingular/AT&T Wireless now for about 13 years. I travel across mostly the midwest, but have been to Hawaii, Mexico, and a chunk of the western US. I have owned multiple types of phones while on their service...Overall, I'm very satisfied with my experience. Support has always been top-notch for me. Even with the lack of 3G penetration, I've been very satisfied."

gawd21: "Here in Louisville, KY, AT&T is the worst carrier. You can't even drive down 71 without it dropping. That is a major highway! The cheap Cricket, has better coverage in this area."

Peteorius: "I've been with the iPhone for a few months now and have lived in Manhattan my whole life. Rarely a txt won't go through, occassionally data is a little slow, and I've only had one dropped call in months. All in all, the iPhone is by far the most efficiently run, most effective phone/computer I've ever had, and I don't mind being on the Nation's fastest 3G network."

epobirs: "My personal observation is that you can have a dozen different makes and model of cell phone in a room, all on AT&T, and only the iPhone user will have serious connection issues. This is certainly true at my house. Everybody here has different phones and we're all on AT&T. Only my brother has major issues with service on his, you guessed it, iPhone. My five year old Samsung 427 connected far more reliably and my new Blackberry Curve 8310 does the same. I think there needs to be some investigation into the iPhone side of the issue."

aduffbrew: "As I watch at&t's consumer ratings drop, I can't help but wonder how much of that is due to actual personal consumer experience and how much of it is the media fanning the flames. Both are influencing the numbers, that much is a certainty."

Jeffyo: "Switched from ATT to Verizon and got the Eris. No dropped calls and better and faster 3G coverage than my friends using the 3Gs iphone(we competed network speed). My eris rated faster in all aspects of data transfer."

johnrc2: "I have been on AT&T cell phone service for several years. I don't have an iPhone; I have a Nokia whatever, but I have friends at work who have iPhones, and a son who has an iPhone. None of them have complained about the service."