AT&T’s corporate communications team is just terrible. Seriously: tar-and-feathers terrible. I mean, I’m sure the Joe Schmoes and Jane Roes who do most of the heavy lifting are fine, but the company bobbleheads AT&T puts on national television to speak to the public? Train wrecks, all of ’em.

For example, many users blame AT&T for the terrible performance of the Apple iPhone. AT&T spokesmodels, however, lays the blame at the feet of Apple and says that users don’t know how to use the phone. And while there’s got to be some truth in that — especially the part about the hardware being imperfect — to say that the AT&T network is hunky-dorey when I’m sitting in the front room of my house in downtown New Orleans, and I’m getting two whole bars of reception…well, that’s idiotic.

So, someone has crafted a plan to show AT&T how craptacular their network really is. I have no idea how many people will actually do this, but I may give it a shot. I mean, what else have I got to do at 2pm CST (12pm PT) this Friday?

Subject: Operation Chokehold On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. The idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power! [more at FakeSteve.net]

Power to the iPeople, y’all.