Top tech bloggers ding (and ditch) AT&T over iPhone woes

As the exclusive carrier for the iPhone, Apple's hit, market-defining smart phone, AT&T used to hold the position of envy for mobile carriers. Not anymore.

Over the weekend TechCrunch's MG Siegler unleashed a scathing rebuke of the company and a plea for an end of the carrier's exclusivity contract, citing a laundry list of shortcomings. Among them:

Visual voicemail– voicemails not delivered on time, disrupting schedules, and without explanation.

Activation woes – new iPhone owners met by sometimes days-long waiting periods when AT&T's activation servers went down on launch day for the 3G and 3GS.

Network unreliability – dropped calls are common, and system overloads at the South By Soutwest Interactive Festival and other high-profile tech gatherings.

Missing features – Apple announced tethering and MMS support in June, and despite being available on mobile carriers in other countries, AT&T has yet to enable the features in the US.

The post, which was one of the weekend's most retweeted and pushed "AT&T" to Twitter's top-ten trending topics list, comes four months after Giga Om editor Om Malik's very public break-up with AT&T.

AT&T reportedly responded by email to Siegler's post, "expressing their concern over the problems and the overall reaction to this story. They say they are looking into the reports of issues and are going over the tweets/comments."

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