AT&T’s Honeymoon with the iPhone to End?
Posted 10/23/09 at 06:15:52 PM by Bart Salisbury
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AT&T's breaking up with the iPhone? That seems to be the implication from a conference call with AT&T Mobility's CEO Ralph de la Vega. ComputerWorld is reporting that de la Vega downplayed the importance of the iPhone to AT&T’s overall smartphone strategy, and suggested that life for the mobile carrier would be just fine once the exclusive deal with Apple came to an end.
"We have a legacy of having a great portfolio...that will continue after the iPhone is no longer exclusive to us,” ComputerWorld quotes de la Vega as saying, adding “we feel really good about our non-iPhone [subscriber] adds and net adds.... We feel really strong about our portfolio in quick messaging devices, including BlackBerry and all the smartphones.” AT&T’s hold on the iPhone is expected to end mid-2010.
The possible sigh of relief coming from de la Vega may be due to the headaches the iPhone brought along with it. Broadband hungry iPhone users have overwhelmed AT&T’s network, bringing it at times to crawl. While the all those new subscribers are a good thing--3.2 million new iPhone activations in the 3rd quarter of 2009--the impact they are having isn’t. Time to let others, like Verizon, share in the pain.
Image Credit: AT&T
And is AT&T kidding?
Submitted by Skillz_n_Magic on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 6:42am
The iphone is the ONLY thing they have going for them. Their coverage is down right horrible. If the iphone goes to verizon I'd expect them to lose over half their customers in the next two years as their contracts end.
Submitted by MeTo on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 8:55am
Our AT&T family plan has the worst coverage we are switching to Verizon come hell or high water.
Submitted by Skillz_n_Magic on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 6:39am
Verizon is already overpriced. If they get iphones I'd suspect their pricing will go up even further considering how mac nuts will pay anything steve jobs tells them to, and they can't just raise the rate for iphones. Let's keep our fingers crossed that this doesn't happen.
Submitted by Caballera on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 4:30am
Considering Verzion now has their iDon't campaign going on, I wouldn't expect to see the iPhone on their network anytime soon. I just think the AT&T executive was trying to inflate his own ego, the 'confidence' of their investors and stock by saying that they can thrive without the iPhone.
Submitted by PC_destroyer on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 8:00pm
What? I thought everyone knew the contract would be over by 2010.
Submitted by WALT_OWNS_YOUR_FACE on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 3:46pm
If T-Mobile USA offered the iPhone on their network I'd buy one tomorrow morning. But since I refuse to leave T-Mobile for an inferior overpriced carrier I'm probably going to end up with the Linux-powered Nokia N900 instead. Apple really needs to ditch AT&T earlier than mid-2010, this marriage has gone on for way too long already. It's time for a divorce.
Submitted by Fiercedeity on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 3:41pm
Yeah, well if AT&T spent money upgrading their network properly all these years before the iPhone, instead of using it to lobby/bribe congress and pocket fat profits, they'd have a decent network right now.
I am going to laugh so
Submitted by nekollx on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 3:55pm
I am going to laugh so hard when AT&T finds half their subcribers jumping ship to superior networks and taking their iPhones with them
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Submitted by KnightXENO on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 6:27am
Couldn't agree more.
Forget slow data service, AT&T drops ~ 1/3 of all my calls in NJ. Sadly though, AT&T was the best carrier before the move (in the south) but I think thats just because they were using bell souths existing network. AT&T on the eastern seaboard is a terrible mess!
Submitted by MeTo on Sat, 10/24/2009 - 10:00am
It's bad in middle Tennessee we were Cingular (better) then at&t bought them out and the service went down hill. IMHO
Submitted by manicsocratic on Mon, 10/26/2009 - 8:18am
You may not like this, and I'm surprised that this dirty little secret has been held from you. Cingular was actually a joint-venture of SBC & Bellsouth. The chain went along as SBC buying up AT&T in a sort of hostile takeover. Then the "new" AT&T decided to buy Bellsouth, and since everything was now merged under the umbrella of AT&T the Cingular name was now useless.
Submitted by nekollx on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 2:20pm
so far i've talking to 2 iphone users. Both of them (thats a 100% hit rate) said they would drop att in a heart beat for Verison and are positily glad the iPhone is going non exclusive.
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Coming soon to Lulu.com --Tokusatsu Heroes--
Five teenagers, one alien ghost, a robot, and the fate of the world.
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