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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
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[2] http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=7D04F480-1A64-6A71-CE92332AED968E41
[3] http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2009-04-26-apple-verizon-iphone_N.htm
[4] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/att_debuts_videocrawler_search_which_indexes_1600_outlets
[5] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/best_buy_and_verizon_both_pursuing_ebook_ventures
[6] http://www.maximumpc.com/article/a_declaration_of_independence_for_the_iphone
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