The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on comments made today by AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson at an investor conference in which he noted that he expects Apple's iPhone to be an important part of the carrier's offerings for "quite some time". Stephenson did not address, however, whether the company is expecting to lose its exclusivity for the iPhone in the U.S. in the near future.
Stephenson also noted that he is pleased with the progress AT&T has made on its network, particularly in New York City and San Francisco, where users have been troubled by poor performance. In addition to voice quality issues, which Stephenson noted should be greatly improved by mid-year, AT&T has also been working to increase data capacity, with the company now handling half of all wireless data traffic in the United States.
On the issue of LTE (4G) deployment, Stephenson reported that AT&T is "not in a tremendous hurry" to deploy the next-generation network, noting that the technology is still being developed and widespread availability of products taking advantage of the technology is not expected until 2012.
In a
separate report,
Reuters
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AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson Speaks About iPhone and iPad