AT&T CEO's "Only Regret" is Offering Unlimited Data Packages

[xenotek]

**** you and your "messaging revenue system", Stephenson. Consumers have found a cheaper, easier and more efficient way to use their devices and your only concern is that it might lose you money instead of how the company can react to this shift in consumer preference?

 

[2499723]

Corportate America is made mostly of this kind of "conservative" companies: companies like Apple who truly can look forward and create something new even if it means throwing away some existing source of income they already have are a minority.

Your use of the colon there made it seem that you were going to lump Apple in with the rest of 'Corporate America'. That would have been the correct usage and the correct point to make. Instead, you mistook the colon for the semicolon (or full stop) and you presented Apple as having different interests to those of other major corporations. It is the accumulation of surplus value that drives Apple and AT&T as companies, even if individual engineers believe they are doing something great. Don't for one second give Apple a free pass here. There's a reason it evades (legally, apparently) US tax laws and outsources its manufacturing: pure, unfettered profit.

 

[furi0usbee]

My only regret was signing up as a customer. I'm soooo glad I'm with Verizon now.

 

[cjmillsnun]

What carrier is offering such a deal? Maybe we could get them here to the US.

The company is three. www.three.co.uk

 

[Chupa Chupa]

I'm coming in here arguably late, so this might be a repeat. I have to wonder if Mr. Stephenson actually believes Apple would have made that deal w/ ATT, esp. when, even when the iPhone was announced EDGE/2G was "old hat."

Purely, anecdotal, but back in '07 I was a happy (one of the few) Palm on Sprint user. I was really on the fence when the iPhone came out b/c I really didn't want to go to ATT, and, honestly, I was skeptical of the iPhone's touch keyboard. If ATT had not offered unlimited data like Sprint and VZW did at the time there would have been no way I would have switched.

And, to that point, me being grandfathered with unlimited data now keeps me tethered to ATT. Maybe when Sprint goes LTE I'll have to reconsider, just to relieve Mr. Stephenson of my apparent burden -- even though I, like most, don't use more than 3GB/mo of data.

Quick add: And shorter Mr. Stephenson on iMessage hitting into SMS/MMS revenue: We are mentally stuck in 2003 and out of new ideas.

 

[cmvsm]

Love you fanboy guys. Apple making huge profit margin = GREAT. ATT&T making small profit margin = EVIL.

Yeah, $17.4 billion in sales and $2.1 billion in profits for AT&T attributed directly to the iPhone. That's a 12% profit margin on a service, not product, in a very competitive smartphone marketplace. Get back to your ice cream sandwich where profitability is the real joke.

 

[scribbleink]

They aren't loosing my revenue when I text via iMessage because 75% of the time I can't get text messages out on their network anyways.

 

[rgravell]

So how would you go about encouraging people with enough money to get into the mobile carrier business? (and thus provide you great service at a low cost...)

Perhaps by allowing them the opportunity for some possible profits (e.g. hopefully something better than leaving their cash in the bank, or under a mattress) in exchange for their risking and possibly losing their investment? (as well as their life savings or retirement savings...)

Or do you have any better idea?

i wasnt offering, nor do i want to offer a solution, but neither were you. you were sarcasticly offering up an idea that was implausable to attack someone without offering any viewpoint. again, a moot point that really had nothing to offer.

that said, the people that would have enough money, not small businesses or the average person mind you, would never attempt to break into the mobile industry because its to costly for what little they would/could get in an oversaturated market. roughly 83% of adult americans have cellphones (pew research), that equals a market with no room to move for the exising carriers, let alone a new one to compete with the big two in any real way. no real chance for profit equates to no one wanting to waste large sums of money to break in.

 

[MonsterRain]

Dear Apple,

Please just buy one of these jokers, sale the iphone on your own carrier and push the current cell communications model into extinction.

Thanks.

Let's be realistic here.

I love Apple. All things Apple. I have more Mac things than most of my friends. That said....Apple is about profit, not value. Their iCloud offering costs, per GB, more than any other service. Their computers cost more. Phones cost more. Computer peripherals cost more. They're better quality, yes. But they cost more. The same people complaining about paying $110 for 5GB of data and 400 minutes on a ****** network, will be complaining about paying $250 for 400 minutes and unlimited data on an Apple-owned network.

Hell, I'd bitch, and the only way I wouldn't is if ALL my Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, Macbook Pro, etc) could use a single data plan with unlimited service that's at least 10Mbps.

 

[helpinghand]

$4 Billion

How about the $4B you had to give to T-Mobile and the loss of additional spectrum?

Lose any sleep over that?

 

[macchiato2009]

How about leaving ATT for another carrier in order to have this idiot fired ?

 

[wingsabr]

AT&T customers "only regret" is filling their pockets and hearing junk like this from their chief.

 

[aneftp]

If it wasn't for Apple back in 2007. (iPhone) AT&T would be nothing today.

Nothing? ATT was the number 1 carrier back in 2007. Verizon was number 2.

Please people. Do you research.

If Verizon hadn't purchased Alltel in late 2009/early 2010, ATT would still be number 1.

ATT would still be number one by a great margin if they had able to buy T-mobile USA, along with T-mobile's 40 million customers. Even if 75% of those customers threaten to quit T-mobile, ATT would still be number one.

Right now the difference between Verizon and ATT is Verizon's purchased and assumption of Alltel's 10-13 million customers.

 

[GenesisST]

Paying a one-time premium price for a well-made, futuristic and useful product is not the same as paying out the ass on a monthly basis for inconsistent service, throttled speeds, and limited data.

I'm not defending the original quote your responded too, but it seems to me that iPhone fanatics will spend 650-750 per year just to upgrade a phone that's still perfectly good.

Just sayin'...

 

[aneftp]

feel so sorry for you American's

pricing is insane and the data capping is outrageous. In the UK i'm on truly unlimited data and also includes unlimited tethering with my 4S.

In defense of USA phone carriers

1. USA carriers allow much more voice minutes than European/Asian carriers.
2. USA carriers have family plans that combined with more voice minutes pretty much evens out the cost of European single plans and are allow more cost savings.

It's the USA individual post paid plans users who get raped by the USA carriers.

But someone on 4-5 lines on post paid family plans with $400 subsidy per iphone pay about the same as many European plans and probably a little less.

For example with my 4 lines (unlimited text), unlimited data on 3 iphone lines, unlimited any mobile calling to any carrier, 10 home line unlimited calling and all my rollover minutes (which is basically unlimited for most people) my total bill is $175 including taxes. That averages out to about $44 USD per phone line per month.

Than add that ATT gives me a $400 plus subsidy per iPhone.

You can see family plans are where the savings are in the USA system.

 

[sk1wbw]

Yeah, $17.4 billion in sales and $2.1 billion in profits for AT&T attributed directly to the iPhone. That's a 12% profit margin on a service, not product, in a very competitive smartphone marketplace. Get back to your ice cream sandwich where profitability is the real joke.

Apple sells stuff that cost money to produce and bring to market. Cell providers charge exhorbitant fees for services that cost nothing to them to provide. There's a difference.

 

[MacDawg]

Apple sells stuff that cost money to produce and bring to market. Cell providers charge exhorbitant fees for services that cost nothing to them to provide. There's a difference.

Nothing? Really?
I'd say that is an over simplification

 

[aneftp]

I really do not understand all this "hate" for ATT.

If you "hate" ATT, than leave even if you are under contract. Pay the ETF. Surely if you have an iPhone 4S, you can still easily get $350 cash or higher for an iPhone 4S.

More than enough to pay off the ETF and move to a "cheaper" carrier like Verizon.

Grass is not always greener on the other side guys.

I have both Verizon and ATT. Both have similar prices.

Sprint isn't any better. Sprint raised their prices by $10 per line per smartphone per month. Plus if grannie just wants a feature phone/dumbphone on the family line, Sprint still requires grannie to pay for a data plan even though grannie does not want or need a data plan.

Sprint is only carrier that requires features phones to have data on family plans these days. Think about that.

 

[Chlloret]

I'm not defending the original quote your responded too, but it seems to me that iPhone fanatics will spend 650-750 per year just to upgrade a phone that's still perfectly good.

Just sayin'...

Not really, you do this only once. You then sell your phone, put 100 or 150 on top to "upgrade". And even that only every other year. I do not think that people have a draw full of unused $500 devices only to always use the newest one.

 

[rgravell]

Nothing? ATT was the number 1 carrier back in 2007. Verizon was number 2.

Please people. Do you research.

If Verizon hadn't purchased Alltel in late 2009/early 2010, ATT would still be number 1.

ATT would still be number one by a great margin if they had able to buy T-mobile USA, along with T-mobile's 40 million customers. Even if 75% of those customers threaten to quit T-mobile, ATT would still be number one.

Right now the difference between Verizon and ATT is Verizon's purchased and assumption of Alltel's 10-13 million customers.

youre forgetting that at&t really was a nobody until cingular bought them in 2004 and rebranded the whole company at&t. so the real difference between the two is cingulars purchase of at&t, rebranding and assumption of customers; as well as verizins purchase of alltel and assumption of customers...haha. not that i dont agree with you, but numbers can be spun a bunch of ways.

 

[aneftp]

Not really, you do this only once. You then sell your phone, put 100 or 150 on top to "upgrade". And even that only every other year. I do not think that people have a draw full of unused $500 devices only to always use the newest one.

I agree with you. In the USA, they do exactly what you state.

Pay $200 for iphone on contract. Sell iPhone 1 year later for $400.

Use the $400 from sale of iPhone towards purchase of another iphone either are full price or partial subsidy or full subsidy.

ATT used to be very generous with providing full subsidy ($199 pricing) for many users (either allowing early iphone upgrades or allowing their most profitable customers to qualify for 12 month upgrades).

But ATT stopped allowing 12 month upgrades last year.

 

[Chlloret]

Nothing? Really?
I'd say that is an over simplification

SMS costs indeed nothing. The messages are send over the gsm service channel, that is the channel that also displays the carrier on your screen and holds contact with the cell tower. So the connection is there anyway, always.

If you then look at the cost per MB you see that the carrieres charge anywhere from $300 to $4000 for 1 (thats ONE) MB of traffic, 160 bytes at a time.......

Thats more money from nothing than even die printer cardridges reel in (printer ink is by far the most expensive fluid in the world with several thousand or more dollars per ounce), never mind our mind altering friends with there divers catalog of substances can ever make in profits.

 

[aneftp]

youre forgetting that at&t really was a nobody until cingular bought them in 2004 and rebranded the whole company at&t. so the real difference between the two is cingulars purchase of at&t, rebranding and assumption of customers; as well as verizins purchase of alltel and assumption of customers...haha. not that i dont agree with you, but numbers can be spun a bunch of ways.

Yeah. But we can spin it this way also. Verizon was nothing until those super mergers of Bell Atlantic, Air Touch, nynex, GTE.

We can go on and on.

What we really have here is two major mobile operators in the USA and that's why we still need to keep Sprint and T-mobile USA in business to keep AT&T and Verizon from raising prices more.

 

[KanosWRX]

Its people like this that kill innovation and drive our economy down. If everyone thought like him we would still be riding horses and sending telegrams because technology like cars and telephones hurt his margins! This guy needs a reality check and to be fired from AT&T! I'll be switching from AT&T just because of comments like this. When the whole rest of the world doesn't charge for text messaging, especially at outrages rates of over 10 dollars a month for a few bytes of data and this guy is complaining then there is something wrong with the company. Greed Greed and more Greed, AT&T I've been a customer for over 15 years, back when it was Cingular. But with this guy at the helm I want to get as far away as possible!

 

[NinakBandid]

It was their choice to offer people Unlimited data and then Throttle which is Greed! iMessages is no different than any other messenger service like Yahoo or AIM which goes through data.

Well, he's right.
Would you think different if it was your company?