AT&T Playing Hardball With Apple?

Ponca City, We Love You writes "There's some interesting speculation from Cringley on why AT&T chief executive Randall Stephenson let drop that a new version of Apple's iPhone will be introduced in 2008. The announcement is sure to cut into Apple's Christmas sales and could also cost ATT a million new customers and at least $1 billion in market cap, says Cringley. 'It is no coincidence that Stephenson made his remarks in Silicon Valley, rather than in San Antonio or New York,' says Cringley. 'He came to the turf of his 'partner' and delivered a message that will hurt Apple as much as AT&T, a message that says AT&T doesn't really need Apple despite the iPhone's success.' What may be troubling the relationship between AT&T and Apple is the upcoming auction for 700-MHz wireless spectrum and AT&T's discovery that Apple may be joining Google in bidding."

Comments

Echo

[12WTF$]

"Hello? AT&T Customer Service?"
"Good Morning, How may I assist you?"
"I hear this echo..."
"An echo? Do you mean on your AT&T phone?"
"No. It's your CEO. He is just repeating what Steve Jobs said a few months ago"

"You can expect a 3G iPhone later next year... We are working on the next iPhone already, the one after that and the one after that." Regent Street Apple store in London, September, 2007

Put a stop to this one early...

[shmlco]

I think some industry types are overestimating just how much the public follows the off-hand comments of a CEO at a luncheon.

Besides, the fact that a 3G phone is coming isn't even a secret. If you wanted an iPhone for Christmas, you wanted one, and despite knowing full well that another one was coming next year. Heck, I bought one in June, knowing full well that Apple could easily introduce a newer version in November. I'd even figured out who'd get the old one if it happened.

Net effect on Apple? Zip.

And Cringely was right about one thing. Google announced that they were bidding today. But the press release also made another thing quite clear: their application does not include any partners.

So. No partners means no Apple partnership, which means that there was nothing for AT&T's CEO to find out. Which in turn means that his comments were relatively innocent, and not "a $1 billion message to Apple CEO Steve Jobs." By my watch, it took less than ten hours for Cringely's consipracy theory to be shot down. Could be a new record.

Of course, you could spin it that Jobs, quaking in his boots at all of the iPhone sales he's already lost, called up Schmidt, pulled out of a planned multi-billion dollar deal, and Google obligingly issued the press release to cover his tracks. Yeah, right.

That's exactly how SJ would handle it.

EVERYONE READ THE ABOVE COMMENT

[porcupine8]

This one quote makes the entire thing a non-story, and it's obvious that many of the commenters below haven't read it. And yes, it's a real quote - google any section of it and you'll pull up a dozen stories on it from mid-September. The AT&T CEO can't leak something that Jobs already said in public, which means we can stop theorizing about the motivations behind or repercussions of such a leak.

Re:Pscht!

[Shakrai]

Verizon doesn't even compare to AT&T. The biggest problem with AT&T's network is that they've got two incompatible 2.5G networks that they're trying to merge. Verizon still has nothing like what Cingular or AWS had before the merger. If they were leapfrogging, that might be an advantage, but they're not improving they're network, they're living off the fat of 75% the land lines they got for free.

I'm sorry, I hate Verizon (and especially Verizon Wireless) as much as anybody, but this is such a gross misstatement of the wireless industry that I'm going to piss away the 5 mod points I spent here to refute it.

Verizon is trying to "live off the fat" of their landlines while AT&T innovates? Give me a fucking break! Verizon has a nationwide 3G network. In virtually any part of the Verizon Wireless network you have full EV-DO broadband speeds. Can AT&T make the same claim? Most of their network, especially the suburban and rural parts of it, is still using EDGE (ISDN to slow DSL type speeds) or even GRPS (single channel ISDN speed).

Don't misinterpret my statement as a support for Verizon's business practices (which suck even more then AT&Ts) or as a preference for CDMA over GSM/UMTS. I'd much perfer to see a nationwide deployment of UMTS then CDMA. But the fact remains that Verizon and Sprint (CDMA carriers) both have a better data solution then AT&T right now. So how the hell can you say that AT&T is doing all the innovating while Verizon "lives off the fat of their landline business"? Hell, AT&T only became the largest carrier by assimilating the original AT&T Wireless into Cingular.

AT&T is trying to move into the modern world, and the only carrier that can compete (coincidentally using the same technology) is T-Mobile, but they're in no position to invest

T-Mobile is in no position to invest? What the fuck are you smoking and can I have some? T-Mobile just invested billions of dollars into the AWS auction and grabbed enough spectrum to roll out a nationwide UMTS network. T-Mobile USA's biggest problem isn't funding (Deutsche Telekom has a 96 billion dollar market cap), T-Mobile USA's biggest problem is a lack of available spectrum. As an example, they are running their GSM network in New York City off a whooping 10mhz of spectrum. AT&T has nearly ten times that amount.

The purchases of all the AWS licenses should theoretically solve this problem. Unfortunately in many areas, the Government has yet to vacate the AWS bands that were sold to the wireless carriers. Once the Government (and other users) vacate those bands, T-Mobile will (almost instantly) have a UMTS network available in the entirety of their existing footprint. They will also finally have the licenses to expand out of that footprint. In many areas (New York City) they even have the equipment already installed and the only thing preventing them from turning it up is that the AWS bands haven't been vacated yet.