Ralph de la Vega with mustache
During the earnings conference call for AT&T’s quarterly finance report, Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega acknowledged that AT&T’s exclusive control over the iPhone could one day end, but downplayed the effects it would have on the company. When asked about AT&T’s plans if exclusivity were lost, de la Vega said:
“In terms of the iPhone, the iPhone continues to be a good source of new gross additions for us but when you look at the gross additions for the third quarter, the iPhone made up about a third of our total gross additions, so still two-thirds of our gross additions in the quarter are driven by the great portfolio of devices we have in our company and we have a legacy for continuing to have a great portfolio of products…We know that’s going to continue after the iPhone is no longer exclusive to us and we think that we will be able to continue that growth with the iPhone and with other products that we think will be very attractive to customers and I am very confident that we will continue to drive growth as you’ve seen us.
To further soothe investors, de la Vega pointed to AT&T’s new 7.2 HSPA network as a selling point for the company, and hinted that, given a choice of multiple networks, iPhone users would still choose AT&T to take advantage of the network’s speed:
Keep in mind that even if we lose the iPhone exclusivity, we are probably going to be the only ones that have a speed of 7.2 that these phones can work on, so they will work on our network faster than on anybody else’s network.
While no details were given of when AT&T would (or could) lose exclusivity, many users would welcome the availability of the iPhone on other networks. AT&T has had difficulties in the recent past meeting the heavy data usage of iPhone users, as chronicled in numerous complaints on the Internet. Independent testing of wireless networks done by PC World recently showed AT&T lagging behind competitors in the areas of speed and reliability. There have also been complaints about AT&T’s slow deployment of MMS and the fact that they still haven’t activated tethering functionality, despite it being available for other smartphones on the network. With de la Vega hinting at introducing a cap to what is currently an unlimited data plan for the iPhone, investors and iPhone users both may be soon looking to put their money elsewhere.