AT&T's CEO, Randall Stephenson, recently spoke at a conference this week regarding the state of the wireless industry, in which he made some pretty outrageous comments regarding the iPhone. Quite frankly, they make him sound like a total douche:
"My only regret was how we introduced pricing in the beginning, because how did we introduce pricing? Thirty dollars and you get all you can eat,” he said in the on-stage interview at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference on Wednesday. “And it’s a variable cost model. Every additional megabyte you use in this network, I have to invest capital."AT&T discontinued their unlimited data in 2010, moving to a tiered plan offering for new customers. Last quarter, AT&T reported $6.1 billion in mobile data revenue alone...70% of which came from users on their higher-end plans.
He also went on to mention how he worries that services like Apple's iMessage are cutting into the company's text messaging revenues:
“You lie awake at night worrying about what is that which will disrupt your business model,” he said. “Apple iMessage is a classic example. If you’re using iMessage, you’re not using one of our messaging services, right? That’s disruptive to our messaging revenue stream.”I don't know about you, but Mr. Stephenson seems like a greedy prick. I'm pretty sure you didn't lose any sleep coming in at #34 on Forbes list of highest paid executives in 2012. Maybe instead of crying about how you didn't think to screw over consumers right away, you should actually put some work into improving your network.
I can't really imagine anyone actually agreeing with Stephenson (outside of AT&T's executive board), but I want to know what you think.
As always, let me know what you think in the comments below.
Source: The New York Times
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