The CEO of AT&T Mobility, Ralph de la Vega, stated at the D9 conference today that the fast growth of data usage among consumers was one of the main reasons behind the mobile carrier’s acquisition of T-Mobile USA. Ralph said that AT&T had no other option to keep up with the demands of its customers. He also added that the overlaying of network in dense cities such as New York and San Francisco will provide the combined network with a head start of 5 to 10 years compared to increasing infrastructural capabilities by itself. In defense of the criticisms aimed at AT&T, de la Vega said that the company is improving and that it has seen data growth like no other carrier in the world making AT&T the largest mobile carrier in the world.
AT&T currently has 40Mhz of bandwidth in New York, which is equivalent of four carriers on one network, and it is working towards adding another 10Mhz to it. Talking about the merger and how it reduces competition, de la Vega says that most consumers will still have a choice between five mobile carriers.
He reminded the audience that Metro PCS is also a variable competitor in the wireless carrier space, something that most commentators neglect while counting the country’s four top carriers, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint. De la Vega describes US as the most competitive and dynamic market in the world. Sprint, when combined with Clearwire (in which it already owns a controlling interest) has more spectrum than any other wireless carrier in the US.
Many people who stand against the acquisition of T-Mobile by AT&T harp on the lagging quality of service provided by AT&T as compared to T-Mobile and Sprint and say that the carrier doesn’t deserve to control the market. AT&T is also far behind T-Mobile and Sprint in the deployment of LTE, to which de la Vega says that the company is now more comfortable with the LTE technology, after it previously used to back HSPDA, and he again stated the commitment of AT&T to keep rolling out new technology in its attempts of catching up with Verizon.
He was asked questions regarding why even after the steep drop in the prices charged by the carrier per MB of data used, the bills of the consumers had not decreased. To this the CEO answered saying that the customers had simply started using much more data on their smartphones than they did before.
Speaking about the newer, more different economic model of tablets, which mostly remain contract free when they are equipped with cellular capabilities, de la Vega that once tablets gain traction in the market, more and more users will want a shared plan. This has been revealed in many of the surveys conducted on the issue and thus AT&T is currently said to be working on it.
