AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega spent a lot of time talking up his company’s recent moves when he spoke Tuesday at the Wells Fargo Tech, Media and Telecom Conference.
Specifically, he didn’t seem worried about tapering revenue from smartphones because of new revenue outlets for the carrier in its Digital Life connected home efforts and its moves in the connected car space.
On the topic of spectrum, De la Vega boasted AT&T’s recent 700 MHz and WCS acquisitions and reiterated the need for more spectrum, reinforcing the necessity for the FCC’s upcoming spectrum auction. He stayed tight-lipped on AT&T’s involvement plans for the auctions or any other upcoming spectrum deals.
“If you look into the future, it doesn’t make sense to restrict companies from bidding on spectrum,” De la Vega said, referring to the logic surrounding spectrum caps for individual carriers. He added that Sprint got a ton of spectrum from Clearwire, and T-Mobile’s claims that it has the most spectrum per customer as further evidence to support his belief.
“No matter who comes in and attacks us, we’re in a good position,” De la Vega said, adding that AT&T can compete on quality and value with any other carrier.
Looking toward the prepaid jumpstart AT&T expects upon closing the Leap Wireless acquisition deal, De la Vega pointed out that not many people highlight how AT&T apparently led all carriers last quarter with 192,000 prepaid net adds.
But prepaid customers won’t have an impact on AT&T’s new early device upgrade program. De la Vega announced that Next will launch through AT&T business channels next month but that right now AT&T has seen a 10-percent adoption rate through its initial offering in company-owned retail stores.
De la Vega also spent some time talking about LTE, claiming that 42 percent of AT&T’s base has LTE-compatible handsets and touting the carrier’s 700 MHz B Block deployment. He confirmed that AT&T is still on schedule to finish its initial LTE buildout by the middle of next year.
Filed Under: Carriers
