AT&T CEO Says Unlimited Data With iPhone Was a Mistake

Maura · May 5, 2012

9to5 Mac reports that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has been talking about the iPhone at a wireless industry conference this week in Los Angeles. One comment in particular has attracted a lot of publicity, and that was when he said this:

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.

In other words, Stephenson thinks that AT&T made a mistake by giving early iPhone users with AT&T contracts unlimited data. 9to5 Mac says that Stephenson expressed upset that smartphone users on unlimited data packages who used a lot of data were subsidized by light data users. This explains why AT&T eventually discontinued the unlimited data plan in 2010, replacing it with a much more expensive tiered system, which has also since been revised.

AT&T reports that Stephenson also commented on Apples iMessage, which arrived with iOS 5, and which gives iPhone and iPad users free texting over Wi-Fi, saving them from spending money for texts on their AT&T contracts. Stephenson says that this perturbs him so much that it even affects his sleep!

You lie awake at night worrying about what is that which will disrupt your business model. Apple iMessage is a classic example. If youre using iMessage, youre not using one of our messaging services, right? Thats disruptive to our messaging revenue stream.

Source: AT&T CEO: iMessage disrupts our messaging revenue stream, unlimited data was a mistake | 9to5Mac | Apple Intelligence

1WaySTREET · May 6, 2012

Well don't worry your 3GB slow downs will make up for that! Smh

Gregoris · May 6, 2012

While us the customer are thankful for services like imessage so we dont pay rip off prices per text and no longer need to pay extra for unlimited texts.. they lose millions and we save a tone. even video chat that is not really used that much but it seems every carrier that offers unlimited eventually regrets it and changes to a limited data and a very low limit at that