In an interview with CNBC, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made several comments relating to the iPad and iPhone. When asked about the iPad with Wi-Fi + 3G and its potential in the enterprise market, Stephenson said, “I think this is going to be really a significant product for enterprise. You think about, you know, our objective is just to mobilize everything.
Whether it’s in the home or the workplace, this is a device that really lets you think differently about mobilizing all of the applications that you see in business. And we’re getting a strong interest from our large business customers on bringing this device into their environments, and whether it’s working with the salesforce, whether it’s order takers, any number of areas, are really excited about bringing this device in.”
When asked about the iPad users’ data usage, he explained that “it obviously generates a lot of data usage, which is a good thing from our view point, but the beautiful thing about this device is[..] when you’re in a Wi-Fi hotspot, it’s running on the Wi-Fi network, when you’re out roaming, you’re on the AT&T 3G network.” Stephenson was also asked about the company’s relationship with Apple, describing it as “terrific” and said of the iPhone that “we feel like together we’ve kinda changed the telecom industry,” before adding that in the last three years data usage is up 5,000%.
Finally, he addressed the question of voice quality, describing the uptake and demand for mobile broadband “dramatic,” and admitting that it had an effect on voice quality.
“We have been going hard at the voice quality issue in New York, and made tremendous progress,” he added. “And so, we’re getting to a point where voice quality is getting to where it should be, and mobile broadband is the fastest in the nation. as measured by any number of independent people.” The video of Stephenson’s interview is available from the above link or in embedded form below.
