Fred Devereux, president of the western region for AT&T, admits that the wireless carrier is “not the most revered” right now. But, in remarks today at the Mobile Future Forward conference in Seattle, Devereux pledged that things will get better, reports Seattle’s TechFlash.
“We have a lot of work to do. I call it a success-based problem,” said Devereux. “When you have 5,000 percent increases in anything — whether that is traffic, customers, data usage — you have a problem that the best engineers in the world will have trouble trying to figure out.”
Nonetheless, he said that AT&T is tossing “unbelievable amounts of resources” against the problem. Nationwide, the company is spending $18-$19 billion on wireless and wireline improvements this year, a 5-10 percent increase over last year.
In his remarks today, he recounted with a bit of awe how the industry once charged customers $45 per month for voice service and then — on top of that — 45 cents per minute. Today, he said “we put a T-1 in your pocket, we put a PC in your pocket and now we put a TV in your pocket.”
AT&T has also put the 700 MHz and AWS spectrum in its pocket. AT&T won’t use their 700 MHz spectrum for another year or so. Who knows when they’ll get around to using their AWS spectrum.
Neither Verizon nor AT&T have activated their AWS spectrum.
| Bidders | Net total of high bids |
| 1. T-Mobile | $4.2 billion |
| 2. Verizon Wireless | $2.8 billion |
| 3. SpectrumCo | $2.4 billion |
| 4. MetroPCS | $1.4 billion |
| 5. Cingular (ATT) | $1.3 billion |
| 6. Cricket | $710 million |
| 7. Denali Spectrum | $365 million |
| 8. Barat Wireless | $127 million |
| 9. AWS Wireless | $116 million |
| 10. Atlantic Wireless | $81 million |
AT&T paid $6.64B to the FCC for 700 MHz licenses and another $2.5B for 700 MHz spectrum, previously owned by Charles Townsend’s Aloha Partners. Paul Allen sold his 700 MHZ licenses in Washington and Oregon to AT&T for an undisclosed price, reports Bloomberg.
When you combine AT&T’s unused AWS, for which they paid $1.3 billion, and their 700 MHz spectrum, for which they paid over $9 billion, you can clearly see that AT&T has taken more than $10 Billion in spectrum off the market. Creating artificial spectrum scarcity. Driving prices up. Just like Verizon which paid $2.8 billion for their unused AWS frequencies.
Related Dailywireless articles include; T-Mobile’s HSPA+ Phone, T-Mobile: Now HSPA+ Coverage for 75M, AT&T: Wireless is Different, Phoney Spectrum Scarcity,AT&T Buys 700MHz from Aloha, AT&T Data Caps Extend to Femtocells, AT&T’s New Data Plans,
