October 23rd, 2007
AT&T's Randall Stephenson: 3G iPhone and saving the world from Net Neutrality
During his interview at the Web 2.0 Summit, AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson explained why Apple went with the slower EDGE network in the U.S. instead of the faster 3G variety (”Steve Jobs wanted to be on the EDGE network. He wanted the broadest, most ubiquitous data network. It’s the only one that covers the entire country.”), and said that AT&T would have a program for corporate that want to buy hundreds or thousands of iPhones (currently each employee must be buy a phone and have a separately billed account).
Om Malik extracted some more data out of AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson about the iPhone. Om chatted with Stephenson after his on stage interview at the Summit, and he admitted the obvious: “Yes, there will be a 3G device,” he said. Perhaps in January at the annual Macworld Expo Jobs, and AT&T, will give iPhone users a capable cellular network for browsing the Internet.
Stephenson also told Om that he uses his iPhone for watching episodes of “24″ but not for checking his work email. Unlike Jack Bauer, Stephenson doesn’t have a single device that he can use to save the world from terrorists, or in his case Net Neutrality, which he clearly doesn’t advocate.
Stephenson on Net Neutrality from the Web 2.0 Summit:
We all want the same thing. We are kind of new in this, and we all want the Internet to flourish and grow rapidly. We come at it from infrastructure and we are plowing a ton of money. We are learning how to work together. Don’t regulate until there is a problem.
The rules get dorked up and nobody will invest in these businesses.
If somebody steps out of line they need to be slapped–don’t mess with the business model.
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
