AT&T CEO Regrets Offering Unlimited Data

As most Apple followers know, AT&T offered unlimited data plans at $30/month when the iPhone first came out. However they quickly removed this option, making users either pay for a certain amount of data (200 MB, 2GB, or 4GB), or pay-per-use. So, until Sprint decided to offer unlimited data plans for the iPhone 4S, users had to settle with this option.

Now, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has expressed regrets about offering unlimited data. “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,” he said in the on-stage interview at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference on Wednesday. “And it’s a variable cost model. Every additional megabyte you use in this network, I have to invest capital," he said at a recent conference. He also said he didn't like Skype and iMessage, because AT&T doesn't generate as much revenue from them. However, AT&T has remained the most prominent iPhone carrier, with 60% of current iPhone users using AT&T. They had $29 billion in sales last quarter.

Interestingly, Sprint has not expressed any concerns about their "everything" plan, which includes unlimited data. In fact, they recently stated that they would continue to offer this plan for the iPhone even when it got 4G abilities.

New Study Reveals AT&T is the Fastest Carrier, Sprint with the Most Dropped Calls

Metrico Wireless has just released the results of a study based on 21,000 nationwide web page downloads and 6,000 voice calls that has revealed some very surprising results.

AT&T was by far the fastest carrier in terms of data speeds. AT&T is usually regarded as very slow, but for some reason the iPhone 4S loads web pages very quickly with AT&T. Verizon's data speed came in second place, while Sprint's data speed only reached an average of 581 kbps on the iPhone 4S. This speed is 5x slower than AT&T's data speed. As for calling, people you call will be able to hear you best if you use Sprint, but you will be able to hear people you call best with AT&T.

The most surprising piece of data that the study revealed was the dropped call rate of all three carriers. While most people would assume that AT&T would have by far the highest dropped call rate, Sprint actually dropped the most calls with a 3.7% dropped call rate. AT&T came in second with a 2.8% rate, and Verizon came in first with a 2.1% dropped call rate.