Showing posts with label AT&T. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AT&T. Show all posts

AT&T promotes key executives as it integrates mobile, business units

AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega, pictured at Mobile World Congress 2013, will have new responsibilities at the company. Roger Cheng/CNET

AT&T is doing a little executive reshuffling of its own.

In the wake of Sprint naming a new CEO earlier this month, AT&T is making some changes at the top of its mobility unit, although they are far less dramatic. AT&T's head of mobile, Ralph de la Vega, was promoted to CEO of the company's new mobile and business unit, which is tasked with integrated the two disparate businesses. Glenn Lurie, who was the head of emerging businesses and devices, was promoted to CEO of the consumer mobility business. The changes are effective immediately.

Fierce Wireless earlier reported on the executive changes.

The changes underscore the fact the mobility is the centerpiece of a company that once depending on landline telephones and DSL for most of its revenue. It represents a consolidation of power for de la Vega, who already held a visible role at the company. De la Vega absorbs the business unit previously run by Andy Geisse, who is retiring.

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De la Vega will be tasked with bringing the two units together. AT&T's business unit is already heavily focused on mobile, with business-related customers representing more than 50 percent of its mobile revenue.

While both executives are getting a promotion, the hierarchy within the company hasn't changed. Lurie, considered a rising star because he led one of the faster growing businesses at AT&T, will continue to report to de la Vega, who reports to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson.

Tags: Mobile AT&T Sprint About the author

AT&T exclusivity stunting Fire Phone growth, study suggests

James Martin/CNET

It's a good thing Amazon enjoys the long game.

While users are slowly warming up to the retail giant's new Fire Phone, its growth, in the short term anyway, isn't keeping up with competitors, according to a study published Tuesday.

The slow growth is likely a result of the company only offering the phone through a single carrier, according to research firm Chitika Insights, which tracked the phone's activity growth using ad impressions, or the number of times ads appear before a user.

The report doesn't measure the number of users. Instead, it gauges the popularity of the phone by the amount of activity from mobile web accessed through the phone. The Fire Phone study was based off of "tens of millions" of these ad views, across a network of 350, 000 websites. Amazon Fire Phone usage accounted for a small fraction, 0.02 percent, of that traffic within the first 20 days it was on sale.

A slow adoption rate will not surprise industry analysts who previously noted that Amazon's exclusive deal with AT&T to distribute the phone would severely limit the number of users who would buy the phone.

"The somewhat mild adoption of the Fire Phone may be seen as an expected consequence given the smartphone's carrier exclusivity," the Chitika study reads. "While Amazon certainly is looking to make the Fire Phone a hit, current conditions show this being more realistic as a long-term goal rather than a short term one."

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Amazon tried to have a splashy launch for the phone, which it decked out with lots of buzzworthy features like 3D and image recognition technology, but the phone's reviews were generally tepid. The company took a big loss in the last quarter due mainly due to its aggressive investments, which included hardware like the Fire Phone. The company is known for investing heavily initially so it can reap profits down the road. It's pinned some of its long-term hopes on its phone, which is closely tied to the Internet retailer's ecosystem, making it easy to buy things from the mobile device.

But for Amazon to make the most of its no doubt pricey investment, the company may have to figure out how to lure more consumers.

In comparison to Chikita's findings of the Fire Phone, the adoption of the slightly more expensive LG G3, released about a month before on multiple carriers, reached 0.06 percent within its first 20 days. The Fire Phone costs $199 with contract, $649 without. The LG G3 costs $199 with contract, up to $684.33 without.

For more context, consider the performance of the Samsung Galaxy S4. Priced higher than the Fire Phone at its launch last year, the phone rose to 0.19 percent during its first 11 days, according to a previous study from Chitika.

Amazon is known for keeping its sales figures secret so it's difficult to know if Chitika's finding are an accurate portrayal of the phone's popularity, but it give some sense of the device's performance. Another company tracked the page views of the phone's pre-sale product pages shortly before the phone went on sale in July and noticed a sharp decline in visitors in the first month.

We reached out to Amazon for comment on this study and will update this post when we hear back.

Tags: Mobile Amazon About the author

AT&T to deliver 1Gbps broadband to Silicon Valley

AT&T

AT&T has announced the first city in Silicon Valley that will get its 1Gbps fiber service.

On Wednesday, the company said that Cupertino, the home of tech giant Apple, has been added to the list of cities that will get its ultra-high speed broadband service in the coming months. AT&T is already offering the broadband service, which delivers 1Gbps downloads as well as 1Gbps uploads, in Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. And it has confirmed plans to deploy the service in 11 additional cities: Cupertino, Charlotte, Greensboro, Houston, Jacksonville, Fla., Miami, Nashville, Overland Park, Kan., Raleigh-Durham, San Antonio, and Winston-Salem.

In total, AT&T has said it plans to expand the 1Gbps GigaPower service in up to 100 candidate cities and municipalities across 25 markets nationwide. Other Silicon Valley and Bay Area communities are still on the list for consideration, including, San Jose, San Francisco, and Mountain View, home of Google, AT&T's biggest rival in delivering 1Gbps fiber broadband.

Even though most communities in the US could benefit from a super high-speed network, such as AT&T's, delivering this kind of speed to residents and startups in the nation's technology and innovation hub is likely to be a guaranteed hit. And it could spawn new ideas, technologies and businesses that will benefit the entire technology ecosystem as residents and startups in the area put the high-capacity network to the test.

"Cupertino is leading the way in creating an environment that fosters innovation," the city's mayor Gilbert Wong said in a statement. "And the deployment of ultra-high-speed broadband service will further support innovation in our community, spur our local businesses, and result in even greater economic development in our city."

The attractive customer base is also one that Google is considering. Google included San Jose and its hometown of Mountain View in its list of nine metro areas that it will evaluate for deploying its own 1Gbps download service. So far, Google is still deploying service in Kansas City, home of its first Google Fiber network. And it's still working on deployments for Austin and Provo, Utah.

AT&T didn't provide specifics on pricing or when it would start building the Cupertino network. Currently, the company charges $70 a month for the 1Gbps high speed Internet service. This is also the same price that Google charges for its 1Gbps serice.

Tags: Internet AT&T About the author
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