CTIA Wireless 2008

AT&T Would Like to Remind You that It is Open, Too

| Mar 19, 2008 | U.S. Wireless Research Portal | Show Update

| Analysts: Bill Ho, Avi Greengart, Kitty Weldon

Current Perspective: Neutral/Positive Vendor Importance: Moderate Market Impact: Very Low

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Event Summary

March 18, 2008 -- AT&T highlighted the activities planned for CTIA, including three events targeting the development community (i.e., the Enterprise Developers Summit, Fast Pitch, and Open Call) that will encourage the creation of innovative wireless applications. AT&T also announced a new Web site that helps wireless customers learn about and experience many of the choices available to them, including “bring your own device” options for consumers and businesses.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Slightly positive on AT&T writing press releases touting its openness, because “open networks” and “open devices” are glorious buzzwords that Verizon Wireless and Google are co-opting, while AT&T has actually had similar structures quietly in place for years. In addition to the press release, AT&T is running developer contests (with a $70K prize and a place on the AT&T Media Mall deck) at CTIA for the third year in a row, and it has created a mostly static Web site highlighting its open network and application policies. However, having an open network has not made a dent in the company’s business so far; AT&T is offering no unique service plans for its BYOD (bring your own device) option, and devices still need to be custom built with AT&T’s unique technology-frequency combination (GSM/HSDPA 850/1900), which is not used by any other major carrier in the world.

• Vendor Importance: Moderate to AT&T, specifically its core wireless business, which will remain oriented to carrier-sourced handsets and contract-related offers for the foreseeable future. However, AT&T cannot let rivals run off with the openness slogan; if anyone makes money on open devices, it might as well be AT&T. AT&T also needs to preempt regulators from defining the terms of what being open means, as that could theoretically impose considerable restrictions on AT&T’s business.

• Market Impact: Very low on the wireless services segment, because all the talk about open networks, open devices, and open applications is only relevant to consumers willing to pass up significant subsidies to get them. While Fast Pitch and Open Call (the self-described high-tech “American Idol”) are intended to excite a developer community to bring innovative applications, these applications eventually wind up on the AT&T Media Mall anyway. Still, AT&T has already had an open network (pretty much any quad-band GSM phone will work on the network today), and yet nobody buys these devices and uses them to run the mythical “killer app” that open networks are supposed to engender.

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