For Tecos it has always been tough to shed the old stogy carrier image serving voice calls. Most of them even created separate brands for their Mobile phone services to be able to look next generation. AT&T being the oldest carrier in US after having resurrected itself from SBC started to look at tapping the consumers again in a big way. The management had espoused the so called "3 screen strategy", which essentially meant that AT&T had to dominate all the 3 screens which consumers use for their daily information needs.
- Mobile phone
- Computer
- TV
The goal for AT&T is to increase the bandwidth usage from consumers so that it could increase its ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). The problem though with AT&T was that how do they create compelling Applications for consumers to increase their usage/utility of mobile phone and on the other hand tackle TV content and compete with the Cable providers (Like Comcast, TWC). On the computer side the story was more of providing high speed connections. There also AT&T (SBC) experimented with tie ups with Yahoo (remember SBC Yahoo DSL). Also having a very diverse set of phones means that creating a set of Apps which could work on multiple phones would be a huge challenge. Somehow AT&T did not move out the walled garden approach and adopt a more NTT DoCoMo style model for serving Apps. That could be also again due to the traditional monopoly, control mindset.
Things have changed for AT&T and that is due to its new key partnership with Apple. As Apple fortunes revived with iPhone, AT&T has hugely benefitted from the increasing demand for it's own service (Since they have a exclusive partnership with Apple). Here is how Apple is benefitting AT&T.
- Iphone and the App store: With Apple now dominating the smartphone segment, it has turned a windfall for AT&T. The millions of addictive Apps on Apple Appstore has meant that people use the phone much longer and which in turn means that the network usage for AT&T has gone up and that translates to higher ARPU. With the concept of Appstore taking off AT&T does not have to worry about creating mobile apps or tying up with a whole host of vendors for serving apps.
- Ipad and the new way to work: Ipad put Apple into a new league of what was earlier termed as Netbooks. As more and more office productivity Apps move to cloud the need for larger desktop/Laptops go down. Ipad have been selling like hot cakes almost at the rate of 1 Mn a month and that does not seem like abating. With Applications like Facetime which work on AT&T 3G network again it will mean higher bandwidth usage by consumers. Actually AT&T and the likes are now revising their mobile broadband tariff plans. No more free lunches!
- Apple TV & Content on demand: With Apple recently announcing the new Apple TV itunes combo, people can now rent TV programs through same iStore which people are used to for their iphone and IPAD applications. This effectively now means that you can seamlessly work your content across the 3 screens Mobile, Netbook/PC and TV.
So maybe now it would be the era of computer and tecos pairing up and dominating the market (Apple+AT&T) wimilar to the older era of chip makers and software makers dominating (Microosft+Intel). Share your views on this still developing partnership and how it will impact the tech scene.
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