When the CEOs of AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile sit together on the same panel, sparks fly.
Just as they did a year ago, these prominent CEOs sat down today at CTIA Wireless conference to talk about the mobile industry. The keynote session was led by CNBC host Jim Cramer and featured Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility; Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint Nextel; Dan Mead, CEO of Verizon Wireless; and Philipp Humm, CEO of T-Mobile.
Before the session began, each CEO gave a speech outlining the priorities of their company and the expectations of consumers. What was fascinating about seeing them all lined up in a row was seeing how their styles contrast.
Verizon’s Mead came out first and talked at length about the coming “spectrum crunch,” emphasizing that there isn’t enough wireless spectrum available now to satiate demand that consumers have and will have in the coming years. Without solving the spectrum crunch, Mead warned, the American economy could be hurt, as the mobile industry fuels much job growth and innovation.
Sprint’s Hesse walked out second and focused his talk on trust and security. He said that consumers are confused about the terms “LTE” and “4G” and that “the number four has been misused.” Then he pivoted to say that security on smart devices would emerge in the next year as a much bigger priority, something Sprint is committed to solving.
T-Mobile’s Humm talked third and focused his speech on T-Mobile’s recovery. He admitted that T-Mobile’s period as an acquisition target for AT&T damaged the company’s reputation and lost it customers. But now that the company is out of the deal, it can now regain customers’ trust. The vision he wants to project is to have T-Mobile as highly affordable yet still on the cutting edge of tech. He finished the talk by showing a new advertisement that claims T-Mobile’s can offer a much better experience than what can be had with an iPhone 4S on AT&T.
Finally, AT&T’s de la Vega spoke last and used much of his time to pump up the company’s small-but-potent 4G LTE network and Digital Life, AT&T’s just-announced home automation and security system. On the LTE front, de la Vega cited a PC World study of LTE networks that put AT&T as the winner and that everyone else was wrong, a shot at Verizon. As for Digital Life, which won’t really take off until at least late this year, de la Vega seemed enthusiastic that it could wildly add to what consumers demand from service providers for in-home technology.
After the four CEOS got their time to shine, things really got interesting when each had to sit next to each other and be asked questions by the entertaining and sometimes erratic Cramer, who hosts Mad Money on CNBC.
Cramer and the CEOs mostly acted civil throughout, with each of the CEOs often tying their answers to their presentations. Hesse deferred to security and trust, de la Vega to LTE and home solutions, Mead to spectrum, and Humm about T-Mobile’s bright future.
One of the most interesting moments of the conversation was Cramer bringing up T-Mobile’s new ad that it showed to the audience. In the ad, a T-Mobile motorcyclist quickly outruns an AT&T motorcyclist, signifying the speeds of their mobile networks. de la Vega said the ad was simply not true and that its LTE network was quite fast. Humm shot back saying the ad is iPhone-specific and correctly pointed out that the iPhone only can take advantage of HSPA 14 on AT&T. de la Vega finished the thought saying it’s not fair to compare a single device’s performance on a network to the network as a whole.
In another interesting moment, Cramer suggested to Humm that T-Mobile should separate from parent company Deutsche Telekom and file for its own IPO. Humm smartly refused to say anything on the matter, but admitted that CTIA would be the perfect audience for such an announcement.
As for a full video recap of the panel, we will post a link it once one is available.
Roundtable photo: Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat
Filed under: mobile
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