AT&T首席执行官兰德尔·斯蒂芬森（Randall Stephenson）是无线行业最有权势的人物之一，也是AT&T移动公司Ralph de la Vega的老板。本周，作为米尔肯研究所2012年全球会议的一部分，他发言了一个多小时，并回答了一些问题。斯蒂芬森的许多评论都是对AT&T在所谓的频谱危机和行业整合需求（就像去年收购T-Mobile失败一样）这两个问题上惯常的谈话要点的重新梳理，但在这一过程中，也出现了一些有趣的引语。

关于iPhone对AT&T数据网络的影响，以及AT&T如今在智能**上提供的从无限数据到分层定价的转变，Stephenson表示，他并不后悔提供iPhone（他为什么会这么做？）但他希望他能比他更早地取消30美元的“你能吃什么”计划：

You ask, do you ever look back and ask, do we wish we hadn't [launched the iPhone]? No. No, I never reflect on that. Should we have changed the pricing model sooner? Yes. I wish we had moved quicker to change the pricing model to make sure that people that were c***uming the bandwidth were paying for the bandwidth. And so we had a model where the high-end users were being subsidized by the low-end users. We got that model straight — took a while to get that straight. But no, it has revolutionized our industry, and I don't regret it at all.

他接着表示，在没有T-Mobile式整合的情况下，行业内“除了价格上涨压力外，什么都不会有”：

Make no mistake about it, if you don't find soluti*** like [acquiring T-Mobile USA], there is nothing but upward pricing pressure in this marketplace. And you're experiencing it and you're living through it today. Since the beginning of the year when that deal got killed, our data prices have gone up 30 percent. You want to upgrade to a **artphone? Every carrier in the industry now has put in place an upgrade fee to try to slow this down. Virtually every carrier is now throttling, meaning when you hit a certain threshold of usage in a given month, your speeds get scaled back to try to reduce the utilization of these networks.

然而，他很快就注意到，尽管存在明显的频谱危机，但在整个智能**革命期间，他还是设法提高了公司的利润率：

2006, before all this began, we were basically a zero data revenue company running at about 30, 32 percent margins. Today, we're a 20 billion dollar data revenue company and we're operating at 41, 42 percent margins. So, I mean, people ask me, do you worry about how much value Apple is extracting out of the equation or the handset makers, I say, no, as long as we're extracting value too. Would I like to have more of the value? Of course! Right? But it's been good for our industry.

尽管T-Mobile的交易肯定已经失败，但斯蒂芬森坚信，美国无线行业的整合是不可避免的— 不管AT&T是否参与— 声称竞争加剧会降低频谱利用效率：“很明显，竞争对手越多，频谱分配的效率就越低。只是。。。这是数学上的，”他说。他还声称，在韩国、欧洲和日本等市场，“竞争对手的数量要少得多”，这导致了“更合理的频谱分配”，但目前尚不清楚斯蒂芬森从何处获得信息— 例如，英国有四个主要参与者，而日本和韩国都有三个，几乎不比今天美国的四个国家“少得多”。

整个对话-下面嵌入-是一个迷人的听任何人对未来的无线竞争感兴趣。