{"id":386392,"date":"2010-03-04T13:34:44","date_gmt":"2010-03-04T18:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"tag:contentnext.com,2010-03-03:article\/419-att-downplays-network-impact-of-apples-upcoming-ipad"},"modified":"2010-03-04T13:34:44","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T18:34:44","slug":"att-downplays-network-impact-of-apples-upcoming-ipad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/386392","title":{"rendered":"AT&T Downplays Network Impact Of Apple’s Upcoming iPad"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With Apple’s iPad not shipping for another three weeks or so, and the 3G version more than a month out, it’s hard to know how well the tablet will sell, or how people will use it. <\/p>\n

Despite the unknown, AT&T (NYSE: T<\/a>), which is the exclusive carrier for both the iPhone and iPad in the U.S., has come out and said they don’t believe it will drive a lot of subscriptions on its network. \u201cIt will be interesting to see customer reaction to the iPad,\u201d AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said<\/a> at a Morgan Stanley event on Tuesday. \u201cMy expectation is that there\u2019s not going to be a lot of people out there looking for another subscription. We think it\u2019s going to be a largely WiFi-driven product.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that’s the case, it will be of some relief to current AT&T subscribers that the iPad will likely not congest AT&T’s network further—although we all know, AT&T’s underestimated data usage once before.<\/p>\n

So will the network be overwhelmed once again? If Stephenson is right, it’s unlikely. In fact, the price points and device’s presumed use case<\/a> almost rules it out. <\/p>\n

The most expensive model comes in at $829 for 64 gigabytes and 3G access, but the lowest-end model costs only $499 for 16 gigabytes and WiFi only. In all cases, the 3G model makes the iPad more of a commitment. Data plans start at $15 a month for 250 megabytes and unlimited access costs $30. While that’s half as much as what carriers typically charge for a laptop, Stephenson is right: how many people will be willing to pay that on top of what they already pay for the cellular data connection?<\/p>\n

Not to mention, the use case of the device is not exactly mobile. Portable, yes, but not mobile. The 9.7 inch display does not fit into your back pocket or even very easily in a medium-sized purse. It’s doubtful people will bring it into the car to stream music through the radio, or use Google (NSDQ: GOOG<\/a>) maps while on the road, or bring it to the ballpark to look up a player’s stats during the game. <\/p>\n

However, there’s a couple of exceptions for this: A a child in the backseat of a car with two free hands could easily gobble up data by streaming TV, or surfing the internet. And, potentially some consumers will choose the iPad as a laptop substitution in the home. At the starting price of $630 with 3G and $30 a month for access, it becomes a competitive package to buying a laptop and signing up for cable or DSL. In urban areas, multiple iPad users could definitely bring the network to a crawl. <\/p>\n

At the Morgan Stanley event yesterday, Stephenson also addressed rumors that AT&T’s exclusive hold on the iPhone was ending soon. He said that he expects the smartphone to be an important part of its line-up for “quite some time,” according to Dow Jones Newswires<\/a>. Analysts most recently guessed<\/a> there’s a good chance that AT&T will keep its exclusivity through 2010. Stephenson was not any more specific, but many believe that Apple (NSDQ: AAPL<\/a>) and AT&T are content given AT&T’s new iPad exclusivity.\n<\/p>\n

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With Apple’s iPad not shipping for another three weeks or so, and the 3G version more than a month out, it’s hard to know how well the tablet will sell, or how people will use it. Despite the unknown, AT&T (NYSE: T), which is the exclusive carrier for both the iPhone and iPad in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2853,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mobile","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}