Chokehold Indeed: AT&T Spending Less To Make More
Posted 12/17/2009 at 1:02pm
| by J.R. Bookwalter

Uh-oh, it looks like the teed-off pranksters behind this Friday’s “Operation Chokehold” may really have something to get mad about now: Word is out that AT&T has actually spent less on network construction every quarter since the iPhone’s debut.
Gizmodo has collated an
Associated Press story, AT&T’s financial data (
PDF) and a
Fake Steve Jobs post originally pointing out the disparity into a humorous but alarming chart detailing AT&T’s shenanigans. The bottom line is this: Largely thanks to the $30 per month data plans that iPhone users have been forced to shell out, AT&T’s data profits continue to skyrocket along with the popularity of the device. But on the downside, AT&T has actually scaled back on network construction instead of working to improve the situation.
Of course, that runs counter to what AT&T has been publicly telling everyone, which is basically that they’re scrambling to keep up with data-hungry iPhone users and that they may even choose to penalize high-bandwidth 3G users accordingly.

The graphs tell the ugly truth: Every quarter since the iPhone’s debut in June, 2007, AT&T has spent less on network construction and capital expenditures -- particularly between the launch of the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS a year later, when the network really began to show signs of strain.

Meanwhile, a chart of their wireless data revenues shows a steady climb each quarter as more and more customers chose Apple’s device, with AT&T estimated to now make roughly 80% more revenue from wireless data than they did the in last quarter of 2007.
The whopper comes in the quarterly profits: During the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, AT&T has managed to keep profits steady, holding around $3 billion each quarter. In the first three quarters of this year alone, AT&T increased their “Cash and Cash Equivalents” on hand by $4.375 billion!
Instead of data-hungry devices being a burden to AT&T’s network, it would seem that they are really the primary reason why the company’s data profits continue to grow. It will be interesting to see if the telco behemoth will have anything to say for themselves now…