AT&T last week raised rates on all their wireless data plans, users now having the option of a $20, 300 MB plan or a $30, 3GB plan (up from $15, 200MB and $25, 2GB, respectively). Speaking during their earnings call today, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson tried to suggest that the rate hikes were because the government opposed AT&T's planned T-Mobile acquisition. The deal collapse, according to Stephenson, left them capacity constrained -- which then forced the company to raise rates and throttle wireless users. Kevin Fitchard at GigaOM points out how the only problem with that article is that it's not true:
If AT&T were really that constrained by network capacity, it wouldn t be lowering the price it charges to deliver each byte. AT&T s price hikes are simply a revenue play. By raising the prices of its data plan tiers, it s guaranteeing it will get $5 more a month on each new smartphone customer, but it won t be limiting their usage. Instead it s actually encouraging its customers to consume more.
There's really only so many times we can point out that AT&T's claims of spectrum crunch and capacity constraints are completely contradicted by AT&T's own publicly-available data, and that if AT&T is suffering any such limitations with their current resources -- it's due to poor network design and implementation. The truth is AT&T's raising rates because they can in an uncompetitive market they dominate. Stephenson's just pouting because for one of the first times in a generation, his company wasn't able to buy government help in keeping it that way.read comment(s)