NXTcomm: AT&T’s Stephenson Speech on ‘Commercial Velocity’ Offers Heavy Global Bent

Commercial velocity was the theme of AT&T Chairman, President and CEO Randall L. Stephenson’s keynote speech today at NXTcomm in Las Vegas.

“We provide one thing, we provide velocity,” said Stephenson, in his repeat performance as NXTcomm’s opening speaker. He explained that means AT&T and other industry players – like the ship, railroad, highway and airline industries -- make businesses, governments and households run faster and improve their communications experience. That, he said, drives economic growth, which he said always results in prosperity.

“We’re in the very early stages of massive changes in how people work and learn,” he said. As evidence, he noted that HD is now being offered over copper around the globe; that online commerce through companies like amazon.com, eBay and Craigslist now is a $136 billion business; that Cisco Systems’ Telepresence application could have big impacts on travel savings in light of growing fuel costs; and that mobility is continuing to grow.

Mobility Speeds Commercial Velocity

When mobility is added to the mix, usage explodes and commercial velocity does too, Stephenson said, noting the number of voice minutes is growing at 10 percent annually. “It’s a proven and predictable pattern,” he said, harkening back to the days in which Sony introduced the first device (the Walkman) to make music mobile “and caused the obsolescence of the LP record.”

Showing off the new 3G-enabled iPhone for which AT&T provides connectivity, Stephenson said that one firm predicts there will be 4 billion mobile devices in use by 2010, many of them in emerging markets. And while 1 billion people worldwide are about to get connected to the Internet, he said many will leapfrog the PC entirely and go right to the mobile Internet.

Noting the 80 percent of the world’s population lives within the coverage area of a cell site, Stephenson mentioned that some fisherman in India recently began using mobile phones to call different ports to get the best price for their catch and, as result, increased their revenue by 8 percent. That, in turn, allows those fisherman to improve their quality of life and stimulate the economy by buying more goods and services both for the person and professional use, he said. He claimed for every 10 percent penetration increase in cell phone service there’s a 0.6 percent increase in GDP.

“The telecom industry is sitting on a world of potential,” he said. But in order to unlock that potential, he said the industry needs to manage the growing complexity of the ecosystems involved in launching these new features and services. And building these ecosystems, he said, is one of the things NXTcomm is all about.

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