AT&T Mobility CEO Speaks: Outages, Dropped Calls, App Store, Competition, and More!

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

Engdget Mobile scored an interview with Ralph de la Vega, CEO of AT&T Mobility. Our favorite carrier CEO (for recently telling Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Nokia's CEO, and Euro-haters that "99.5 percent of the industry is trying to copy the iPhone"), shot from the hip on a wide range of issues, including AT&T outages, reports of iPhone reception problems, the success of the App Store, and the competitive landscape now that Google and Palm are (back) in the game.

Perhaps the best news for iPhone users on AT&T? He anticipates future firmware updates will continue to increase reception and reliability:

They're continuously looking for, and we communicate with Apple and say, you know, if we tweak this it would work better, so they've been very good about working with us and making sure that as we look at things to do the drop calls there, they're going to implement it.

Strangely, no word on dropping data rates or throwing in tethering gratis...

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.