Speaking at the opening of Supercomm 2003 in Atlanta, David Dorman, CEO of AT&T, said his company will invest $500 million towards "improving the customer experience" on its networks. This targeted spending, which is part of the existing capital expenditures already budgeted for 2003, is aimed at making AT&T into "an easier company to do business with." While customers already perceive AT&T as reliable and stable, Dorman said the vision is to put customers in charge of ordering, provisioning, adjusting and monitoring custom services "with a minimum of hassle." On this front, AT&T will significantly outspend its competitors. In particular, AT&T will simplify its contracts, reduce provisioning time, improve billing accuracy, and roll out electronic bonding capabilities that link large corporate customers' purchasing, inventory, maintenance and accounting systems directly into AT&T's provisioning, repair and billing computer systems. Additionally, within a year AT&T aims to give its Frame Relay customers the ability to implement network-based IP-VPNs using web-based tools to self-provision services within one hour. AT&T also announced plans to offer a corporate VPN Tunneling Service through Wi-Fi hotspots at airports and hotels nationwide. AT&T will aggregate hotspots globally using multiple providers. It will also introduce GPRS, 3G and CDMA access to corporate VPNs by partnering with major mobile operators. Dorman said large enterprises will be able to save 10 to 25% by moving to AT&T's network-based IP VPNs. As for the health of the industry, Dorman said the "ever receding imminent recovery" means that overall spending on communication services remains weak. Dorman believes that AT&T's size and relatively strong balance sheet will enable it to take market share from its competitors. He forecasts continued consolidation among major service providers but downplayed any speculation that AT&T might be involved in any such deals.
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- AT&T's BusinessDirect E-bonding uses XML to link enterprise customers into AT&T's network support systems.
A new application, called AT&T BusinessDirect Map, allows enterprise customers to "point-and-click" on a map to get network status reports and to manage related facilities.
AT&T, along with Intel, IBM, Apax Partners and 3i, is an investor in Cometa Networks, which plans to provide broadband, wholesale, wireless Internet access based on 802.11 technology nationwide.
