Saw this interesting story about AT&T negotiating with Apple to maintain it’s exclusive deal for the popular iPhone. The really interesting part was this little nugget buried in the last paragraph:

Mr. Stephenson also is seeking to overhaul AT&T’s marketing to make wireless the priority. The next step, he said, is to do away with a requirement that customers have AT&T’s home-phone service to qualify for discounts on TV or broadband Internet services. Being a wireless customer should be enough, he said.

“We have 77 million wireless customers and 30 million consumer phone lines,” Mr. Stephenson said in a recent interview at AT&T’s headquarters in Dallas, where he moved the company last summer. “Which customer base would you rather work from? We tend to come at this backwards.”

Nice to see the dinosaurs adapting to the world around them this time around. If AT&T can do the arithmetic maybe there is still hope for broken down old equipment manufacturers to make their way into the 21st century.

The really funny thing is The Intimidator (formerly known as The Esposa) and I just decided to forgo a land line and go 100% wireless at our house. We have five cellular devices and have dwindled to a single wired telephone in the house.

Now I’m headed off to AT&T to shop for my discount.