AT&T has unveiled their third quarter earnings, which among other things indicate the company added the most iPhones ever in a single quarter. According to AT&T, they activated 3.2 million iPhones during the third quarter, with forty percent of those customers new to AT&T. The data suggests that despite AT&T's network headaches, the lure of the device is simply too great for many to resist. iPhones represented 74% of the 4.3 million postpaid, integrated devices activated by AT&T last quarter as AT&T tries to extend their exclusive distribution arrangement with Apple.

More shiny new iPhones means more people paying $30 a month for data (whether they use that much data or not), and AT&T's wireless data revenues jumped 34% from last year's, to $3.6 billion. AT&T continues to see huge subscriber additions in wireless. The company added 2 million new subscribers to bring their wireless subscriber total to 81.6 million. Once lured in by the iPhone, many customers stay because of the iPhone (and long term contract ETF penalties), as AT&T continues to have the lowest customer defection rate in the industry.

In the summer of 2008 we noted that AT&T was no longer taking new orders for their Callvantage VoIP service. The company of course wanted to begin pushing their U-Verse Voice VoIP product a little harder, but employees also hinted to us that AT&T was cooking up a new bring your own broadband (BYOB) VoIP offering as well. That BYOB service still hasn't arrived, but AT&T this week gave a concrete date for the CallVantange shutdown, which previously was vaguely scheduled for sometime this year. According to an e-mail being sent to customers this week, CallVantage will officially be shuttered on Novermber 17. Hopefully, the seven of you still using AT&T's CallVantage service find this information useful.

For years, AT&T has been fighting with the state of Connecticut over whether U-Verse should adhere to cable regulations, the placement of AT&T U-Verse VRADs, and AT&T's customer service record in the state. More recently, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has taken aim at excessive executive compensation, requiring AT&T, Verizon and every other public utility to report executive salaries on a yearly basis.

AT&T, Comcast and Verizon all came under fire recently for suggesting the baseline definition of broadband should remain low (as in, between 200-768 kbps), given that means they'd have less work to do -- and less government oversight into their affairs. AT&T's comments to the FCC (pdf) went one step further, arguing that video gaming should not be considered an essential component (like e-mail and browsing) when discussing broadband definitions, and is instead an "aspirational" service.

AT&T this morning reached out to us to note that after four months of negotiations, the telecom giant has struck a tentative agreement in the company's Midwest Region with the CWA. "This agreement covers some 18,500 employees in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio," AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom tells Broadband Reports. "Negotiations are continuing is all of our other regions, for contracts cover employees in every part of the country," says Bloom. Negotiations between AT&T and its union employees had broken down back in April, with workers authorizing a strike as a last resort.

Last week New York Representative Eric Massa introduced a bill aimed at stopping ISPs from nickel and diming consumers with steep overage charges. AT&T reacted swiftly -- claiming their metered billing trials in Reno and Beaumont are about being fair to grandmothers, and have absolutely nothing to do with protecting U-Verse TV revenues from Internet video.

Prompted by Time Warner Cable's botched attempt to force low caps and metered billing on its customers, Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) today unveiled the "Broadband Internet Fairness Act" (HR 2902), legislation aimed at protecting consumers from unreasonable broadband overage charges.

AT&T issued their first quarter earnings this morning, which indicate the nation's largest broadband company added 471,000 broadband subscribers, 359,000 of which were U-Verse and DSL customers. According to AT&T, the carrier added 284,000 net U-verse TV customers, giving them 1.3 million total subscribers and 16.7 million broadband customers in total. The carrier beat most Wall Street estimates, posting a net income of $3.1 billion on revenue of $30.6 billion. AT&T added 1.6 million iPhones in the first quarter, down from 1.9 million in Q4 and 2.4 million in Q3. "We are seeing strong broadband and voice attach rates," for their U-Verse services, AT&T spokesman Seth Bloom tells us.

Time Warner Cable may have slightly buckled (for now) on their plans to institute low caps and high overages, but AT&T is still testing their own metered billing system in Beaumont, Texas, and Reno Nevada. A DSL user near Lake Tahoe complains to GigaOM that users in this market aren't told about the caps until after they sign up for service.

Current contracts for some 125,000 CWA-represented AT&T employees expired April 4, except for an AT&T Southeast agreement, which expires in August. Efforts to bridge the differences between the company and its workers have thus-far failed, with workers authorizing a strike but continuing to work for the time being. Negotiations between AT&T and the Communications Workers Of America took a breather over the Easter holiday, but are set to continue tomorrow. In the interim, workers are getting attention for having created a "Ready To Strike" rap ringtone.

Yesterday it was broadly reported that AT&T is already testing a new system of warning and scolding AT&T customers who have been transmitting pirated material. While the entertainment industry has been pushing ISPs to terminate the service of repeat offenders via some kind of "graduated response" (aka "three strikes) program, AT&T tells us that they're not yet ready to sign off on such an idea.

According to the Communications Workers of America, the union has authorized a strike should contract negotiations not go their way. Current contracts for some 125,000 CWA-represented AT&T employees expire April 4, except for an AT&T Southeast agreement, which expires in August. Citing profits this year of $12.9 billion despite a sour economy, the CWA laments that there's "no reason to hurt employees by cutting jobs and benefits." AT&T and CWA-represented AT&T Mobility workers recently went through the same process.

As AT&T insiders had told us, AT&T this week began offering DirecTV service to customers out of U-Verse range across their entire 22-state footprint. New customers willing to bundle DirecTV get $5 off for the double play, $10 off for the triple play, and $10 off plus $200 cash back if they bundle phone, DirecTV, DSL and wireless phone. Existing customers can supposedly call up and get the bundle discounts (let us know how that works in the comment section below). While AT&T is still supporting Dish Network and Homezone customers, they're no longer marketing those services to new customers.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson sent around an e-mail saying that no managers will be seeing raises this year at the company, employees tell Broadband Reports. Stephenson also informed employees that the AT&T board approved his request to give up his own bonus this year, something we've confirmed with AT&T. Earlier this week, the telco also said they'd be delaying the deployment of their U-Verse VDSL service by one year. AT&T isn't alone in cutting back on executive compensation during the recession -- Time Warner Cable recently informed employees they'd be putting a raise freeze in effect for any employees at the VP level or above.

You might recall that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson made some waves last year when he stated the telecom giant was having trouble finding enough skilled workers to fill the 5,000 customer service jobs it promised to return to the States from India. As of last March, AT&T had only managed to bring back 1,400 of those promised 5,000 jobs, Stephenson blaming the US education system (not cost savings by AT&T) as a major reason why.

Last December, the RIAA boldly announced via the Wall Street Journal that they would be ditching mass lawsuits in favor of placing ISPs in the role of content nannies. Under the proposed system, ISPs would send offenders warning letters (something many ISPs have already been doing for years), while quietly adopting a three strikes system for repeat offenders.

Back in July of last year, AT&T announced that the company’s agreement with Dish Network to sell bundled TV, phone and broadband packages would be terminated at the end of the year. Not long after that, AT&T announced a partnership to market and sell co-branded DirecTV services exclusively starting in January 2009.

2009 will be the year of the femtocell, a tech that creates a micro cell tower in your home that improves coverage and allows you to make calls over your broadband connection (easing strain on local towers is the primary perk for AT&T). AT&T has been testing femtocells in employee homes for some time, and recently stated they'll be engaging in a broader, "city-sized test" with customers in the second quarter of 2009.

The RIAA recently announced that they'd struck closed door deals with several ISPs to boot repeat P2P pirates off of their networks. The only ISP we're sure has signed on to this so far is Cox -- and despite what they tell their subscribers, the DMCA does not require ISPs to participate in this project.

User lev writes in to note that AT&T has sent an e-mail to its subscribers (full e-mail below the break) informing them that as of January 31, AT&T Internet users will no longer receiver Flickr Pro accounts. Flickr Pro accounts will be downgraded to regular Flickr accounts -- and all the restrictions that involves -- unless users are willing to pay $24.95 per year to upgrade.