AT&T CEO Sees Data Service Completely Replacing Voice Plans

The head of AT&T predicts that the current consumer trend away from wireless voice service will continue to the point that, in just a couple of years, there will be smartphone users who won't have a voice plan at all.

Plan in a the future

He stopped short of saying that AT&T will offer such a plan in a the future. At the current time, this wireless carrier requires all its phone clients to have voice service, anyway partially because that's where the company makes a large percantage of its profits.

In recent years, the amount of time mobile phone users spend talking to other people has declined, during services that use wireless data -- Web access, streaming media, etc. -- has risen dramatically.

If this trend continues, as Stephenson believes it will, it will reach the point where the occasional voice calls clients make can be taken care of by VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) apps like Skype, which connect over data networks.

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