AT&T's Stephenson: We didn't execute well on T-Mobile deal

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson admitted that his company didn't execute well on its proposed $39 billion dollar deal to purchase T-Mobile USA when it made a bid for the operator in 2010.

"I wouldn't say it was a bad decision, but it was a decision that didn't go the way I wanted," Stephenson said. "We didn't execute well." The company ended up dropping its T-Mobile bid in late 2011 amid regulatory opposition. In a candid interview with Phil Weiser, dean of the University of Colorado Law School and executive director of the Silicon Flatirons at the Silicon Flatirons Center's Digital Broadband Migration conference, Stephenson said that the failed T-Mobile deal was one of his worst moments as CEO, but added that one of his great moments was in 2007 when AT&T decided to bet on Apple's iPhone. "We didn't have a great vision as to where this would go, we just knew that when you took data utilization and made it mobile, it would explode," he said.