 Hey everybody, I'm Jordan Golson here for The Verge on the floor of CES Day 1 and I'm here with Ralph De La Vega, AT&T's CEO of Mobile and Business Solutions. Thanks for joining us. It's great to be here. Thanks very much. AT&T has had a busy show so far announcing a whole bunch of different things, but we're here to talk about your Smart Cities initiative. Can you tell us a bit about that? We love what we're doing with Smart Cities, Jordan. You know, we're a global leader in connected devices, connecting more than 25 million devices. So we're taking that expertise that we have developed over the years to connect any number of things, helping enterprises to be more successful and improve their performance to cities. So cities can be what we call Smart Cities that operate smarter infrastructure, smarter transportation systems in a more sustainable fashion. Got it. And that's interesting because while not everybody interacts with a business, AT&T's got a lot of customers, but it's not 100%, but everybody has to interact with the city, whether it's water or sewer or traffic or something like that. How is this going to help the average American? Well, I think this is the beauty of it because I think the whole effort of the cities that we have announced as spotlight cities, which include Atlanta, Dallas, and Chicago, it's all focused on what we can do to help the citizens of the city enjoy their lives better, whether it's reduce traffic, better ways to find parking spots, a more sustainable water system. I think it depends on each city and each city is having a slightly different focus. The key is that we can bring to the city a complete end-to-end solution, working with partners like GE, like Cisco, and a number of others. It's interesting when you think about efficiency, you don't usually think about government services. So this seems like an area that's ripe for opportunity. Is there anything that you're most excited about? Yeah, I think transportation. All of us have the experience of sitting at a traffic light. There's no traffic and you have the red light and you sit there and you sit there and you wait. So we can make those a lot smarter so that the infrastructure connectivity to cars in the future will eliminate some of the weight that we have and improve traffic patterns so that citizens can move around easier with less congestion in these cities. So this is a long-range vision for you. It's a long vision also for the mayors of those cities. The thing we're also looking at, by the way, are smart airports. All of us spend a lot of time in airports, right? And finding a parking spot, getting around, knowing when the flight's leaving, things that are really commonplace, I think we have an opportunity also to make them smarter. So it's going to be an incredible opportunity for cities, including their airport operations, to be improved. Got it. And one of the unfortunate things about cities that might cause some trouble for you is their lack of funding. A lot of cities, even for essential infrastructure improvements, just don't have the money to do it. How are you going to overcome that? Well, the beauty of what we're showing the city is the same things that we're doing for enterprises. And enterprises make their investments because they feel they can get a return on that investment. So I think what we're showing the cities, and this is a key aspect of everything we do, is if they invest in a certain technology, we can show them how they're going to get a return on that investment to improve their operations long-term. And that's the same aspect that we use for businesses today. So it's showing them how to use the business processes, including the securing of the funding, to get these initiatives going that have nice payoffs over the short and long term. With a company, if they spend a lot of money with you and don't get a return, it's the shareholders that hurt. But with a government, it's the taxpayers. How do we ensure that their money is being spent wisely? Well, this is where I think there's a lot of oversight. For example, in Atlanta, we work with the mayor and the city council, working to make sure that they're comfortable with their proposals. But we're bringing proposals that have been proven to work in enterprises. So it's not like we're trying things that have never been tried before. We know that when these things get implemented, we find out better ways to run enterprises, and I think just much better ways to run cities as well. Every major city has issues with their water systems. Many of them are old and aging, and some of them start to leak. After they start to leak, it's catastrophic, right, when you have a major break. We have technology now that allows them to better monitor those pipes so they can give them the right maintenance before they cause a catastrophic failure. Talking about cities, you guys have announced some other things here at the show, including the connected cars. I think you're up to nine major manufacturers now. We have nine major manufacturers. We love what's happening in the car space, Jordan. The cars are getting so smart today that in the future, they'll be able to talk to each other, to talk to infrastructure, and to make our driving safer. I really think that what customers are asking for today is more technology in their cars to make it more effective and safer. I think that's exactly what the car manufacturers are giving them. One interesting thing about cars versus the cities is the cars are always moving, so they have to be wireless. We're all worried about getting enough bandwidth on our phones and making them work. Is having all this stuff in the cities going to impact that? No, no, I don't think so. I think we have plenty of bandwidth. These kind of services are short bursty streams of data, so it's not very demanding of the data stream. The key is to get the right data on a real time basis. Monitoring rivers, monitoring streams, monitoring the quality of their water systems, that can be done relatively easily with cheap sensors. They just need the connectivity wired or wireless to be able to get the data and then to draw conclusions from that data, whether something has happened that is catastrophic or it's just a small leak or something that is minor. Got it. Is AT&T and the partners, are you guys focusing on the hardware or are you going to be doing analysis and helping cities make better decisions from a political level, which is where the biggest mind fields are? No, I think what we're into solving is their issues end to end, giving them a solution that addresses a problem that the city has identified as a key issue and solving it end to end, not just by ourselves, of course, with our ecosystem of partners, including some of the ones that I mentioned. Thanks very much. AT&T's got a busy week here at CES and so do we. Stay tuned for The Verge for a lot more. Thanks Ralph. Thanks very much.
 Hey everybody, I'm Jordan Golson here for The Verge on the floor of CES Day 1 and I'm
 here with Ralph De La Vega, AT&T's CEO of Mobile and Business Solutions.
 Thanks for joining us.
 It's great to be here.
 Thanks very much.
 AT&T has had a busy show so far announcing a whole bunch of different things, but we're
 here to talk about your Smart Cities initiative.
 Can you tell us a bit about that?
 We love what we're doing with Smart Cities, Jordan.
 You know, we're a global leader in connected devices, connecting more than 25 million devices.
 So we're taking that expertise that we have developed over the years to connect any number
 of things, helping enterprises to be more successful and improve their performance to
 cities.
 So cities can be what we call Smart Cities that operate smarter infrastructure, smarter
 transportation systems in a more sustainable fashion.
 Got it.
 And that's interesting because while not everybody interacts with a business, AT&T's got a lot
 of customers, but it's not 100%, but everybody has to interact with the city, whether it's
 water or sewer or traffic or something like that.
 How is this going to help the average American?
 Well, I think this is the beauty of it because I think the whole effort of the cities that
 we have announced as spotlight cities, which include Atlanta, Dallas, and Chicago, it's
 all focused on what we can do to help the citizens of the city enjoy their lives better,
 whether it's reduce traffic, better ways to find parking spots, a more sustainable water
 system.
 I think it depends on each city and each city is having a slightly different focus.
 The key is that we can bring to the city a complete end-to-end solution, working with
 partners like GE, like Cisco, and a number of others.
 It's interesting when you think about efficiency, you don't usually think about government services.
 So this seems like an area that's ripe for opportunity.
 Is there anything that you're most excited about?
 Yeah, I think transportation.
 All of us have the experience of sitting at a traffic light.
 There's no traffic and you have the red light and you sit there and you sit there and you
 wait.
 So we can make those a lot smarter so that the infrastructure connectivity to cars in
 the future will eliminate some of the weight that we have and improve traffic patterns
 so that citizens can move around easier with less congestion in these cities.
 So this is a long-range vision for you.
 It's a long vision also for the mayors of those cities.
 The thing we're also looking at, by the way, are smart airports.
 All of us spend a lot of time in airports, right?
 And finding a parking spot, getting around, knowing when the flight's leaving, things
 that are really commonplace, I think we have an opportunity also to make them smarter.
 So it's going to be an incredible opportunity for cities, including their airport operations,
 to be improved.
 Got it.
 And one of the unfortunate things about cities that might cause some trouble for you is their
 lack of funding.
 A lot of cities, even for essential infrastructure improvements, just don't have the money to
 do it.
 How are you going to overcome that?
 Well, the beauty of what we're showing the city is the same things that we're doing for
 enterprises.
 And enterprises make their investments because they feel they can get a return on that investment.
 So I think what we're showing the cities, and this is a key aspect of everything we
 do, is if they invest in a certain technology, we can show them how they're going to get
 a return on that investment to improve their operations long-term.
 And that's the same aspect that we use for businesses today.
 So it's showing them how to use the business processes, including the securing of the funding,
 to get these initiatives going that have nice payoffs over the short and long term.
 With a company, if they spend a lot of money with you and don't get a return, it's the
 shareholders that hurt.
 But with a government, it's the taxpayers.
 How do we ensure that their money is being spent wisely?
 Well, this is where I think there's a lot of oversight.
 For example, in Atlanta, we work with the mayor and the city council, working to make
 sure that they're comfortable with their proposals.
 But we're bringing proposals that have been proven to work in enterprises.
 So it's not like we're trying things that have never been tried before.
 We know that when these things get implemented, we find out better ways to run enterprises,
 and I think just much better ways to run cities as well.
 Every major city has issues with their water systems.
 Many of them are old and aging, and some of them start to leak.
 After they start to leak, it's catastrophic, right, when you have a major break.
 We have technology now that allows them to better monitor those pipes so they can give
 them the right maintenance before they cause a catastrophic failure.
 Talking about cities, you guys have announced some other things here at the show, including
 the connected cars.
 I think you're up to nine major manufacturers now.
 We have nine major manufacturers.
 We love what's happening in the car space, Jordan.
 The cars are getting so smart today that in the future, they'll be able to talk to each
 other, to talk to infrastructure, and to make our driving safer.
 I really think that what customers are asking for today is more technology in their cars
 to make it more effective and safer.
 I think that's exactly what the car manufacturers are giving them.
 One interesting thing about cars versus the cities is the cars are always moving, so they
 have to be wireless.
 We're all worried about getting enough bandwidth on our phones and making them work.
 Is having all this stuff in the cities going to impact that?
 No, no, I don't think so.
 I think we have plenty of bandwidth.
 These kind of services are short bursty streams of data, so it's not very demanding of the
 data stream.
 The key is to get the right data on a real time basis.
 Monitoring rivers, monitoring streams, monitoring the quality of their water systems, that can
 be done relatively easily with cheap sensors.
 They just need the connectivity wired or wireless to be able to get the data and then to draw
 conclusions from that data, whether something has happened that is catastrophic or it's
 just a small leak or something that is minor.
 Got it.
 Is AT&T and the partners, are you guys focusing on the hardware or are you going to be doing
 analysis and helping cities make better decisions from a political level, which is where the
 biggest mind fields are?
 No, I think what we're into solving is their issues end to end, giving them a solution
 that addresses a problem that the city has identified as a key issue and solving it end
 to end, not just by ourselves, of course, with our ecosystem of partners, including
 some of the ones that I mentioned.
 Thanks very much.
 AT&T's got a busy week here at CES and so do we.
 Stay tuned for The Verge for a lot more.
 Thanks Ralph.
 Thanks very much.