Mobile data services could "out-value" the Web by adding location awareness and personalized search, Smith said. But as the economy sags and subscriber growth in the U.S. slows, carriers can't keep relying on pulling more revenue out of subscribers to pay for it, he said. AT&T will push for many more advertising-based services over the next year or two, he said. Other possibilities include mobile banking and shopping services that generate transaction fees, and business-to-consumer or business-to-business applications in areas such as health care or transportation. Businesses themselves would pay for those in order to realize greater efficiencies, he said.

Asked how soon AT&T would whittle down its platforms, Smith said he expects "meaningful movement" on the consolidation within two years. The effort might lead to one, two or three platforms, depending on many factors, including AT&T's relationships with device makers and providers of mobile OSes, he said.

Hardware and software platform providers increasingly are putting their own stamp on the devices that run on AT&T's network, but the carrier still sees a market for phones built around customer experiences it builds, Smith said. It wants to own the customer experience for a major part of its core customer base, though it's a market Smith acknowledged is shrinking. But there are plenty of places AT&T could play, he said.

"There are lots of segments within our 75 million subscribers that no one's addressing," Smith said.

An AT&T partner earlier this week speculated the operator may be finding itself in competition with the iPhone for customer loyalties.

"I think there must be a struggle inside AT&T to say, 'We've got a lot of new subscribers because of the iPhone, but they are loyal to the iPhone, not AT&T. So is this good? Isn't this what we've been calling a dumb pipe?'" said Satoshi Nakajima, president of Big Canvas, a company that builds iPhone applications. Nakajima also founded UIEvolution, which works with AT&T.

Smith said AT&T sees four different ways of being involved with mobile offerings:

- AT&T applications on AT&T devices;

- third-party devices, such as the iPhone, that run some AT&T applications;

- AT&T devices running third-party applications, such as MapQuest Navigator;

- and devices and applications unrelated to AT&T that simply use its network, such as a TomTom personal navigation device.

The latter, which some critics call the "dumb pipe" model, is "a very viable business for us, and one we are not going to shy away from," Smith said.

(Nancy Gohring in Seattle contributed to this report.)