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AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson participated in a Q&A session at the Web 2.0 Summit last week. He answered questions about the iPhone, Google, spectrum, and government regulation.

One of AT&T's more high-profile businesses has been its partnership with Apple, which Stephenson said is "going great." But he had to face questions about AT&T's Edge network, which supports the iPhone.

He said the iPhone uses EDGE because Steve Jobs wanted it that way. He wanted "a broad network that covers all the U.S. There isn't another one like it."

Stephenson admitted he was personally frustrated by EDGE's slow speed, but "Wi-Fi is a pretty darn good surrogate at up to 6 megabits per second speeds."

"EDGE will get better as we upgrade to 3G in most markets." He also said AT&T plans to soon make changes in how iPhones can be purchased so that businesses can buy them as part of their corporate accounts and distribute them to employees. Existing AT&T customers have to buy iPhones as if they were new customers.

Click here to see what Stephenson had to say about the upcoming government auction of 700MHz spectrum, Google's interest in that spectrum, and how he thinks regulators are holding back faster broadband access to consumers.

Adapted from internetnews.com