So What Could AT&T / Cingular Stand to Gain From Selling the Apple iPhone?

So what could Cingular / AT&T stand to learn from selling the recently announced Apple iPhone?

They could learn how to merchandise, retail and engage customers and have a superior customer experience the way you do at an Apple store.

Here's my suggestions on how to make this happen:

1.  Borrow an Apple Genius from a local Apple Store and have them sell the phone in a special area of the store.

2.  Offer a free download of 5 songs from the iTunes music store as a way to get new users to give the service a start.

3. Create a mini-Apple store within a store a feature one other Apple product:  the AppleTV product that ships in February.  Show how AppleTV can enhance the u-Verse experience to help support the ATT's message of its Three Screens strategy.