How much longer can AT&T hang on to its exclusive template with Apple's white-hot iPhone? A report from The Wall Street Journal says company CEO Randall Stephenson is pushing for exclusivity rights through 2011.

Sources quoted by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) declare telecommunications giant AT&T’s CEO, Randall Stephenson, is pushing to extend the company’s exclusive template with Apple for the popular iPhone, which “people familiar with the matter” declare expires this YR. The WSJ reported that Stephenson is looking to extend the relationship through 2011.

Apple refused to comment on the report, noting only that they have a “great relationship” with AT&T, which has experienced a revitalization of its brand since it started carrying the iPhone in 2007. The continued, and expanding, popularity of Apple’s touchscreen smartphone, which has become an iconic device, suggests AT&T would be wise to fight hard to keep its exclusive deal with the iPhone. AT&T has benefited tremendously from the template picking up 4.3 million iPhone subscribers in the second half of last YR, of which 40 percent were newly acquired customers.

Stephenson told the WSJ that the deal was indeed a multi-YR template but declined to elaborate, and said substantial investment in wireless technology would be made regardless of the company’s involvement with Apple. "This business cycle is going to cycle," Mr. Stephenson told the WSJ. "You got to make sure that you're positioned when it cycles back out to be the leader in the industry, and to do that you have to be the leader in mobility, first and foremost."