while the exact number is yet to be determined, current consensus puts the number of iphones sold at 270,000 for the first day and a half of sales, and expectations at around 10 million devices to be sold by the end of 2008. if during this time at&t does not get its act together and stop sending out bills that are averaging 50 pages in length, they’re going to have a lot more than just unsatisfied customers after them.

before we go on, let’s look at some quick paper facts (pdf):

A cord of wood is approximately 8 feet wide, 4 feet deep, and 4 feet high. A cord of air-dried, dense hardwood (oak, hickory, etc.) weighs roughly 2 tons, about 15-20 percent of which is water. It has been estimated that one cord of this wood will yield one of these approximate quantities of products:

• 1,000-2,000 pounds of paper (depending on the process)
• 942 100-page, hard-cover books
• 61,370 No. 10 business envelopes
• 4,384,000 commemorative-sized postage stamps
• 460,000 personal checks
• 1,200 copies of National Geographic
• 2,700 copies of an average daily newspaper

that said, with 10 million iphones expected to be sold by the end of 2008, that means 10 million at&t customers that can expect to get 50-page bills, 12 times a year, totaling 6 billion sheets of paper wasted (at around 80,500 sheets of paper per tree, this would mean around 74,535 trees) because of at&t’s stupidity. of course sales aren’t going to stop there so it’s up to us to stop at&t from continuing this madness.