- Convergence is king for today’s AT&T
- EchoStar’s 3.45 GHz spectrum is already being deployed by AT&T
- Stankey said he was “really excited” by AST SpaceMobile’s LEO technology and satellites
AT&T CEO John Stankey helmed a wide range of questions during the operator’s third quarter earnings call – from his future as the company’s CEO to how the EchoStar acquisition is going and how low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites will play into AT&T’s future.
After the recent changes at the top at both T-Mobile and Verizon, Stankey intimated on the call that he isn’t going anywhere, mostly side-stepping an analyst’s question about AT&T’s succession plans. “Nice question, but we're focused on what we need to do to operate our business every day right now, and we don't have those distractions that others have,” he said.
Although he didn’t exactly rule out any more acquisitions after the Lumen buy and the EchoStar spectrum acquisition, he stated that AT&T will “organically invest in this business and make it more successful.”
“Just because there's a change at the top that doesn’t mean there’s going to be 180-degree shift in focus [at the company],” Stankey said of the other operator’s CEO changes. Instead, the AT&T leader said that AT&T’s strategy remains focused on converged services – that combine mobile and fiber services for customers – for the foreseeable future.
“Our shift in tactic is to focus on converged customers,” the CEO said. “We have all the assets in front of us and we’ve run the plays we need to be successful.” Growth, he said, will come from “within the four walls of AT&T.”
AT&T deploys EchoStar spectrum
Nonetheless, the CEO noted that AT&T’s deployment of the spectrum it's acquiring for $23 billion from EchoStar is already underway via a temporary license. He said that two-thirds of the U.S. population will be covered with the 3.45 GHz mid-band spectrum by mid-November.
The new spectrum will boost both AT&T’s 5G and fixed wireless access (FWA) Internet Air performance. AT&T also struck a deal with EchoStar to operate its Boost Mobile brand as a hybrid MNO. “They’re migrating a lot of customers over to our network right now ... so, our wholesale revenues are growing,” he said.
LEO futures
Meanwhile, in the Q&A session, the CEO also addressed how low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites might affect the networks of the near future. AT&T has invested $155 million in AST SpaceMobile and signed an agreement to use their LEO constellation, which has started to be launched now, for space-based network services until 2030.
Stankey said that he was “really excited” about the technology. AT&T will be a “natural integrator” of AST capabilities. The technology will be “complementary” in the IoT space. This would potentially be applications like monitoring containers that are traveling across the ocean or tracking livestock in areas that don’t have cellular connectivity. AST’s satellites could cover these types of tasks.
Similar to what Fierce has already said, however, Stankey stated that AST, or SpaceX – or any other LEO constellation operator – won’t replace terrestrial operators for everyday cell phone service. “It would require an awful lot of time and money,” he noted, while saying that satellites can’t deliver the kind of performance “indoor and outdoor” as a major mobile operator can deliver in cities and towns covered with 5G.
The numbers
AT&T reported a net income of $9.7 billion, which was driven by the sale of its remaining of 70% stake in DIRECTV, for the third quarter, on revenues of $30.7 billion.
The operator spent $4.9 billion on capital expenditure in the quarter. The operator added 405,000 net postpaid phone (monthly contract) customers in the quarter.