By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~ Oct 30, 2019

AT&T has reduced the cost of its cheapest unlimited plan from $70 per month to $65 per month for one line of service. The operator has also expanded the number of unlimited pricing options it’s offering from two to three.

The moves could well help the operator keep pace with Verizon, which instituted similar changes to its own unlimited pricing in August. Indeed, several Wall Street analysts pointed to Verizon’s pricing changes as helping to drive part of the 601,000 net customer additions the operator reported for Q3 2019. “Verizon’s $5 price reduction in August translated into a sizable net add beat,” research analysts at Nomura’s Instinet explained in a recent note to investors.

Now, AT&T appears set to mostly match Verizon’s pricing, albeit with plans roughly $5 below Verizon’s, as the company introduced three new unlimited plans:

• Unlimited Starter, for $65 per month for one line, or $140 for four lines
• Unlimited Extra, which includes 15 Gigabytes of mobile hotspot data, for $75 per month for one line, or $160 for four lines
• Unlimited Elite, which includes 30GB of mobile hotspot data, HD streaming and HBO, for $85 per month for one line, or $200 for four lines

AT&T mostly stopped fiber-to-the-home deployment despite tax cut and deregulation.

By Jon Brodkin; Ars Technica ~  Oct 30, 2019

AT&T is planning to spend just $20 billion on capital investment in 2020, down from $23 billion this year.

AT&T announced the $20 billion forecast for 2020 Monday in its quarterly earnings. A year ago, AT&T said it would spend $23 billion on gross capital investment in 2019. (These numbers include network construction and vendor-financing payments but do not include some spending on AT&T’s FirstNet public safety network, which is reimbursed by the federal government.)

The company is on pace to exceed its 2019 goal as it averaged more than $6 billion per quarter in the first three quarters. But with a forecast of $20 billion across all of 2020, AT&T expects to spend about $5 billion per quarter on capital investments going forward. The company is under pressure from investors to control spending, in part because its TV business is tanking and because of AT&T’s giant debt load stemming from the purchases of DirecTV and Time Warner.

Randall Stephenson, the chief executive, will remain in place for another year as the company sets out a three-year business plan to increase revenue and profit.

By Edmund Lee; The New York Times ~ Oct 28, 2019

AT&T has joined the fight in the streaming wars, vying to carve out a digital swath with its planned HBO Max service. At the same time, it has been in an intense skirmish with an activist hedge fund that doubted its move into Hollywood.

On Monday, the embattled telecom giant settled at least one of those dramas by announcing changes to its corporate governance that will keep its chief executive, who had been nearing retirement, in place for at least another year. AT&T also laid out a stepped-up business strategy that would raise profit and lower debt.

Randall L. Stephenson, the chief executive and chairman, will remain in charge at least through 2020, the Dallas-based company said. Once he retires, the roles of chairman and chief executive will be split. In addition, two directors will depart within the next 18 months, making way for new blood.

AT&T also announced a set of financial targets aimed at lifting revenue and profit each year for the next three years, and said it expected to pay off the debt associated with last year’s $80 billion purchase of Time Warner. It will review its sprawling set of businesses to see what could be sold or split off into a partnership with other companies.

The wireless giant provided some needed clarity on its strategy and finances, but its HBO Max unveiling will set the tone for the rest of the year.

From Tara Lachapelle; Bloomberg ~ Oct 28, 2019

AT&T Inc. is one of the world’s biggest communications companies, but it hasn’t always been great at communicating. On Monday, management sought to change that, providing investors with some of the clarity they’ve needed to get comfortable once again with an industry giant that’s so much more complex today that it was just a couple of years ago. It’s the right message. Now AT&T, the parent of the eponymous wireless network, as well as the DirecTV satellite service and media properties including HBO, needs to put its words into action.

Alongside the release of third-quarter earnings, AT&T outlined some of its most detailed financial projections and capital-return goals yet, promising to retire all of the debt it incurred to buy Time Warner last year and buy back about 70% of the shares it issued for the $102 billion deal. The company said profit margins, as measured by earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, will be unchanged next year as it invests in HBO Max, its version of Netflix launching in the spring, but that margins will begin to grow in 2021 amid cost cuts and growth in its wireless and Mexican divisions. AT&T also committed to hit the pause button on major acquisitions and continue evaluating assets that can be carved out to raise money, such as the sale-leaseback agreement it struck for its wireless towers last week.

The Associated Press ~ Oct 28, 2019

NEW YORK (AP) — AT&T said it will look for more parts of its business to sell off and add two new board members after pressure from an activist investor.

The moves are part of a plan to boost results that also includes paying down debt from its $81 billion Time Warner acquisition.

The activist investor, hedge fund Elliott Management, on Monday said it supported AT&T’s plans. It had called for changes in September as it revealed a 1% stake in the wireless company.

One business Elliott had called for AT&T to consider dumping: DirecTV, the struggling satellite TV operator acquired in 2015.

AT&T Inc. CEO Randall Stephenson said Monday that DirecTV was an important part of the company’s business strategy over the next three years, but that there were no “sacred cows” that would be exempt from being considered up for sale.

AT&T also said Monday that Stephenson would stay on through at least 2020.

By Ambrish Shah; Market Realist ~  Oct 14, 2019

On October 10, Senator Elizabeth Warren urged AT&T (T) to reject activist investor Elliott Management’s plan to restructure its business. Warren is a potential Democratic candidate for the US presidential election in 2020. She believes Elliott’s restructuring plan for the telecommunications company could lead to job cuts. However, President Donald Trump called the activist investor’s involvement “great news.”

According to a Reuters report on October 10, “Warren said she sided with union workers at the telecommunications and media conglomerate, who have criticized a plan submitted last month by AT&T activist investor Elliott Management Corp to boost the company’s profits.”

Neither AT&T nor Elliott Management commented on the matter.

Partners, suppliers play key role in boosting speed, agility            

From CIO ~  Sep 30, 2019

Chris Anderson spends his days wrangling a team that includes 270,000 employees and a diverse network of suppliers and partners. As Vice President of Technology Transformation and Sourcing Strategy, Anderson cultivates these relationships to support a massive IT overhaul that is fundamentally changing the way the company brings products and services to market.

The goal is to get everyone pulling in the same direction. But for the world’s largest telecommunications company and the largest provider of mobile telephony services, size can be a disadvantage in a market that demands constant innovation.

One of the ways AT&T keeps in sync with technology and market developments is by counting on its network of longtime suppliers and partners to be part of the team.

The objective is threefold, says the 15-year company veteran. “It’s about common processes and tools, working in a lean and agile way and moving to all things cloud,” he says. “Partners understand our ecosystem, can bring us a lot of new ideas and work with us as part of the broader macro team.”

Inside AT&T, Anderson works across centralized and decentralized units to identify the processes and technologies that will enable the company to transform the way it operates. A critical element of that strategy is a new approach to application development based on the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), a set of tools and tactics that large organizations can use to move with the speed and agility of much smaller ones. “We’ve gone all in with agile,” he says, with the goal of “improving our speed of development, driving higher quality and bringing down overall costs.”

By Jeff Baumgartner; Light Reading ~ Sep 24, 2019

AT&T COO John Stankey told the Wall Street Journal the company has no plans to sell DirecTV, essentially denying a report that the paper put out last week holding that a sale of the unit was among the possible options being weighed.

Stankey said DirecTV is too valuable to AT&T, as it will play an important role in the company’s streaming strategy and as a key cog for an advanced advertising business that is increasingly dependent on viewership data and targeting. The streaming piece will include AT&T’s forthcoming HBO Max SVoD service, which will be sold as a standalone service and also rely on distribution through pay-TV providers such as — AT&T’s own DirecTV unit.

The WSJ reported last week that AT&T was “exploring” ways to unload DirecTV, including a possible spin-off or a sale/merger with a company such as Dish Network. The report also said AT&T might ultimately hold onto DirecTV, which still generates heaps of cash (which could help AT&T shrink its debt) despite weathering steep pay-TV subscriber losses in recent quarters. That report came soon after activist shareholder Elliott Management issued a letter to the AT&T board urging it to overhaul its front-office management and to take a look at divesting the struggling DirecTV unit it acquired four years ago for $49 billion.

It’s also possible that AT&T flirted with the idea of selling DirecTV as part of a review, but ultimately decided that’s the wrong direction. “We’re constantly looking at the portfolio,” he told the WSJ. “That’s the normal course of business and it’s not unique to DirecTV.”

Amid last week’s report about the possibility that AT&T might pursue a sale of DirecTV, naysayers were quick to point out that a marriage with Dish Network, which could benefit from the cash generated from such a deal to help fund its mobile ambitions, would have a tough time getting past US regulators.

By Dow Jones Newswires; Barron’s ~ Sep 20, 2019

AT&T Inc. ’s chief executive met this week with the activist investor who is pressing the company to rethink its strategy and sell off more assets, according to people familiar with the matter.

AT&T boss Randall Stephenson and Jesse Cohn, the portfolio manager at Elliott Management Corp. who challenged the telecom veteran, met Tuesday in New York for an introductory conversation, the people said. The hedge-fund manager discussed streamlining operations and Elliott’s other ideas, the people said.

In a letter last week, Elliott challenged AT&T’s leadership, criticized its shift into the media business and called on the company to review units that might not fit its long-term strategy, highlighting its DirecTV satellite division and Mexican wireless operations.

AT&T has publicly discussed shedding smaller assets that would help reduce debt but not alter its overall strategy. The company is considering the sale of four regional sports networks and a stake in a TV operator in central Europe acquired through its Time Warner purchase. It is also marketing $500 million worth of real estate.

By Dan Jones; Light Reading ~ Sep 19, 2019

AT&T has partnered with Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Telus to roam across the combined operators’ Cat M 4G cellular IoT networks in North America.

AT&T says the roaming deal creates “the largest LTE-based Cat M footprint in the world.” It follows a similar roaming deal AT&T struck in June with KPN, Orange and Swisscom to roam on Cat M in the US and continental Europe. AT&T initially launched its Cat M LTE network in the US two years ago. Its NB-IoT service followed in April 2019.

Cat M is a low-power, wide-area (LPWAN) cellular technology. It does, however, consume more power than LTE-based NB-IoT, with maximum download speeds of 1 Mbit/s for LTE Cat M, versus 284 Kbit/s for NB-IoT. Cat M promises around five years maximum battery life, versus 10-plus years for NB-IoT. Actual battery life for both technologies depends on the how much data each Cat M or NB-IoT device sends out every week, each day or sooner.

Cat M also supports voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) technology for voice communications. This is what makes Cat M suitable for certain wearables, home security systems and other IoT devices rather than NB-IoT.