By Jennifer Saba; Breakingviews ~  Mar 01, 2019

Companies merge, executives leave – it happens all the time. But HBO Chief Executive Richard Plepler’s resignation from AT&T on Thursday is worth scrutinizing a little more closely. The network he ran is one of the main reasons the telecom firm paid $85 billion for parent Time Warner. People can be replaced, but this just makes an expensive deal even more so.

Plepler is highly respected in the entertainment business. He spent almost 28 years at HBO and helped usher in a wide range of critically acclaimed smash series including “Sex and the City,” “The Sopranos” and mega-hit “Game of Thrones.” That makes him a magnet for talent. Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman cast their lot with HBO.

By Kevin Kelleher; Fortune ~ Feb 27, 2019

Disney is in talks with AT&T to acquire the 10% stake that the telecom giant owns in the streaming-media company through its WarnerMedia subsidiary, Variety reported Wednesday.

Hulu was formed in 2007 by a group of media giants to compete in the emerging market for streaming video. While Hulu has struggled to compete against Netflix, its recent shift to original programming helped it bring in 8 million new subscribers last year to more than 25 million total subscribers.

Disney currently holds a 30% stake in Hulu and, through its planned purchase of 20th Century Fox, may soon control Fox’s 30% stake in the company. Comcast’s NBCUniversal subsidiary also owns a 30% stake, with AT&T owning the final 10%. Comcast has no interest in parting with its stake in Hulu, Variety said.

By Kelsey Kusterer Ziser; Light Reading ~ Feb 26, 2019

BARCELONA — MWC19 — AT&T and Microsoft Azure are teaming up on a proof of concept to test network edge compute capabilities on AT&T’s 5G network.

Network edge compute (NEC) is the newest addition to AT&T’s edge compute strategy, which also includes AT&T Multi-Access Edge Compute (MEC). NEC will “sit in metro areas and MEC sits at the premise location,” Mo Katibeh, chief marketing officer for AT&T Business, explained at AT&T’s media roundtable today.

“There is a shift as we launch our early instantiations of 5G services — that will begin in the enterprise and expand into the consumer marketplace… moving compute closer to the edge to empower new experiences,” said Thaddeus Arroyo, CEO for AT&T Business. So far, AT&T has deployed mobile 5G in 12 cities, and will announce nine more mobile 5G cities later this year.

By delivering Microsoft Azure cloud services closer to the edge, AT&T aims to reduce latency and improve user experience for enterprise sites. In a statement issued today, the operator said this move will be important in supporting “the low-latency cloud and IoT solutions used by retail, healthcare, public safety, manufacturing and entertainment.”

By Marcy Gordon & Tali Arbel; The Associated Press ~ Feb 26, 2019

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday cleared AT&T’s takeover of Time Warner, rejecting the Trump administration’s claims that the $81 billion deal will harm consumers and reduce competition in the TV industry.

The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington came in the high-stakes competition case, approving one of the biggest media marriages ever. It was already completed last spring, soon after a federal trial judge approved it. AT&T, a wireless carrier and TV and home internet provider, absorbed Time Warner, the owner of CNN, HBO, the Warner Bros. movie studio, “Game of Thrones,” sports programming and other shows.

Many observers had expected the decision favorable to AT&T from the three-judge appeals court panel. The decision was unanimous to uphold the trial judge’s June ruling. Opposing the merger forced the Justice Department to argue against standing legal doctrine that favors mergers among companies that don’t compete directly with each other, what’s known as a vertical merger.

Telecom was among marketers that returned after a prior brand revolt

By Nat Ives; The Wall Street Journal ~ Feb 21, 2019

AT&T Inc. is the latest to join a growing group of marketers halting their advertising on YouTube after it was found that the site served ads near inappropriate content again, putting pressure on the video platform to contain any new brand revolt.

“Until Google can protect our brand from offensive content of any kind, we are removing all advertising from YouTube,” an AT&T spokesman said in a statement on Thursday.

AT&T’s retreat is notable because it was one of the last major marketers to resume advertising on YouTube, part of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, after a number of them pulled out in 2017 over revelations that their ads there were running near offensive videos. AT&T said in January that it had taken time to be confident that similar problems wouldn’t recur.

Marketers including Clorox Co. , Nestlé SA, McDonald’s Corp. and “Fortnite” publisher Epic Games Inc. halted their YouTube advertising on Wednesday following reports that their ads were appearing next to videos of young girls that were marred by inappropriate user comments.

By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~ Feb 20, 2019

AT&T said it expanded its WiFi offloading agreement with Boingo from a handful of locations to more than 80. Those locations include major US airports and other locations where AT&T needs additional network capacity.

The move is noteworthy considering AT&T is also currently pulling a number of other levers to create additional capacity on its network, including deploying more spectrum (700MHz, AWS and WCS), densifying its network (through the installation of small cells and other network equipment) and deploying new, more efficient network technology (5G).

To be clear, AT&T is no stranger to WiFi. The company purchased WiFi provider Wayport way back in 2008, and the provider operates thousands of public WiFi hotspots. Further, AT&T and other operators are deploying LAA technology for smartphone users; the technology essentially expands an LTE signal in licensed spectrum into the unlicensed spectrum bands typically used by WiFi, a move that improves smartphone users’ speeds and operators’ network capacity.

But AT&T’s agreement with Boingo signals that AT&T is looking for additional network capacity in the high-traffic areas where Boingo operates its public WiFi network. Those locations stretch from Chicago O’Hare International airport to Los Angeles International airport.

AT&T’s offload agreement with Boingo works through a technology called Passpoint. First released in 2012 by the WiFi Alliance with support from the Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA), Passpoint was designed to allow cellular network operators to offload their network traffic onto WiFi networks. Boingo is one of the leading supporters of Passpoint technology in the United States, and already has similar WiFi offload agreements with Sprint and cable company Charter (which last year launched its Spectrum Mobile MVNO service, which makes heavy use of WiFi offloading in order to reduce the amount of money Charter must pay to Verizon for wholesale MVNO access to the company’s cellular network).

Cloud Tech ~  Feb 18, 2019

US telecom giant AT&T will be building the next generation of its Network Cloud for 5G with the help of cloud computing firm Mirantis, as part of a three-year deal reportedly to be more than £7.7mn ($10mn).

AT&T’s Network Cloud for 5G will be built via software from an open source project known as “Project Airship”, which was initially formed by the telecom company, along with SK Telecom, the OpenStack Foundation, and Intel in May of 2018.

Amy Wheelus, AT&T’s vice president of cloud and Domain 2.0 Platform integration, said:

“Simply put, Airship lets you build a cloud easier than ever before. Whether you’re a telecom, manufacturer, healthcare provider, or an individual developer, Airship makes it easy to predictably build and manage cloud infrastructure.”

Boris Renski, co-founder and CMO of Mirantis, said that Project Airship is very crucial for AT&T because it is what makes it possible to roll out many data centres and manage them on a single life cycle.

“AT&T had the foresight to start building this in open source about one and a half years ago,” he commented.

By Joan Engebretson; Telecompetitor ~  Feb 12, 2019

AT&TAT&T 5G markets targeted for deployment in 2019 will include Minneapolis and Chicago, the company said today. In addition to previously announced markets, that means the company plans to serve at least 21 markets by year-end.

The company also said some customers have seen speeds as high as 400 Mbps on the company’s 5G network, although a footnote cautions that average numbers are lower.

By Dan Jones; Light Reading ~ Feb 08, 2019

Sprint is suing AT&T and claiming that the labeling of its 4G-Advanced services as “5G E” on many 4G smartphones is “deceptive.”

Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) filed a complaint against AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) Thursday evening with the New York State Southern District court accusing AT&T of “deceptive advertising” over the “5G Evolution” service.

“AT&T has employed numerous deceptive tactics to mislead consumers into believing that it currently offers a coveted and highly anticipated fifth-generation wireless network, known as 5G,” Sprint said in the complaint. “What AT&T touts as 5G, however, is nothing more than an enhanced fourth-generation Long Term Evolution wireless service, known as 4G LTE Advanced, which is offered by all other major wireless carriers.”

By Mitch Wagner; Light Reading ~ Feb 07, 2019

AT&T is building on a foundation of Kubernetes and OpenStack for its ambitious 5G rollout plans. As part of that deployment, it’s signed an “eight-figure,” multi-year deal with Mirantis to provide Kubernetes and OpenStack, the vendor said Thursday.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) had deployed 5G to early adopters in 12 US cities as of December 2018, with seven more coming by June 2019. To support that network, AT&T is deploying OpenStack on Kubernetes in more than 20 regions to date, with more to come, Ryan Van Wyk, AT&T associate VP network cloud software engineering, tells Light Reading. (See AT&T’s 5G Switches On in 12 US Cities, but Only for ‘Early Adopters’.)