Via “News Wire Feed”; Light Reading ~ Mar 06, 2021

WASHINGTON, DC – The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged AT&T with repeatedly violating Regulation FD, and three of its Investor Relations executives with aiding and abetting AT&T’s violations, by selectively disclosing material nonpublic information to research analysts.

According to the SEC’s complaint, AT&T learned in March 2016 that a steeper-than-expected decline in its first quarter smartphone sales would cause AT&T’s revenue to fall short of analysts’ estimates for the quarter. The complaint alleges that to avoid falling short of the consensus revenue estimate for the third consecutive quarter, AT&T Investor Relations executives Christopher Womack, Michael Black, and Kent Evans made private, one-on-one phone calls to analysts at approximately 20 separate firms. On these calls, the AT&T executives allegedly disclosed AT&T’s internal smartphone sales data and the impact of that data on internal revenue metrics, despite the fact that internal documents specifically informed Investor Relations personnel that AT&T’s revenue and sales of smartphones were types of information generally considered “material” to AT&T investors, and therefore prohibited from selective disclosure under Regulation FD. The complaint further alleges that as a result of what they were told on these calls, the analysts substantially reduced their revenue forecasts, leading to the overall consensus revenue estimate falling to just below the level that AT&T ultimately reported to the public on April 26, 2016.

By Emily Brill, Law 360 – Mar 5, 2021

Law360 (March 5, 2021, 9:42 PM EST) — The coronavirus relief package’s marquee benefits provision will funnel $81.2 billion in Treasury dollars toward helping struggling union pension plans, but a part of the bill impacting nonunion pension and 401(k) plans has some retirees up in arms.

The component at issue in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan gives private-sector companies’ pension plans more time to make up investment losses.

By “Reuters Staff”; Reuters ~ Feb 25, 2021

Feb 25 (Reuters) – Private equity firm TPG Capital and AT&T Inc said on Thursday they will form a new company, DIRECTV, to operate U.S. video business unit. (Reporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

By Jeff Baumgartner; Light Reading ~ Feb 23, 2021

AT&T is close to striking a deal to sell a “large minority” stake in its pay-TV business – including DirecTV, U-verse TV and AT&T TV – to private equity firm TPG, CNBC reports.

CNBC says a deal, which would value AT&T’s video business at roughly $15 billion, could be announced as early as this week.

TPG has already been rumored to be in exclusive talks to acquire a minority stake in DirecTV, AT&T’s struggling satellite TV business.

Via News Wire Feed; Light Reading ~ Feb 16, 2021

DALLAS – What are we doing? We’re giving businesses large and small the chance to try the nation’s largest 4G LTE network1, risk free. Qualifying businesses can get a Moxee TM Mobile Hotspot and up to 50GB of data for a trial period of up to 30 days, to help them decide to subscribe to AT&T mobility services.2

With the hotspot, you can connect your Wi-Fi enabled devices to keep your business running – whether you’re on-site or on the go.

At the end of the 30 days, or once you use the 50GB (whichever comes first), we’ll check in to either sign you up, or say “thanks for trying it out.” You can keep the hotspot or return it to an AT&T store.

With so many choices and decisions to make, AT&T Business is with you every step of the way in uncovering the right technologies to keep you connected, and help your business thrive.

From American Indian College Fund; Char-Koosta News ~ Feb 04, 2021

Tribal colleges and universities on Indian Reservations receive supplies

DENVER, CO — The American Indian College Fund and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium are receiving $1.5M in pandemic-related supplies including hand sanitizer, disinfectant and gloves. Both organizations are working with AT&T to distribute the supplies to more than 20 tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) across the country. This comes as Native communities face soaring COVID-19 infection rates, rolling lockdowns are enacted on Indian reservations, and tribal community members are having difficulties accessing supplies. Native American communities suffer COVID-19 infection rates greater than 3.5 times that of the white population, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

The American Indian College Fund is the largest provider of scholarships to Native American students in the nation, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium is the national advocacy organization supporting tribal college and universities. The two organizations worked with AT&T to ship the supplies to the following TCUs, including:

Via “News Wire Feed”; Light Reading ~ Feb 02, 2021

OAKTON, Va. – What’s the news? AT&T* has delivered AT&T 5G capabilities across the entirety of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Puget Sound Health Care System in Seattle in a public-private partnership with the VA. VA expects to pilot a variety of healthcare use cases with our 5G and multi-access edge computing (MEC ) technologies to explore how they can improve healthcare delivery to the approximately 9 million Veterans who use VA healthcare services each year.

Why is this important? This is an industry-first deployment of 5G and MEC capabilities across the entirety of a VA health care and training facility. Multi-access edge computing is essentially a computer and cellular network architecture that brings real-time, high-bandwidth, low-latency access to latency dependent mobile applications. 5G and MEC “holds the potential to be transformational by enabling new healthcare delivery and business models” according to Gartner1. Among the healthcare-focused use cases that could be piloted are:

Mobile-to-mobile connectivity across/between medical devices, allowing the tracking of people and assets within the facility.

Improved medical procedures and training through the use of emerging technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).

Remote and virtual pain management using AR and VR.

Remote and/or near real-time surgical assistance via the ability to layer multiple surgical techniques using AR.

By Jason Aycock; Seeking Alpha ~ Jan 31, 2021s

• AT&T (NYSE:T) had years of effort built up teaming up with Nokia (NYSE:NOK) on a project to sell private wireless networks to the nation’s utilities – an increasingly important use case for industrial applications.

• But the telecom giant says those ambitions were dashed by changes at the FCC, as LightReading’s Mike Dano explains.

• In 2019, AT&T counted contracts with 15 different utility companies across 18 states, and another 14 pending, to use spectrum in AT&T’s WCS C and D Blocks for private networking applications such as smart grids.

• But “other spectrum became available to utilities, causing them to alter or reconsider their interest in leasing AT&T’s WCS spectrum” due to FCC action, AT&T explained in a letter to the commission uncovered by Allnet Insights & Analytics.

By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~ Jan 29, 2021

For almost four years, AT&T and Nokia worked diligently to sell private wireless LTE services to utility operators around the country.

And for a while, the effort looked like it would be a smashing success. In 2019, AT&T reported it counted contracts with 15 different utility companies across 18 states in the US, with another 14 utilities on the hook. The utilities planned to lease spectrum in AT&T’s WCS C and D Block holdings to build private wireless networks using Nokia’s LTE equipment for a range of services like meter monitoring and disaster recovery.

By Iain Morris; Light Reading ~ Jan 28, 2021

Last year’s jobs statistics have started to roll in, and they are predictably grim.

After AT&T slashed headcount by more than 13,000 in the first nine months of 2020, the final tally was always going to be ugly. Results published this week show another 3,870 jobs disappeared in the fourth quarter. More than 50,000 have gone in just five years – about 18% of AT&T’s headcount at the end of 2015.

Verizon has pruned with similar zeal. Only 1,000 jobs were cut from the total in the final three months of 2020, and just 2,800 over the entire year. But 45,500 have vanished since 2015, an alarming 26% of that year’s count. The combined losses are roughly equal to the entire workforce at Vodafone, a UK-based operator with international operations.