By Tali Arbel; The Associated Press ~ Jan 29, 2020

As entertainment companies roll out new streaming services, they’re stocking them with the goodies from their own content archives, hoping that the loss of income today will mean more money rolling in from subscribers in the future. In its fourth quarter, AT&T said that bet cost it $1.2 billion in revenue.

AT&T isn’t alone in doing this. Comcast’s NBCUniversal took back “The Office ” from Netflix for Peacock; Disney grabbed its movies for Disney Plus. Disney has said it lost about $150 million in licensing revenue in its 2019 fiscal year from terminating deals with Netflix and other services.

AT&T’s WarnerMedia is launching HBO Max in May and decided to keep “Friends” and “Big Bang Theory” for itself to bolster the service as its traditional TV customers melt away.

By Dan Jones; Light Reading ~ Jan 29, 2020

AT&T executives say that their lowband 850MHz 5G footprint now covers 50 million people in the US, as the operator plans to expand that nationwide to fully 200 million people by mid-year 2020.

“We have the low and midband spectrum to go nationwide,” declared AT&T’s Chief Operating Officer (COO) John Stankey on the operator’s fourth quarter earnings call on Wednesday morning. The company also says it plans to increase the number of its millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G markets. The company currently offers the highband, mmWave 5G service in parts of 35 cities.

Capital expenditure for 2019 was nearly $20 billion, CFO John Stephens noted, with the company predicting that it will spend $20 billion in 2020. However, when the company’s FirstNet reimbursements are included, AT&T spent a total of $23 billion on capex in 2019 and will spend $20 billion in 2020.

AT&T reported that it has completed 75% of its nationwide FirstNet network build, and expects to reach the 80% mark by the middle of 2020. The operator’s FirstNet build is tied into 4G and 5G updates for AT&T, as the operator can update sites with 5G as it rolls out the 4G FirstNet emergency workers’ network.

By “Atiya”; MSPoweruser ~  Jan 26, 2020

One of the key selling points of 5G networks is reduced latency, but what is less known that in many cases this is achieved by moving computing resources closer to the user via so-called Edge computing.

Now Microsoft has revealed that new Network Edge Compute (NEC) technology is being developed in partnership between Microsoft and AT&T.  Using AT&T’s 5G network of edge locations, Microsoft’s Azure Cloud and Edge computing technology services can be delivered closer to customers.

    The NEC technology will be rolled out for a select group of customers in Dallas first. The target is to make the technology more broadly available to select customers in Los Angeles and Atlanta sometime in 2020.

By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~ Jan 21, 2020

Audi confirmed that Verizon has replaced AT&T as the wireless carrier providing connections in its newest cars.

However, the development represents more of a moral victory for Verizon than a market-shifting triumph, given Audi’s relatively paltry share of the US auto market and AT&T’s hefty position in the wider connected car space.

Nonetheless, the news does signal Verizon’s intention to leverage new technologies like eSIM to improve its standing in a market where many believe it has surrendered significant ground to AT&T.

Verizon’s win at Audi was announced in a relatively cryptic press release last week. Verizon’s business unit said it would deliver “advanced connectivity and embedded in-vehicle WiFi” in the 2020 Audi A4 and A5 models in the US.

Via “News Wire Feed”; Light Reading ~ Jan 06, 2020

LOS ANGELES — The Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC (“Ellison Institute”) will open a new “smart” facility that incorporates advanced wireless technologies that will be used to further stimulate a multidisciplinary research ecosystem and could eventually revolutionize the communication between researchers and patients.

The new building will use 5G, multi-access edge computing (MEC), artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technology solutions from AT&T to power its state-of-the-art, smart facility for cancer research, treatment and wellness education.

From Chris Shelton & Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.); The Hill ~ Dec 27, 2019

Something disturbing is happening at AT&T, and it affects all Americans who rely on having access to reliable telecommunications services.

Under pressure from vulture hedge fund manager Paul Singer, the company recently committed to spending 70 percent of its free cash flow – a massive $30 billion – on buying back its own stock to boost share prices.

While this worrying trend is becoming more common across corporate America, AT&T’s example is particularly troubling because of its proud tradition of connecting all Americans by providing universal service. AT&T employs more than 200,000 people in communities all across the country, creating and sustaining family-supporting jobs. Using profits to enrich wealthy shareholders and corporate executives through stock buybacks puts that tradition in jeopardy.

By Aaron Pressman; Fortune ~ Dec 13, 2019

AT&T premiered its super-fast 5G mobile network for regular consumers on Friday, matching rivals T-Mobile, Verizon, and Sprint. It joins the company’s existing faster, business-only service that debuted last year.

Telecom companies are racing to introduce 5G, the speedier successor to 4G LTE, to increase network speeds and allow for a host of new applications. The faster connections will let customers not just download movies in seconds, but also may enable virtual reality, autonomous cars, and other far out technologies.

Here’s how AT&T’s new 5G network works and where it’s available.

By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~ Dec 10, 2019

AT&T is embarking on a major new cost-cutting initiative, and operator executives are looking at everything from shrinking AT&T’s workforce to a “rationalization” of the operator’s wireline footprint.

“Everything is on the table,” AT&T COO John Stankey said Tuesday at the UBS Global TMT Conference in New York. “It’s a target-rich environment.”

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson first disclosed the operator’s new cost-cutting plan in October. He said AT&T hired Bill Morrow as its new “special adviser and managing director of process service and cost optimization,” reporting to Stankey, Stephenson and AT&T’s corporate development and finance committees.

By Jeff Baumgartner; Light Reading ~ Nov 25, 2019

Following an initial trial in ten US markets, AT&T has extended the trial of its new AT&T TV service to four major cities — New York, Miami, Minneapolis and Seattle.

Those new markets, spotted late last week by Multichannel News and now referenced on the AT&T TV website, build on an initial batch of test markets that included Orange County and Riverside, Calif.; West Palm Beach, Fla.; Topeka and Wichita, Kan.; St. Louis and Springfield, Mo.; and in Corpus Christi, El Paso, and Odessa, Texas. The most current list of AT&T TV markets also includes Tacoma, Wash., and Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Introduced in pilot form in August, AT&T TV is an OTT-delivered pay-TV service that runs on a 4K-capable Android TV box and features a cloud DVR and a handful of service tiers.

AT&T TV, which allows for up to three concurrent streams, works with any broadband connection, though AT&T recommends bundling it with its own high-speed service and a service level that provides speeds of at least 8 Mbit/s for “optimal viewing.” AT&T is currently backing the bundling idea with a $100 reward card and $20 per month off the video streaming service for the first year when customers combine AT&T TV with the company’s Internet service.

By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~ Nov 22, 2019

AT&T said it will not charge extra for customers to access the lowband 5G service it’s planning to launch across millions of customers this year.

That’s probably because AT&T’s lowband 5G network isn’t going to be much faster than its existing 4G network, the company says. “Data speeds on AT&T’s 5G network are initially expected to be comparable to 5G Evolution speeds at the time of launch, while speeds on the 5G+ network are faster (but with very limited coverage),” the operator explained in response to questions from Light Reading. (See below to decipher what all this means.)

Further, AT&T also confirmed it will not charge extra for customers to access its highband 5G network. That’s different than what Verizon plans to do.

The issue is critical for AT&T, Verizon and other operators because it will determine exactly how they will actually make money from deploying 5G services.