By Aaron Pressman; Fortune ~ Nov 22, 2019

AT&T announced plans on Friday for a broader rollout of super-fast 5G mobile phone service for consumers, reaching parts of 15 cities within the next few months. AT&T was the fourth of the four major carriers to reveal its initial plans for 5G phone service, allowing customers to weigh the various options for getting connectivity that could be 10 to 50 times faster than the average 4G download speed.

AT&T said its new 5G service would start in parts of Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Providence, Rochester, and San Diego. By February, the service would also encompass parts of Boston, Las Vegas, Milwaukee, New York City, San Francisco, Birmingham, Ala., Bridgeport, Conn., Buffalo, N.Y., Louisville, Ky., and San Jose. The limited rollout is similar to Sprint and Verizon, while T-Mobile has said it’s looking at a near-nationwide 5G offering starting on Dec. 6.

The base will use tech to “maintain its globally competitive edge in defending our freedoms,” AT&T says.

By Corinne Reichert; CNET ~  Nov 21, 2019

AT&T says it’ll switch on its 5G network at Tyndall Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle in early 2020. By combining the new network with connected devices, augmented reality, virtual reality, cloud and its dedicated first responder network FirstNet, AT&T is creating a “smart base of the future” for the US Air Force, the company said on Thursday.

Tyndall, which suffered damage during 2018’s Hurricane Michael, is being completely rebuilt and modernized by AT&T tech. During the hurricane, AT&T said, Tyndall used FirstNet to reestablish comms within a few hours.

“The Air Force and AT&T share a vision for the smart base of the future … to help our military maintain its globally competitive edge in defending our freedoms,” said Xavier Williams, president of AT&T’s Global Public Sector.

5G, the next-generation mobile technology, provides faster speeds, more capacity and lower latency — the time it takes a stream or download to begin once you’ve requested it.

An influential Wall Street analyst has some doubts about the company’s recently released guidance.

By Lou Whiteman; The Motley Fool ~ Nov 19, 2019

What Happened

Shares of AT&T (NYSE:T) fell 5% on Tuesday after influential research analyst Craig Moffett downgraded the stock to a sell, warning that the telecom giant’s businesses are all under pressure and predicting that AT&T will struggle to hit the guidance it recently released.

So what

AT&T is a company in transition, having paid $67 billion to acquire DirecTV in 2015 and $85 billion to buy Time Warner last year in an attempt to transform itself into an entertainment giant. The acquisitions have piled debt onto the balance sheet and attracted the scrutiny of activists.

Via News Wire Feed; Light Reading ~ Nov 14, 2019

MUNICH — AT&T and Nokia are delivering a new Munich-based innovation studio to support the growing global adoption of current and next-generation Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.

From connected cars and factories to video analytics and future 5G-enabled applications, the dedicated space will demonstrate both current capabilities and the future of global connected solutions.

The studio will allow companies to see first-hand how IoT solutions can solve global business problems. For example, they can experience how technology can improve asset management and tracking, as well as offer predictive maintenance for equipment and connected fleets. Customers can also learn about the latest in connected car innovation, alongside an interactive experience using Augmented Reality to bring some of Munich’s most famous landmarks to life.

By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~ Nov 13, 2019

T-Mobile last week announced plans to launch lowband 5G on Dec. 6 with two phones. This week, AT&T reiterated that it too plans to launch lowband 5G with at least one device sometime before the end of this year.

The positioning indicates that the two operators are roughly neck and neck in their race to build out 5G. But their approaches are much different. For example, T-Mobile held a major “uncarrier” media event last week in part to announce its 5G launch plans, while AT&T’s Igal Elbaz reiterated the operator’s own launch plans in offhand comments this week at an investor event in Barcelona, Spain.

And that isn’t the only difference between the operators’ efforts:

AT&T stock is having its best year since 2006 and the party isn’t over yet

From Luke Lango; InvestorPlace ~  Nov 12, 2019

Earlier this year, I gave four big reasons why investors should buy AT&T (NYSE:T) stock for 2019 and 2020. Those four reasons were very simple. The wireless competition headwind was moderating, the 5G boom was coming, HBO Max would spark a rebound in the video business and the valuation on AT&T stock was simply too cheap to ignore.

Fast forward to present day. We are now less than two months from the end of 2019, and AT&T stock is up an impressive 40% year-to-date. Even if shares went sideways over the next two months, 2019 would mark the best annual performance for the stock since 2006.

The big question now — can AT&T stock stay in rally mode?

AT&T adds 15GB “bonus” to older plans but raises price $10.

By Jon Brodkin; Ars Technica ~  Nov 08, 2019

AT&T is adding $10 to the monthly bills of customers with certain grandfathered mobile-data plans and not letting them switch back to their older packages. AT&T is pitching the change as a “bonus” because it’s also adding 15GB to the customers’ monthly data allotments.

“Enjoy more data,” AT&T says in a support document. “Starting with your October 2019 bill, you’ll get an additional 15GB of data on your Mobile Share plan. This bonus data comes with a $10 price increase.”

Paying an extra $10 for another 15GB isn’t a bad deal as far as US wireless prices go, but that’s only true if you actually need the extra data. The plans getting the data-and-price increases already had between 20GB and 60GB of data per month at prices that ranged from $100 to $225. Now those plans have 35GB to 75GB and cost $110 to $235. (The data allotments can be shared among multiple people on the same family plan.)

By Chris Morris; Fortune ~ Nov 01, 2019

AT&T is doubling down on its robocall protections for customers.

The carrier announced Friday it would add three new features to its automatic fraud call blocking service at no additional cost to customers.

Starting immediately, customers can arrange for calls from anyone not in their address book or contact list to immediately be sent to voicemail. And calls from unknown callers can be identified as a “spam risk” and automatically blocked.

In addition, iPhone users will be able to block calls using Siri shortcuts, such as “Hey Siri, block the last call.”

“Our customers deserve more ways to combat nuisance calls and we are excited to provide more free tools to help them do just that,” said Kevin Petersen, senior vice president of postpaid wireless products at AT&T in a statement.

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.