By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~ Apr 24, 2019

AT&T’s CEO suggested that the telco may someday offer 5G services at different speeds for different price points, as the company currently does with its wired network.

“I would be very surprised if, as we move into wireless, the pricing regime in wireless doesn’t look something like the pricing regime you see in fixed line,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said today during the operator’s quarterly conference call with analysts. “If you can offer a Gig speed, there are some customers that are willing to pay a premium, or 500 Meg to a Gig speed, and so forth. So I expect that to be the case. We’re two or three years away from seeing that right now from a 5G standpoint.”

By Sheila Dang & Akanksha Rana; Reuters ~ Apr 24, 2019

(Reuters) – AT&T Inc’s first-quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street estimates on Wednesday after it lost subscribers in nearly all of its main businesses except wireless, where it paid heavily to gain customers through price promotions.

AT&T lost a net 544,000 premium TV subscribers, a category that includes DirecTV satellite and U-verse television customers. Analysts had expected a loss of 385,000 customers across DirecTV and U-verse, according to research firm FactSet.

Pay-TV providers have struggled to keep customers as viewers move to streaming services like Netflix Inc. AT&T has launched its own streaming service, but that too lost customers in the quarter.

While T stock has many positives, its most critical attribute is that it’s too big and important to fail

From Josh Enomoto; InvestorPlace ~ Apr 18, 2019

Big, boring AT&T (NYSE:T) recently made a splash, selling its minority stake in streaming video site Hulu. AT&T stock gained 0.7% on the news.

Thanks to its Time Warner deal, the telecom giant received a 9.5% stake in Hulu, which it sold earlier this week for $1.43 billion. That values the streaming firm at around $15 billion.

Source: Shutterstock

Of course, those happiest about the sale are Disney (NYSE:DIS) and Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA). They own approximately 60% and 30% of Hulu, respectively.

The divestment has several positive consequences for T stock. For years, critics have complained that the debt of the telecom firm is excessive. The sale was a small, but important, step towards streamlining the massive company and lowering its debt.

By Jeff Baumgartner; Light Reading ~ Apr 15, 2019

AT&T has sold its 9.5% stake in OTT video service provider Hulu for $1.43 billion.

The companies said the transaction values Hulu, which is majority owned by Disney, at $15 billion. They noted that the deal didn’t require governmental or other third-party approvals, so it was simultaneously signed and closed.

The deal gives Disney even more control of Hulu, the company behind an SVoD and live TV streaming service with about 25 million subs combined. Disney, which will get deeper into the direct-to-consumer OTT game when it launches Disney+ on November 12, secured 60% of Hulu following the 21st Century Fox deal, and will now have about 70% of the OTT company.

By Dan Jones; Light Reading ~ Apr 10, 2019

AT&T is rolling out mobile 5G in parts of seven more cities in the US.

The operator says it’s launching its 3GPP-based mobile 5G in parts of Austin, Los Angeles, Nashville, Orlando, San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose with immediate effect. As a result, its 5G service using 39GHz millimeter wave spectrum is now available in parts of 19 cities.

The operator is also planning the launch of a nationwide sub-6GHz 5G network: That will start rolling later this year. AT&T has not yet revealed exactly which frequencies will be used for that deployment.

To that end, AT&T is planning to have “at least” three 5G mobile devices out this year. It has already launched the Netgear Nighthawk 5G hotspot, even if that is not widely available yet.

By Herbert Lash; Reuters ~ Apr 01, 2019

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A winning bidder has been selected for the sale of AT&T’s WarnerMedia unit’s stake in the second-tallest office building in Manhattan, a deal expected to top $2 billion, a source involved in the bidding said on Monday.

The winner, whose identity remains undisclosed, was chosen at the end of last week for WarnerMedia’s 1.5 million square feet (139,355 meters) of space at 30 Hudson Yards, the hub of the trendy development project on Manhattan’s far west side, the source said.

An announcement could come as early this week.

AT&T’s 5G hotspots can now get 1Gbps speeds, and that’s a good sign for the industry as a whole. In an exclusive interview, Igal Elbaz, AT&T’s SVP of wireless technology, explains.

By Sascha Segan; PC Magazine ~  Mar 30, 2019 

AT&T just made a major upgrade to its nascent 5G network—one that suggests fast wireless speeds for many more people are around the corner.

In a brief statement Friday, AT&T said its Netgear Nighthawk 5G mobile hotspot had hit speeds of over 1Gbps on the company’s live 5G NR network, which is available by invitation in 12 cities right now. The technical leap making that possible was an upgrade to allow four-carrier aggregation of 100MHz carriers, Igal Elbaz, AT&T’s SVP of wireless technology, said in an exclusive interview with PCMag.

BusinessWire ~  Mar 29, 2019

DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The board of directors of AT&T Inc.* (NYSE: T) today declared a quarterly dividend of $0.51 a share on the company’s common shares. The dividend is payable on May 1, 2019, to stockholders of record at the close of business on April 10, 2019.

From “Mott Capital Management”; Seeking Alpha ~  Mar 28, 2019

Summary

• An analysis of the technical chart suggests the stock may rise to $34.25.

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By Rodney Ho; The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ~ Mar 27, 2019

And so the cutting begins.

With AT&T finally merging with Time Warner finally in the can, the company is first offering generous voluntary buyouts to older employees at Turner to help trim staff and save money.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which received a memo sent to employees Wednesday, anyone who has worked at Turner for at least 10 years and has hit the magic age of 55 can receive up to four weeks pay for each year of employment, maxing out at two years worth of salary.