By Karl Bode; Techdirt ~ Oct 14, 2020

Since 2017, AT&T has received not only a $42 billion tax break courtesy of the Trump administration, but billions more in regulatory favors from the Trump FCC, including the repeal of net neutrality, the erosion of much of the FCC’s authority to police natural telecom monopolies, and the elimination of broadband-specific privacy rules. In exchange, AT&T promised thousands of “high paying jobs” and a massive spike in investment. Instead, AT&T fired more than 42,000 employees and trimmed its overall 2020 investment. It’s nice work if you can get it.

And AT&T’s not done yet. AT&T spent roughly $175 billion DirecTV and Time Warner mergers thinking it could buy its way to streaming video domination. But that’s not working out so hot, and AT&T’s now doing everything in power to trim its balance sheet. That includes plans to sell DirecTV for a huge loss, and thousands more layoffs across Time Warner, HBO, and other recently acquired properties:

Via “News Wire Feed”; Light Reading ~ Oct 12, 2020

OAKTON, Va. – What’s the news? The U.S. Army has selected FirstNet to support firefighters, law enforcement and security personnel at 72 Army installations across the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Now, U.S. Army public safety personnel have access to an unmatched level of support as well as mission-focused tools and technology they can’t get anywhere else.

What is FirstNet? FirstNet is the only nationwide, high-speed broadband communications platform dedicated to and purpose-built for America’s first responders and the extended public safety community. It is built with AT&T* in public-private partnership with the First Responder Network Authority – an independent agency within the federal government.

By Phil Harvey; Light Reading ~ Oct 08, 2020

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The Department of Defense today announced it is awarding some $600 million to more than a dozen companies for “5G experimentation” at five military test sites. These awards are the result of several Defense Department requests for proposals that have been going on over the last several years.

“Projects will include piloting 5G-enabled augmented/virtual reality for mission planning and training, testing 5G-enabled Smart Warehouses, and evaluating 5G technologies to enhance distributed command and control,” the DoD said in its press release.

The test sites named by the DoD were Hill Air Force Base, Utah; Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), Washington; Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany, Georgia; Naval Base, San Diego, California; and Nellis Air Force Base, Las Vegas, Nevada.

By Jeff Baumgartner; Light Reading ~ Oct 06, 2020

The next time you peer into a bargain bin, don’t be surprised to find DirecTV in there.

Undaunted by “lowball bids” for its struggling satellite TV unit, AT&T is still pushing ahead with an auction for DirecTV, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

The auction is “shaping up to be a fire sale,” the report added, noting that AT&T last week invited a “handful” of potential suitors – largely made up of private equity firms – into a second round of the auction. Dish Network is reportedly not participating in the auction, despite a recent declaration from Dish founder and chairman that a merger of Dish and DirecTV was “inevitable.”

Keybanc called the company a “value trap”

By Laura McCandless; Schaeffer’s Investment Research ~ Oct 05, 2020

The shares at AT&T Inc (NYSE:T) are down 0.2% at $28.60 at last check, after Keybanc downgraded the stock to “underweight” from “sector weight” while calling it a “value trap.” The firm sees “few positive catalysts” for the company outside of asset sales, and noted that earnings, which are due out Oct. 22, could be a negative catalyst.

On the charts, the 10-day moving average swooped in to catch today’s pullback, the stock down at $28.36 during its session lows. Still on the rise from its brief September respite, the equity is down 26.7% year-to-date.

Coming into today, analysts appear split on AT&T stock, with six out of the 16 in coverage at a “buy” or better rating, eight at a tepid “hold,” and two a “strong sell.” Meanwhile, the 12-month consensus price target of $32.02 is an 11.8% premium to current levels.

By Rob Pegoraro; USA Today ~ Oct 03, 2020

One of America’s largest internet providers is uploading its oldest broadband technology into the sunset.

On Oct. 1, AT&T stopped selling digital-subscriber-line connections, stranding many existing subscribers on those low-speed links and leaving new residents of DSL-only areas without any wired broadband.

“We’re beginning to phase out outdated services like DSL and new orders for the service will no longer be supported after October 1,” a corporate statement sent beforehand read. “Current DSL customers will be able to continue their existing service or where possible upgrade to our 100% fiber network.”

DSL – a broadband connection delivered over old copper telephone lines – is no prize at AT&T. The company doesn’t sell downloads faster than 6 Mbps, less than a fourth of the 25-Mbps minimum definition of the Federal Communications Commission and further cramps their utility with stringent data caps of just 150 gigabytes.

By Leah Willingham; The Associated Press ~ Sep 30, 2020

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The state of Mississippi on Tuesday questioned whether AT&T has adequately followed through on a federally funded initiative to make internet service available to residents as officials asked the U.S. government to perform an audit into the matter.

In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, Mississippi’s three public service commissioners said records recently provided by the telecommunications conglomerate through a subpoena have led “to great concern surrounding the validity of AT&T Mississippi’s claims and the honesty of data submitted by them.”

“Our investigation has revealed a wide-array of inconsistencies in what AT&T advertises as available and what actually exists when consumers try to get internet service,” Northern District Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley said in a statement.

Presley presented a subpoena to AT&T Mississippi on Sept. 11 for records related to work it completed in the state to provide fixed wireless service access through the Connect America Fund, a multiyear federal program designed to expand access to broadband in rural areas of the country that are currently underserved.

By James Comtois; Pensions & Investments ~ Sep 29, 2020

A U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco dismissed a lawsuit against AT&T Inc. accusing the firm of undercalculating early retirement benefits for participants in its defined benefit plan.

On Monday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss Amy Eliason et al. vs. AT&T Inc., arguing that the plaintiffs’ arguments in the complaint were “internally inconsistent and illogical.”

The suit, filed Oct. 1, 2019, alleged that AT&T’s calculations for offering early retirement benefits and joint and survivor annuity benefits resulted “in plan participants receiving less than the actuarial equivalent of their vested accrued benefit as required by ERISA.”

The calculations for these benefits fell below the calculations for a “normal retirement age,” which is age 65 for the AT&T Pension Benefit Plan, the participants wrote. For an employee leaving at the normal retirement age, the benefit is a monthly payment via a single life annuity.

The complaint said AT&T violated ERISA rules because the plan’s early retirement payments weren’t actuarially equivalent to the payments for normal retirement payments and that the formula for calculating early retirement benefits and the joint and survivor annuity were outdated.

By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~ Sep 25, 2020

Verizon and AT&T said they will settle a lawsuit alleging they overcharged state and local government customers in California and Nevada.

Under the terms of the agreement, as reported by the Associated Press, Verizon will pay $68 million and AT&T Mobility $48 million. Sprint and T-Mobile previously agreed to pay a combined $9.6 million.

At issue was a component in the operators’ contracts that said they would charge the lowest available cost and would tailor their rates based on customers’ usage patterns. The California Attorney General’s Office investigated the issue and decided not to sue. But the case was taken up by Jeffrey Smith, whose firm OnTheGo Wireless found that the operators were not providing the lowest possible prices. His firm will get about 40% of the settlement.

Others receiving money from the settlement will include the state of California, the California State University and University of California systems, Los Angeles County, and Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Riverside city and county governments.

By Mike Dano; Light Reading ~  Sep 22, 2020

AT&T is testing the standalone version of 5G now and plans to launch it later this year, according to Igal Elbaz, SVP of wireless and access technology for the operator. Speaking Tuesday at the Big 5G Event hosted by Light Reading, Elbaz said AT&T would work on “scaling” the technology throughout 2021.

AT&T has not previously disclosed its standalone 5G launch timeline. However, the operator’s plans line up almost exactly with those of Verizon, its main rival. Verizon disclosed its standalone 5G launch plans in July; the operator plans to move traffic to its new standalone 5G core sometime in the second half of 2020, and said it will fully commercialize the technology in 2021.

T-Mobile, for its part, commercially launched standalone 5G in August with vendors Cisco and Nokia. Importantly, subsequent tests of T-Mobile’s standalone 5G by Signals Research Group found difficulties obtaining a standalone 5G signal. According to T-Mobile engineers who spoke with SRG’s Mike Thelander, the company is specifically pushing its 5G phones off of SA mode and into “non standalone” (NSA) mode in areas where it already offers speedy and reliable 4G LTE connections. That way, customers’ speeds aren’t slowed by the new technology.

Importantly, Elbaz did not disclose AT&T’s standalone 5G vendors. Verizon also has not disclosed its standalone 5G vendors. However, Dish Network recently said Nokia would supply its forthcoming standalone 5G core.