AT&T Determined to Close Time Warner Buy This Year, CEO Says
AT&T remains focused on completing its buy of Time Warner and will fight to defend the deal in court against DOJ's lawsuit, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said Wednesday during a call on Q4 results. He called closing the transaction AT&T’s…
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top priority in 2018, saying it was surprised by the government’s actions. “It is a classic vertical merger between two companies that don’t even compete with one another,” he said, and it’s the type of deal the government “consistently approved with appropriate conditions.” Last year was a good for the telco-service provider with policy overall that will expand U.S. investment, jobs and wages, Stephenson said. “All of this began early in 2017 as regulations across all industries were being rationalized,” he said. “The FCC returned us to a light-touch regulation of the internet. … This was a step in the right direction.” Stability will come only if Congress approves net neutrality law, he said. “We need clarity,” he said. “We need a long-term predictability of the rules on the internet and on customer privacy.” AT&T recently backed an “Internet Bill of Rights” (see 1801240047). Even bigger was tax change, the chief said: “Our public policymakers pulled the greatest lever they had available to them to stimulate" growth. AT&T’s FirstNet contract will be the foundation for the carrier’s 5G network, Stephenson said. “We’re well underway with the build, including new sites in unserved or underserved rural parts.” AT&T’s acquisition of millimeter wave licenses from FiberTower is significant, he said, and “going to give us a quantum leap in both capacity and performance.” The FCC order giving AT&T control of most of the licenses (see 1801290055) gives the carrier an average of nearly 360 MHz of high-frequency spectrum nationwide, he said. “It’s critical for our 5G strategy and we’ll be putting this spectrum to work later this year.” AT&T reported some 2.8 million U.S. wireless net adds, driven by connected devices. AT&T had 329,000 postpaid phone net adds and added nearly 700,000 branded smartphones. It had 161,000 U.S. total video net adds.