AT&T Pleased With How FirstNet Received; Stock Falls After Q1 Disappoints Some
AT&T is pleased with the reception it has gotten on FirstNet, with about 600 public safety agencies in 48 states signing on, Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said Wednesday on a Q1 earnings call. AT&T has spent money and time…
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over the better part of a year “getting to know our potential clients, getting into the industry, making a bigger effort to be a known player,” Stephens said. FirstNet customers can already get “relentless or ruthless pre-emption” and “priority services,” he said. The carrier is installing FirstNet’s 700 MHz Band 14 spectrum on its towers, Stephens said. “Over the next five years, we'll be putting Band 14 on tens of thousands of new and existing sites nationwide,” he said. “We plan to touch about a third of our cellsites this year.” AT&T’s new agreement with Crown Castle “will help us speed this process,” he said. “The agreement simplifies and expands our long-term leasing deal for wireless network infrastructure.” On buying Time Warner, Stephens said: “Both sides are wrapping up their cases and are now preparing for closing arguments on April 30. We'll wait for the court's ruling. Based on the court's determination, we stand ready to close. Funding is in place, even after we settle the special mandatory redemption bonds.” Stephens said 5G networks will be up by the end of the year, though handsets won’t be readily available until 2019. The technology works for fixed wireless, though AT&T doesn’t see much of a market, he said. “We're not as excited about the business case. It's not as compelling yet for us as it may be for some.” Tests of 5G in high-band spectrum are encouraging, he said. AT&T is seeing speeds of 1 Gbps and higher “under line-of-sight conditions to distances up to 900 feet and with extremely low latency rates,” Stevens said: The spectrum “is able to penetrate foliage, glass and even walls better than anticipated with no discernible signal performance impacts due to rain, snow or other weather issues.” Operating revenue fell about 3 percent to $38.04 billion from the year-ago quarter, falling slightly below expectations. Profit rose by about a third to $4.76 billion. AT&T said it added 187,000 linear video subscribers and 312,000 subscribers to its streaming service DirecTV Now. The telco added 49,000 postpaid wireless customers in the U.S. The stock closed down 6 percent Thursday at $33.10.