Page 37 - SAMENA Trends - October-December 2024

REGIONAL & MEMBERS UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

AT&T CEO Foresees Ubiquitous Fiber Future

AT&T CEO John Stankey told investors he
expects the US operator to reach more
than 50 million fiber locations by the
end of 2029, part of his belief it would be
nearly ubiquitous by the end of the decade.
Stankey and other AT&T executives
provided insight into the operator’s fiber
plans during an investor event. About 45
million of those fiber passings will come
from “organic deployments”, with more
than 5 million through its Gigapower
joint venture with private equity company
BlackRock Alternatives along with
agreements with commercial open-access
providers. He said AT&T is on track to pass
29 million fiber locations by year-end. It
began deployments in the mid-1980s. 45 years may seem like a long time, it’s to the markets that we believe is taking
Stankey noted the drive for more fiber is about half the time it took copper to move shape as we move through the balance of
based on several factors, including a 70 per to the same level of distribution and pick this decade.” The operator plans to expand
cent rise in mobile bandwidth since 2020. up a similar number of customers. Fiber its 5G network to cover more than 300
“If we look at data consumption over the is also a key element for retiring all the million PoPs by the end of 2025, while most
next five years, we expect that’s going to operator’s copper assets. “RF technology of the rest of the nation will be covered by
increase about 80 per cent.” Technologies is great. We’ve done remarkable things satellite. It plans to return more than $40
including AI, 4K streaming, user generated with it. Satellites are going to play a role. million to shareholders over the next three
content and AR/VR are also driving the But at the end of the day, fiber has better years through share repurchases and
need for more bandwidth and fiber. “The performance upstream, downstream, stock dividends. Yearly capital investment
economics and the business model of latency, resiliency, scalability and marginal is set to remain in the range of $22 billion
getting fiber all the way to the end user cost, and it will win.” He said over the next over the same timeframe. It plans to keep
started to make sense, and we began the decade, networks will not be fixed or mobile about $10 billion on hand for incremental
final stages of this race,” he explained. “Our but rather fiber with “different access financial flexibility for potential strategic
belief is that by about 2030, we’ll be done technologies hanging on the outside of growth investments, debt repayment or
with that. It’ll have been about 45 years it”. “That’s the fundamental direction of additional dividends or share repurchases.
from the start to the finish.” He noted while converging our networks and our approach

AT&T to Buy $1 billion in Spectrum from UScellular

whose subscribers will benefit from the
sale of our spectrum licenses. As with
the other mobile network operators, we
are confident that AT&T can put it to
productive use in communities throughout
the U.S. Furthermore, the terms of the
agreement will ensure that there will
be continued, uninterrupted service for
UScellular customers in the interim.”
UScellular will sell a chunk of its remaining the significant value that will be realized UScellular said that the transactions it has
spectrum assets to AT&T for a little in the various transactions recently announced thus far with AT&T, Verizon
more than $1 billion in cash, including announced,” said UScellular President and and two other operators, account for
1,250 million MHz-POPs of 3.45 GHz CEO Laurent Therivel. “This agreement about 55% of its spectrum holdings on
and 331 million MHz-POPs of 700 MHz adds a fourth mobile network operator, in a per megahertz-POP basis—excluding
B/C block licenses. “We are pleased with addition to T-Mobile, to the list of those its millimeter-wave spectrum. That, plus

37 OCT-DEC 2024