- Stankey defended AT&T's move to open RAN and said it would be multi-vendor over time
- Ma Bell is looking to a converged future
- It's Internet Air FWA is growing, albeit not as fast as T-Mobile and Verizon
AT&T's CEO John Stankey delivered a robust defense of AT&T’s ongoing move to open radio access network (RAN) infrastructure during the Q&A that ended the operator’s second quarter earnings call on Wednesday.
“To play in the next generation of wireless deployment, that's a deliberate aspect of our strategy as to why we're doing, or the way we're doing [it]," Stankey said. "Why we're thinking about O-RAN is busting open the smaller cell structure to get more innovation, more providers and how to then layer that on top of the fact that we're putting denser fiber reaches into our network.... That allows for a more efficient growth of capacity as we move forward.”
Although AT&T is currently focused on Ericsson as its open RAN supplier, Stankey cited a “multi-vendor strategy” going forward although he didn’t name any vendors on the call.
In addition, the possibility of a new leader in the White House or a shift in government policy towards spectrum would improve the picture for the United States when it comes to innovation and services, he said. “Especially when this country is behind China," he noted.
In the U.S., there will be “a race to convergence” over multiple years — as customers look to one provider to supply mobile, fiber and more, he said, adding, “We’re just keeping this in the back of our mind over the next decade."
Internet Air grows and more numbers
The operator added 419,000 postpaid monthly contract wireless subscribers in Q2. “You can look at the macro numbers, and you'll notice one of the things that's occurring is we're growing a little bit faster in the business segment on wireless than we are in the consumer segment,” the CEO said during the call.
“In the second half of the year, we expect higher levels of activity [in the consumer segment], as new devices become available,” he added. Stankey doesn’t expect forthcoming artificial intelligence-enabled smartphones will be “world-changing” but said that the carrier is ready for anything coming.
CFO Pascal Desroches noted on the call that AT&T’s Internet Air fixed wireless access service had added 159,000 users during the quarter. With much of this coming down to Ma Bell converting customers off copper.
"The Internet Air product continues to scale, albeit at a slower pace than Verizon and T-Mobile fixed wireless solutions. Our experts project that the market size is likely in the low single-digit millions for AT&T’s offering, negatively impacted by the delays in getting this service to market,” Jamie Lumley, analyst at Third Bridge noted.
AT&T reported Q2 revenue of $29.8 billion with a net income of $3.9 billion. Shares were up 5.38% at $19.9 after the earnings call.