Deployment of FirstNet, 5G Go 'Hand in Hand,' AT&T CEO Says

AT&T’s build of FirstNet and 5G go “hand in hand,” CEO Randall Stephenson said Tuesday at a JPMorgan financial conference. “We're in deployment mode” on FirstNet, Stephenson said. “When we won the FirstNet bid, we were given a charge by the U.S. government to extend our network, to densify our network, more cellsite coverage throughout rural America to harden our network, meaning making it resilient in storms and so forth, especially in the hurricane corridor, the earthquake corridors,” Stephenson said. “The government is compensating us to go and do this to our network.” Every time AT&T works on a cellsite, it’s doing two things, he said. “First is 5G,” he said. “All of the technical work is being done at the cellsite. So when 5G is out, we literally have a software upgrade to move to true 5G, but then also working our 5G evolution.” With the 20 MHz of 700 MHz FirstNet spectrum, AT&T has 60 MHz of “fallow” spectrum it’s using for 5G, he said. AT&T’s top priority for 2018 is closing on buying Time Warner (see 1805150002), Stephenson said. “We are now at that place where … all of the arguing and explaining is done,” he said. “It's now in the hands of [U.S. District] Judge [Richard] Leon and he has committed to having a ruling … out on June 12.”