Low-Band Spectrum Has Proven Critical During Pandemic, AT&T CFO Says

AT&T’s key focuses are 5G, fiber and high-speed connectivity, Chief Financial Officer John Stephens said Friday at a Morgan Stanley virtual investor conference. While AT&T has deployed high-band spectrum in almost 40 cities, low band has proven more important during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. There has been “a dramatic shift in volumes into the suburban and into the rural areas, where our extensive … low-band spectrum holdings and our extensive towers and fiber footprint have really served us well and served our customers well,” he said. Millimeter wave is “only part of an integrated solution,” he said. COVID “provided a reassurance of the quality of the resilient products of broadband, wireless connectivity,” he said. But AT&T is still recovering. “It's challenged the media business, the closing of theaters,” he said: “The challenge with getting production completed and having to postpone or delay production.” AT&T is betting big on fiber, and not just broadband service to the home, he said. “I think about building a fiber plan that allows me to have backhaul for wireless, particularly when you think about some of the residential areas where traffic has grown substantially because you are working from home,” he said.