AT&T Remains in the Market for Spectrum, CFO Says

AT&T is in the market for more spectrum, Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches told a Deutsche Bank conference Monday, not elaborating on what bands the company may pursue. “Whenever something comes to the market, we’re going to evaluate it because we think this is a core asset that we will need in order to deliver the quality of services that we aspire to deliver,” he said. AT&T led bidding in the 3.45 GHz auction and was second after Verizon in the C-band auction (see 2201260055). Desroches noted AT&T’s recent uptick in post-paid phone adds, outpacing T-Mobile and Verizon. “For several years, we had been under-investing” in wireless and “hadn’t been investing in keeping our customers,” he said: “That changed in 2020, and we really stepped up our investment to a point where we are matching our competitors and the results have been very clear. We have, during that time, led the industry in share. We are growing both top line and bottom line for our largest business, and we expect that to continue.” Desroches said AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile each has “a really good 5G network and they’re going to continue to get better” as more spectrum comes online. AT&T expects to lose some customers following its ongoing 3G sunset (see 2202240002) but not to take a major hit. “We expect to see some 3G subscribers churning off, and so that’s going to impact us some,” he said. On its fiber build, AT&T isn’t “immune” to supply-chain problems, Desroches said. “We have first priority on supplies,” he said: “We are in great position on access to labor relative to others, and what we’re seeing is while there were issues in the summer of last year, those issues have been largely resolved and we exited 2021 with good momentum, and that continues in 2022.” Desroches also said its fixed-wireless offering is well suited to less-densely populated areas, but in other markets it doesn’t make sense because the operating costs are higher. “Why not just simply go and do it right the first time … build fiber and bet on the long term that the trends are in your favor,” he said.