Service broadcasts new radio offers with Fujitsu, Mavenir as a part of its transfer towards multi-vendor Open RAN

AT&T has laid out aggressive plans for fiber and 5G midband growth over the subsequent three years, because it leans into house owners economics of a converged community that it needs to develop even additional, and supplied up extra particulars of its transfer towards a multi-vendor Open RAN community.

On the firm’s investor day, executives detailed plans to push from an estimated 270 million POPs coated with midband 5G on the finish of this yr, to greater than 300 million by the tip of 2026. In the meantime, the corporate may even be increasing its fiber footprint to achieve 50 million areas, up from round 29 million on the finish of this yr.

“With this daring technique, we’re coming into a brand new period of sustained development at AT&T,” mentioned CEO John Stankey, who highlighted AT&T’s pursuit of a converged community with house owners economics at scale.

5G, Stankey emphasised in his presentation, has supplied AT&T with “improved and sturdy returns” since mid-2020, together with each a lift in AT&T’s postpaid telephone subscriber base in addition to cellular service revenues. AT&T anticipates that its mobility service revenues will proceed to develop by 2-3% yearly within the subsequent a number of years.

AT&T’s fiber investments, in the meantime, have additionally proved out their return on funding. The corporate has expanded its fiber areas by round 11 million since mid-2020 and greater than doubled its fiber buyer base in that point, to round 9 million. Shopper broadband revenues are anticipated to see development within the mid-teens yearly over the subsequent few years, AT&T mentioned.

Jenifer Robertson, head of the corporate’s mass market enterprise, mentioned that AT&T is already attaining 50% buyer penetration in among the markets the place it has deployed fiber. It expects to have the ability to double its fiber buyer base once more over an expanded fiber footprint, she mentioned.

AT&T additionally supplied some extra insights and companions for its push towards multi-vendor Open RAN, which was introduced a yr in the past, with Ericsson’s know-how underpinning the transition. AT&T expects to have “largely accomplished the modernization” of its 5G community by 2027, and to have 70% of its 5G community visitors traversing open {hardware} by late 2026.

Ericsson nonetheless has a main position in enabling AT&T’s push towards Open RAN: its Clever Automation Platform (EIAP) will handle all of the open radios from varied distributors that come into the AT&T community. However a part of AT&T’s announcement on Tuesday was that it has signed new agreements with Fujitsu and Mavenir to develop radios “particularly for crowded city areas … [which] will assist us enhance our community’s efficiency and protection in busy cities.” These radios will probably be Open RAN C-Band radios and dual-band radios meant for utility and lightweight pole attachment.

The provider additionally mentioned: “We’re persevering with to search for alternatives to carry extra third-party radios into the community when wanted.”

AT&T expects to have capital expenditures in a variety of round $22 billion a yr over the subsequent few years as it really works to attain its 5G and fiber community targets, and Stankey mentioned that by decreasing its debt over the previous couple of years, it is usually able that it intends to return $40 billion in worth to shareholders by dividends and buybacks. The corporate additionally mentioned that it expects to have about $10 billion “monetary flexibility” that it will use for both continued debt reimbursement or buybacks, or strategic acquisitions or investments.

In the meantime, AT&T may even be stepping up its exit from legacy copper infrastructure. AT&T plans to not present copper-based providers within the majority of its territory by 2029, transitioning prospects to its fiber the place obtainable or to its 5G Mounted Wi-fi Entry service. It expects that the majority of its copper prospects by inhabitants will have the ability to be served by its fiber footprint, with solely about 10% of inhabitants (however 50% of geographic space) to be served with a FWA-first transition method for patrons.