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AT&amp;T is among the world’s largest telecommunications companies, offering wireless communications, broadband internet, and entertainment services. The company held a decades-long telephone monopoly in the U.S. before a 1982 antitrust settlement broke it into parts. In 2026, AT&amp;T was the world’s largest telecommunications company by revenue.&nbsp;

Fortune 500

The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.5 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $24 billion.

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The corporations on our annual list of the world's 500 largest companies combined to generate $41.7 trillion in revenue over the past year.

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The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.6 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $22 billion.

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The corporations on our annual list posted aggregate revenues of $41 trillion for the second year in a row.

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The 25th Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list suggests that tech giants’ peers respect them as much as ever.

The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

GLOBAL-500-2023-ATT

The 300 companies on this list are transforming industries from the inside out.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

F500 2023-ATT

AT&amp;T falls 17 spots on this year’s list. The decline largely reflects the company’s 2021 divestiture of its Time Warner and DirectTV media and entertainment businesses; overall, revenue in 2022 was down 10% from the previous year. 
<ul> 
 	<li>AT&amp;T was able to draw more customers to its wireless phone business in 2022 with the help of discounts and trade-ins. In the last three months of 2022, AT&amp;T added more than 650,000 subscribers to one of the most lucrative parts of its business—postpaid phone ervice—outdoing some of its rivals.</li> 
 	<li>The company increased prices on its wireless plans in June 2022 to cope with inflationary pressures.</li> 
</ul>

Just as it dominates our economy, Big Tech now dominates Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation.

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

G500 2022-32-AT&T

Having acquired Time Warner and DirecTV in an attempt to become a major media player, AT&amp;T spent much of 2021 dealing with the fact that the attempt had ultimately failed. It sold off its underperforming media businesses, merging them into a new company, Warner Bros. Discovery, while reaping some $40 billion in cash to help reduce its debt load. Overall, AT&amp;T shed 28,000 employees over the course of 2021, as well as 14.5% of its share price. Despite the setbacks, AT&amp;T’s core businesses fared well: Its fiber internet service ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction in 2021 based on an American Customer Satisfaction Index survey. AT&amp;T added 3.2 million phone subscribers in 2021, a tally that exceeded its net new customers gained in the previous 10 years combined. AT&amp;T is now focused on growing its 5G network and fiber-optic footprint.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

F500 2022 AT&T

Having acquired Time Warner and DirecTV in 2018 in an attempt to become a major media player, AT&amp;T spent much of 2021 dealing with the fact that the attempt ultimately failed. It sold off its underperforming media businesses, merging them into a new company, Warner Bros. Discovery, while reaping some $40 billion in cash to help reduce its debt load. Overall, AT&amp;T shed 28,000 employees over the course of 2021, as well as 14.5% of its share price. Despite the setbacks, AT&amp;T’s core businesses fared well: Its fiber internet service ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction in 2021 based on an American Customer Satisfaction Index survey. AT&amp;T added 3.2 million phone subscribers in 2021, a tally that exceeded its net new customers gained in the previous 10 years combined. AT&amp;T is now focused on growing its 5G network and fiber-optic footprint.

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Total revenue for the world’s biggest companies fell 4.8% to $31.7 trillion this year—the first decline in half a decade.

G500-2021-026-AT&T

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This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-11-ATT

For an astounding 13th straight year, Apple claims the top spot in Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation, based on a survey of almost 3,800 executives, directors, and analysts.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $33.3 trillion in revenues and $2.1 trillion in profits.

G500-2020-022-ATT

Revenue at the newly created communications and entertainment conglomerate increased 6%, but profits dropped 28% amid merger costs, pension charges, and changes in the value of some assets, among other items. CEO Randall Stephenson, in what would turn out to be his last year at the helm, focused on breaking down barriers in the company's WarnerMedia unit and creating a streaming video strategy to attract cord cutters. Now it will be up to new CEO John Stankey, who took over July 1, to keep all the pieces working in harmony—from an expensive new 5G wireless network to newly launched streaming service HBO Max.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-009-ATT

Revenue at the newly created communications and entertainment conglomerate increased 6%, but profits dropped 28% amid merger costs, pension charges, and changes in the value of some assets, among other items. CEO Randall Stephenson, in what would turn out to be his last year at the helm, focused on breaking down barriers in the company's WarnerMedia unit and creating a streaming video strategy to attract cord cutters. Now it will be up to new CEO John Stankey, who takes over on July 1, to keep all the pieces working in harmony—from an expensive new 5G wireless network to the rollout of new streaming service HBO Max.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2019 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.7 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

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Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For

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Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Perks

100% health coverage

Unlimited sick days

Telecommuting

Job sharing

Subsidized childcare

Compressed work weeks

Fully-paid sabbaticals

On-site fitness/subsidized gym

On-site medical care facility

Health insurance for part-timers

Sick days for part-timers

College tuition reimbursement

Student loan debt repayment

Medical facility at all locations

Hiring/staffing (past 12 Months)

Full-time and part-time job growth

# of job applicants

Jobs filled internally

# New graduates hired

Sector

Industry

Current All-Star Rank

Previous All-Star Rank

Industry Rank

Previous Industry Rank

Overall Score

Innovation

People Management

Use of Corporate Assets

Social Responsibility

Quality of Management

Financial Soundness

Long-Term Investment Value

Quality of Products/Services

Global Competitiveness

Strongest Dimension

Years on list

Previous rank

State

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

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Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

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Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

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Total Return

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AT&amp;T is among the world’s largest telecommunications companies, offering wireless communications, broadband internet, and entertainment services. The company held a decades-long telephone monopoly in the U.S. before a 1982 antitrust settlement broke it into parts. In 2023, AT&amp;T was the world’s largest telecommunications company by revenue. In 2022, AT&amp;T finished merging its spinoff WarnerMedia with Discovery, a reorganization that resulted in the creation of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Q2 2026

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Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q4 2024

AT&T (T): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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AT&T

at&t

Good morning, and welcome to AT&T's first quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during the call, please press star then zero, and an operator will assist you offline. Following the presentation, the call will be open for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one, and you will be placed in the question queue. If you are in the question queue and would like to withdraw your question, you can do so by pressing star then two. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to our host, Brett Feldman, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to our first quarter call. I'm Brett Feldman, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations for AT&T. Joining me on the call today are John Stankey, our Chairman and CEO, and Pascal Desroches, our CFO. Before we begin, I need to call your attention to our Safe Harbor statement. It says that some of our comments today may be forward-looking. As such, they're subject to risks and uncertainties described in AT&T's SEC filings. Results may differ materially. Additional information as well as our earnings materials are available on the Investor Relations website. I also want to note that the quiet period for FCC Spectrum Auction 113 is in effect. During this period, applicants are required to avoid discussions of bids, bidding strategy, and post-auction market structure with other auction applicants.

Finally, I want to note that the discussion of our operating results and outlook during this call will be on a continuing operations basis. With that, I'll turn things over to John.

Thanks, Brett, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us today. We executed well in the first quarter, delivering results that were consistent with the outlook we provided while implementing several key strategic initiatives. Last quarter, we told you that we had positioned AT&T for improved growth with our investment-led strategy in fiber and 5G, and there's clear evidence of this in our first quarter results. We reported 584,000 total fiber and fixed wireless advanced internet customer net additions. This is our best ever first quarter result and the sixth consecutive quarter with over 500,000 consumer and business net adds. We also continue to see accelerated pace of our customers purchasing their wireless and internet connectivity together. 42% of our advanced home internet customers also choose AT&T Wireless.

When excluding the transaction with Lumen, this convergence rate approached 45% on an organic basis during the first quarter. This is more than a 3 percentage points increase compared to last year, which is our fastest ever year-over-year convergence growth rate. These results are encouraging but not surprising. It is exactly what customers have told us they want. They're increasingly choosing what we believe to be the best combined fixed and mobile internet service in the market. When our customers choose AT&T for their wireless and internet connectivity, they consistently express stronger brand love, higher net promoter scores, and ultimately stay with us longer. During our Analyst and Investor Day in 2024, we shared a few data points highlighting the relative improvements that we see among our converged customers in key operating metrics such as customer lifetime values and churn.

These benefits remain robust, and we expect that as a greater portion of our customers purchase their wireless and internet connectivity from AT&T, we'll demonstrate improved trends in churn and additional improvement in account growth. During the first quarter, we made further progress at positioning AT&T as the preferred provider for connecting consumers and businesses to the internet. We closed our transaction with Lumen ahead of schedule, adding 1.1 million fiber customers and over 4 million fiber locations. We're pleased with the progress we're making as we integrate these assets in several major metro areas and position the business for faster growth. Early indicators are positive. We now offer fiber services throughout our distribution channels in these areas, which has driven sales activity well above pre-transaction trends.

We're executing the steps to scale engineering, construction, and service delivery in the acquired geographies and expect that as we move into the back half of the year, we'll achieve steady improvement in fiber and wireless customer growth in these areas. When we focus on customers' needs and invest in the experience and products they want, we find success. In the first quarter, we gave customers more reasons to choose AT&T. We expanded the AT&T Guarantee to cover AT&T Guarantee and launched a new flagship app to deliver a simple digital-first experience to customers. We also launched AT&T OneConnect, which enables customers to easily connect all their eligible devices at home and on the go and eliminates the need to buy internet access twice. We refreshed our Unlimited Your Way plans to deliver more value.

All these moves are based on a consistent set of principles that drive our approach to serving customers the way they want to be served, with offers that deliver on simplicity, value and choice, and converged connectivity. After years of industry-leading investments in our fiber and wireless network, we believe that we have now established a structural advantage that others will not catch. We reach more than 90 million customer locations across the country with our advanced internet services over either fiber or 5G. We believe this provides us with more scalable reach and converged connectivity than any of our peers, including a meaningful scale and performance advantage in fiber. This is an advantage we're growing as we ramp our deployment at a faster pace than anyone else.

Today, we reach over 37 million customer locations with fiber, and we're on track to reach 60 million-plus locations by the end of the decade. As I discussed last quarter, when we complete our work at a fiber location, we believe we're able to offer that customer access to the internet on a lower marginal cost structure than any competitor, with superior performance and an industry-leading experience on America's best and fastest home internet. This positions AT&T to compete on performance and value by putting our service at the center of our converged offers and shifting the focus away from expensive device subsidies. You saw us lean into this advantage with the launch of AT&T OneConnect, the industry's first ever single subscription service for fiber and wireless with a flat monthly price.

This is how you should expect us to go to market as we accelerate the expansion of our fiber availability, with offers and marketing strategies that yield attractive returns by driving deeper fiber penetration and growth in converged customer relationships. Running these plays has not only strengthened our performance in the consumer market, but they've begun to demonstrate that the same strategy can strengthen our business enterprise operations. During the first quarter, Advanced Connectivity business service revenues stabilized on a year-over-year basis for the first time ever. This reflects improved growth in fiber and 5G that is now offsetting declines in transitional services such as VPN, as we drive better sales execution across an expanding footprint of business locations that we can reach with fiber and fixed wireless. We're operating from a position of strength as we lean into the strategic foundation we've built.

Our investments have positioned us to accelerate and scale the execution of our strategy in 2026, and through the course of the year, you can expect to see the momentum in our operating trends build. As we continue our journey forward, our strategies and capital allocation will remain focused on meeting the advanced connectivity needs of consumers, businesses, the public sector, and first responders as they adopt and rely on AI-enabled tools and applications. We expect AI to fundamentally transform network requirements beyond download speeds to the ability to support symmetrical capacity, ultra-low latency, and session control across multiple access technologies under sustained load. That's how we're architecting our converged network.

We've committed to greater investment than any of our peers in the U.S. connectivity infrastructure, and by the end of this decade, we expect to operate the most advanced and open communications network in the U.S., built on a foundation of dense metro fiber and deep nationwide spectrum. With the opportunity to reach more end users than our competition, coupled with our historically scaled metro and long-haul core, AT&T is well-positioned to lead our industry in AI-ready connectivity. Investment in high-performing networking is a critical component of a competitive American AI ecosystem. We continue to appreciate the leadership of FCC Chairman Carr and the commission's continued efforts to modernize America's networks. What we see transpiring on the federal policy front are the absolute right moves for the U.S. to sustain leadership in communications infrastructure at this seminal moment in the birth of the AI economy.

I reflect on this moment within the context of AT&T's milestone celebration of the 150th anniversary of the first phone call. For a century and a half, we've adjusted to shifts in markets, technology, and the evolution of public policy. It's a story of many chapters over 150 years shared by proud and dedicated AT&T employees and retirees, consistently rising to our long-standing call of the spirit of service. While all the chapters are important, some turn out to be more consequential than others, and I believe we're entering one of those chapters that will be exactly that. I couldn't be more optimistic, given how this company has positioned itself as we enter this defining moment, that our best days are ahead of us. With that, I'll turn it over to Pascal.

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. At a consolidated level, total revenues were up 2.9% year-over-year in the first quarter, and service revenues were up 1.4%. Our growth is increasingly driven by gains in fiber and fixed wireless internet customers, as well as our success at growing customer accounts that choose AT&T for both internet and wireless connectivity. We continue to expect we will grow consolidated service revenues in the low single-digit range for the full year, driven by growth in wireless service, fiber, and fixed wireless revenues, partially offset by declines in transitional and legacy revenues. Adjusted EBITDA was up 2.3% year-over-year in the first quarter, and adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 30 basis points to 37.4%. As a reminder, our first quarter 2025 results included a benefit to adjusted EBITDA of approximately $100 million related to the resolution of vendor settlements.

During the first quarter, we made good progress executing against our ongoing transformation initiatives as we work towards achieving our target of $4 billion in annual cost savings by the end of 2028. These include workforce optimization and vendor rationalization, efficiency gains from further AI enablement, accelerated digitalization efforts, and reductions to our legacy operations and support costs. We expect improved growth in adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter as comparisons normalize, service revenue growth improves and as we implement further cost actions. We continue to expect consolidated adjusted EBITDA growth in the 3%-4% range for the full year. Free cash flow was $2.5 billion, which is at the high end of the $2 billion-$2.5 billion outlook we provided in January.

Free cash flow declined by roughly $600 million compared to last year, which was driven primarily by higher capital investment of $5.1 billion as we accelerate the pace of our fiber deployment. For the second quarter, we expect free cash flow in the range of $4 billion-$4.5 billion, and we continue to expect $18 billion+ of free cash flows for the full year. Adjusted EPS of $0.57 in the first quarter was up nearly 12%, and we continue to expect full-year adjusted EPS to be in the $2.25-$2.35 range. Under our new segment reporting, over 90% of our consolidated revenue and nearly all of our adjusted EBITDA is generated by our Advanced Connectivity segment.

We believe this new reporting format improves transparency into the growth we are achieving from our investments in fiber and 5G, as well as our progress at powering down our legacy copper network. Focusing first on Advanced Connectivity, service revenues were up 3.6% compared to a year ago. Wireless service revenues grew 1.7% year-over-year, which is consistent with our guidance that growth in the first quarter would be below the run rate we expect for the full year. Our wireless service revenue growth was primarily driven by growth in our customer base, including 294,000 postpaid phone net adds in the first quarter. Postpaid phone ARPU was flat versus a year ago.

This is consistent with the outlook we provided for relatively stable ARPU as we gain customers in under-penetrated categories such as the value segment and grow our base of converged accounts that receive discounts but typically stay with us longer. We expect second quarter year-over-year wireless service revenue growth to improve from growth reported in the first quarter and maintain our full year outlook for growth in the 2%-3% range. This is driven by our outlook for customer gains from our new unlimited and converged subscription plans and our expanding opportunity to sell wireless and home internet services together. It also reflects our recent pricing actions that take effect during the second quarter. Advanced home internet service revenues grew 27.3% year-over-year.

This includes two months of revenues from fiber customers in geographies we acquired from Lumen, which added about 650 basis points to our reported growth rate in the quarter. Similar to wireless, our organic growth in advanced home internet service revenue was primarily driven by growth in our customer base. Advanced home internet net adds were 512,000, which does not include the 1.1 million customers we acquired from Lumen in early February. This was our best ever first quarter and included 273,000 fiber net adds and 239,000 Internet Air net adds. We continue to expect that our fiber reach will grow by about 8 million locations in 2026, including over 4 million locations we acquired from Lumen. As we ramp our fiber reach, we expect to see improved trends in our fiber net adds over the course of the year, while still considering typical seasonality.

We are also seeing strong growth in our business fiber and Advanced Connectivity service revenues, which include business fixed wireless and value-added services. In the quarter, these revenues grew 7.2% year-over-year, which is consistent with the trend last quarter and improved from mid-single digit growth a year ago. As John noted, total Advanced Connectivity business service revenues were essentially flat year-over-year for the first time ever. Based on our improved sales execution and expanding fiber reach, we expect total business service revenues within Advanced Connectivity segment to remain stable in the near term and continue to grow at a low single-digit CAGR through 2028. Advanced Connectivity EBITDA grew 5.6% year-over-year, and we improved EBITDA margin by 30 basis points despite a few notable headwinds.

These include high single-digit growth in low-margin equipment revenues, as well as the inclusion of revenues and geographies acquired from Lumen, which did not make a material contribution to EBITDA in the quarter. In addition, about 40% of the adjusted EBITDA benefit from the vendor settlements we called out in the first quarter of 2025 was incurred in the Advanced Connectivity segment. The improvement in Advanced Connectivity EBITDA margin was driven by service revenue growth, as well as the durable benefit of cost actions that I discussed earlier. Our outlook continues to anticipate an immaterial EBITDA contribution this year from the operating regions acquired from Lumen. This reflects increased spending within these geographies to stand up a business that is positioned for faster growth in fiber and wireless customers as fiber deployment accelerates and as we leverage our existing distribution in these regions.

We're really pleased with how the business is positioned coming out of the first quarter and continue to expect Advanced Connectivity service revenues to grow 5%+ this year, with EBITDA growth of 6%+. Legacy service revenues declined about 25% year-over-year, which is consistent with our outlook for 20%+ decline in 2026. We stopped taking new orders for legacy services last year in most of our wireline footprint, and we now have approval to discontinue legacy services in more than 30% of our wire centers. We're actively working with customers in these areas and helping them upgrade to more advanced services like Internet Air and Phone Advanced. There is a lag between when customers migrate to more advanced services and when we are able to discontinue operations of legacy infrastructure.

This is the primary reason why the decline in legacy EBITDA of about 40% was greater than the decline in revenue, and we expect this dynamic will persist for the next several quarters. We ended the first quarter with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 2.71 times, which is up from 2.53 times at the end of the fourth quarter last year. This was primarily due to the close of the transaction with Lumen. We continue to expect that our net leverage ratio will increase to approximately 3.2 times following our transaction with EchoStar, then decline to approximately three times by the end of 2026 and return to a level consistent with our target in the two and a half times range within approximately three years following the transaction. We ended the first quarter with $12 billion in cash and with $19 billion available to draw under term loans.

We are in a strong liquidity position as we prepare to close our transaction with EchoStar. We also continue to expect that we will close a transaction with an equity investor for the acquired Lumen fiber assets during the second half of the year. We returned $4.3 billion to shareholders in the first quarter through dividends and share repurchases. We continue to expect to repurchase approximately $8 billion of stock this year and to maintain a consistent pace of buybacks through 2028 as we execute against our plans to return $45 billion plus to shareholders over this time period. I'm really proud of the team's ability to successfully balance our investment in fiber and 5G while maintaining consistent return to shareholders.

To wrap up, we continue to execute well, and I'm confident that we're positioned to drive improved growth and consistent capital returns through 2028 as we execute on our strategy. Brett, we're now ready for the Q&A.

Thank you, Pascal. Operator, we are ready to take the first question.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, press star then one. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause to assemble our roster. The first question comes from John Hodulik from UBS. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you, guys. Two, if I could. First on the AT&T OneConnect, can you talk about how widely it'll be rolled out, what kind of support you have from an advertising standpoint, maybe the target market, and then do you think it can drive subs in the near term? Just sort of your view on what the impact that could have. Secondly, the phone churn trend definitely improved up 6 basis points. You had been seeing double-digit increases. Can that kind of improvement in phone churn that we've seen continue despite the increases from the Unlimited Your Way pricing? Thanks.

Good morning, John. Your first question. Look, if we didn't think it was going to have an impact, we wouldn't have started down this path. To get to maybe the root of your question, and I think as we indicated when we rolled it out, this is going to be kind of an iteration rollout. We've established a platform now with OneConnect that allows us to start looking at the segments and the customers differently. I think you can pretty well understand by how the plan's tailored, the kind of customers that it is targeted toward. One of the things that we see is, first of all, the BYOD segment is increasing more broadly. That's one reason why we started with it.

We see customers more willing to hang on to their devices a bit longer, and they're certainly becoming more accustomed to porting them from one carrier to the next.

We want to tailor this plan to make sure that we can receive those customers and then attach them to a network construct that drives churn down. Our belief is that by allowing them to have the simplicity of taking a number of devices and not thinking about how, whether it's the Wi-Fi in the car, the watch, or anything else that they carry around, we think that that starts to provide the network as the basis for driving customer loyalty and relationships, which plays into our strong suit. That's also bolstered by the fact that as you notice, it requires that you have fiber broadband. One of the best things we have to drive customer retention and customer lifetime value is by pairing fiber broadband with wireless. This is a plan to allow that to happen.

It also tailors well into those account sizes that maybe are less than family plan sizes today that can grow over time. I think you should expect that this platform that we've now laid out there can iterate over time. It can evolve, and over the course of this year, you'll see more variants of that plan come out that start to open the aperture more broadly in the market for customers that can qualify under the construct and work into it. It will be one of several offers in our portfolio. We just redid all of our rate plans, if you notice, and this is a particular plan. It's targeted at a particular segment group of customers that we think will help with convergence and drive churn in a better direction over time.

We also have done some rework on our other base plans that will hit other portions of the market. I think these are just natural evolutions that you see, one, given the maturity of the wireless space, and two, given the shifts that are occurring in convergence in the market that allow us to play offense and go out with something that's pretty important. I don't expect right now, sitting here today, I can tell you massive amounts of volume on it in the first couple of weeks. We didn't expect that to be the case, but we do expect the platform to evolve and become an important part of the portfolio as we move forward.

An important part of the portfolio of putting the network first as a basis to attaching the customer and minimizing other constructs of how people have maybe chosen their service provider over time. Related to your second question on churn trend and can it continue, I don't mean to be flip about it, but I think this is over time, the churn dynamic is just math. As we shared and what I tried to articulate in my opening remarks, the best way for us to manage churn is to converge customers. When we get through the repositioning, the shifting that's going on in the industry right now, which is aligning customers to asset bases, I believe you're naturally going to see that churn dynamic improve. We said we're at 45% conversion on kind of our non-Lumen base.

You've been getting those numbers in the last several quarters that we've been sharing with you to show that acceleration. We've given you guidance out for several years where we've gone and done the math on where our fiber footprint is, where our AIA footprint is, the cohorts of customers we're going to target in those particular areas, the ones that we think we can hold over time, and we believe that that's what builds the sustainable franchise and leads us to service revenue growth and leadership in the industry by the time we exit this decade. That's that reordering of convergence along those asset bases that's going to make that happen.

It's going to take a little bit of time for that reordering of customer base to asset base to occur, and I think there's going to be a little bit of the accelerated churn dynamic that you've been seeing the last couple of quarters as that shakes itself out. Just like any math equation, you hit that tipping point where you start to get the benefits of the strategy, and I think you're going to see it ultimately come back into line. When we tell you that we've got fantastic converged lifetime values on, for example, fiber and wireless, then we'll have a dominant part of our portfolio that represents that base, and that's when profitability looks good and the franchise looks like a really strong franchise moving forward.

I think two questions, John. We'll go to the next question, operator.

The next question comes from Michael Rollins with Citi. Please go ahead.

Thanks, and good morning. John, in your opening comments, you described that AT&T will operate the most advanced and open communications network by the end of the decade. Can you unpack how AT&T is defining the term open, including how that impacts your go-to-market and how you look at further partnerships or acquisitions to maximize the TAM and your return on capital? Just secondly, if I could, on the account growth sequentially in consumer mobility, can you share what's working for you and how you're balancing growth in accounts and ARPA, relative to what you were just describing on convergence, versus kind of the core mobility services that you offer? Thanks.

Morning, Michael. When I think about open and what we're driving toward, the thrust I would articulate in that regard are, one, you know what we're doing in our wireless network, and the purpose of us opening aspects of our wireless network is to manage supply chain costs and performance of equipment and the architecture over time. I think we're leading the industry in that regard, and I would expect that shortly as we begin to get to a point where we start to deploy some new spectrum. As we close the EchoStar transaction, you'll see the first instantiation of that. As we move forward and work our process of deploying that spectrum and how we build our network and what we're able to gain as benefit associated with that. That's one aspect of it.

The second aspect is the complete re-engineering of the core of the network that we're doing, that I think sometimes is overlooked a little bit. As I've shared with you before, we have multiple routing infrastructures that support different product lines in this business or different segments. What we use for routing infrastructure and consumer broadband fixed services is different than what we do, for example, for our business enterprise services, which is different than how we ship around our wireless packets and services. We've been investing very aggressively to re-architect that network, flatten it, integrate it so that it's one solid routing network that handles all traffic. In doing that, it does a lot of things.

One is it opens up the opportunity, given the software stack and how we build that, to begin to offer much broader set of APIs out into the public domain that allows people to manage and control their traffic differently. That's going to allow for a tremendous amount of flexibility. If you want to think about it in the context of just as hyperscalers opened up the ability to spin up compute and storage through touching parts of a terminal, there's no reason why our routing infrastructure and what we turn out to customers shouldn't have that same software-based capability that is digitally driven through API structures and allow not only our end users but partner network customers to be able to control aspects of the network moving forward at a much lower internal operating cost that's all software driven.

As that core becomes software driven, it allows us to also use AI as a basis of us administering and managing that network. Instantiating those APIs out to the broader domain of our customer base is what makes the network flexible around it. I would say that those are the two most fundamental aspects of opening the network that allow for us to be effective moving forward. If we have great preferred access technology, meaning we can get bandwidth in more places than anybody else, hence a deeper fiber network or a denser spectrum footprint and better wireless network, then that attracts traffic onto that network.

It's the software control and programming of it and the dense access capillaries that allow people to say, "I can get to more places with better bandwidth and better performance than anybody else, and therefore, that's why I want to be on that network. When it matters, it must be AT&T." That's how you drive returns over the long haul on that investment strategy and that aggregation of capabilities. In terms of account growth and what's working, it should be, I think, fairly apparent from what we shared. What's working is converging customers. When you look at the step-up and the convergence levels that you're getting, and I look at what's happening now, we're getting account growth.

If you looked at average line sizes, for example, on our wireless account base, those accounts that are coming in tend to be below average for what we might have in the embedded base. That's an indicator that we're picking up one and two-line accounts that are new to us. They're new. They're new fiber, they're new wireless. That's really good because ultimately those one and two-line accounts become the three and four-line accounts of the future. As I said earlier during John's question, if we get them anchored in on a fiber base when they come in to the highest brand love of any product in the market, it's the best performing product in the market, they have great positive brand perceptions. They're more likely to stay with us longer. They're more likely to buy more from us in the future.

That's what all the data says on the customer base that's out there. Those new customers, those kind of accounts are the ones that I want to grow. We're getting some lift from Internet Air and the ability to converge both wireless and Internet Air with new customers on a combined basis, and we're being more specific in targeting that in places, for example, where we know we will have fiber in the future so that we can grow that customer base today and ultimately meet them with a very, very good, robust, sustainable offering over time. Those two things, I would say, are probably the biggest impact on the consumer side. I would also tell you, look at the business revenues and look at the business performance and what we've been able to demonstrate to you.

That doesn't happen without some new business account growth that's occurring in order to stabilize the Advanced Connectivity service revenues that you've seen in the quarter. Very proud of what the team's done on that, and obviously optimistic that we can carry that momentum forward and there's more that we can do there as we fine-tune our distribution even further.

Thanks for the questions, Mike. Operator, we'll take the next one.

The next question comes from Sean Diffley with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, team. I was curious how you assess and plan for the perceived threat from satellite, more on the fiber and broadband side, but anything you would add on direct-to-cell? Clearly, you have an AST SpaceMobile partnership. Would you ever consider doing MVNOs with emerging players? And how would you compare and contrast satellite versus the fixed wireless learnings?

Hi, Sean. Sure. It's a long question, but let me start by reiterating what I just said and what our direction is. Our direction is to build the best converged network offering in the United States. That means in order to do that, you have to have great foundational assets that you own and operate to do that. I just shared with you, for example. Why is it important to have a core switching architecture, routing architecture that allows you to see every packet on a network?

Because that's the way that you're able to manage service performance, security, offer the kinds of capabilities across heterogeneous access technologies like wireless, fixed fiber, Wi-Fi, other technologies that allow you to ensure the quality of service of delivering a packet over those heterogeneous architectures. We start from a fantastic place with assets. We have great fiber. We've got a great wireless network. We have a great customer base that we know how to manage their accounts. We know how to manage their billing. We can build trust with them over time on the relationships that we have.

When you start to think about more access technologies becoming available, such as direct-to-cell, which we're going to see an opportunity to close out white spaces, I think we're naturally positioned to add those capabilities on to the great integration we've already done to be a converged access provider. I don't mean to harp on fiber, but once you get that in place with a customer, it's a really good place, not only because it's the lowest marginal cost to carry a bit of any technology that's available out there, but its performance is superior. When you get top-end performance, the best performance, coupled with low marginal cost in the networking business, that's typically a really good combination for the long haul.

We're going to continue to move to integrate partners, and I think when I think about LEO and satellites, you've heard me say it before, I think it's going to be great innovation for consumers. I think it's going to open up applications that none of us expected or knew about, and they're going to be new and different, and they're going to help grow the market in total. I think that when you look at where we're at right now, what's really on the horizon, that maybe a couple years ago, we all would've said, could this really happen, that 12 to maybe 18 to 24 months from now, we will have always-on connectivity in the United States. That's going to be really, really important.

I think our customers are going to want that, and I think it's natural that we work with LEO providers that have the capabilities to solve that problem, to integrate those offerings into our services. We have a great position with those customers, and as you've heard me say, my ideal outcome for the satellite space is that there's more than one satellite constellation up there. I've offered that at some point I'd expect that there's probably at least three serving the United States with capable products and services. We're working with one closely right now to make sure that they get off the ground and they're viable. That's AST SpaceMobile. We've been putting most of our R&D and our work on bringing product out with what they will be matching to the market. I fully expect that SpaceX will ultimately have a robust direct-to-device capability.

I would expect that Amazon Leo will have a robust direct-to-device capability. Who knows, maybe even a fourth shows up. My goal would be that I have a good, strong wholesale relationship. It may not just be with one of them, it may be with more than one of them, and that we architect this in a way that we can continue to manage the traffic on our network and control packets so that we are able to offer that end-to-end integrated service on a heterogeneous network. That's the direction that we're taking. Now, if you're thinking about the threat of a direct-to-device approach, look, there's a lot to be done in getting LEO constellations up and working on direct-to-device. I think it will happen, but I don't think it's going to be a straight line from here to there.

There's all kinds of challenges to work through these things. One is getting satellites up in the air. Two is getting them up and keeping them up. It's getting the right spectrum portfolio in place and working through all the issues of power levels and interference that are driven from it. It's getting the devices tuned so they work properly. Satellite works really good outdoors. It doesn't work very good indoors. It's sometimes lost on people that we have spent literally decades investing in communications infrastructure in this country to raise service levels and performance for end user customers that they've become accustomed to. The landscape is littered with those that have come in and tried to get into the business on the cheap or get into the business without understanding what the level of performance is necessary to have a minimally viable offering.

Customers don't tolerate much interruption anymore. There's decades of that infrastructure that's built. A lot of it is built on the interior buildings. I know in our company, we put about $1.5 billion a year into doing things to make sure hospitals and stadiums and hotels and universities all work really well. You can't just flip a switch and get that done. When I think about an MVNO construct, my approach in terms of how AT&T looks at it is we like to think about MVNOs in a way where it gets to a part of the market that we can't get to. It's an extension in a segment that maybe we're not doing a good job of penetrating, and somebody can do it in a more creative way.

We also think about it in the context of we ensure that our network capabilities are used in a way that's consistent with our long-term goal to be the best converged operator in the U.S., which means that we don't just give traffic away without certain conditions and capabilities and requirements as to how they do business with us and how that capability is instantiated in the markets. It's just not a wide open here, get connection to the network, do what you want with it. Within that context, do I think that I'm looking at satellite LEO right now and saying that that's a place that an MVNO relationship would open up access to customers I don't have today? No, I don't think that's the case. I think I've got a way to bring the right value to customers broadly in what I just articulated.

Look, I don't know that I'm worried about taking on any comer in broadband right now when I've got fiber in a home. As I said, lowest marginal cost, best performance. That usually does pretty well in the market. I like our investment strategy and where we're going to have 60+ million fiber homes by the time we get to 2030 and living off that base and being very successful with it.

All right. Thanks for the question, John.

Operator, we'll go to the next one, please.

The next question comes from David Barden with New Street Research. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thank you so much for taking the question. Really appreciate it. I guess two, if I could. The first would be, John, the EchoStar spectrum acquisition. Could you kind of elaborate how that's going to augment the business and how we generate a return off of that opportunity? Then second, could you update us on the copper retirement program and some of the advancements that you guys have been able to generate at the FCC along that front and what that means from a cost savings and return standpoint? Thank you.

Sure, Dave. Good morning. On the EchoStar side, look, there's two fundamental things that come here. One, the improvement of performance in the network is noticeable, and there's markets where because of the deployment of the spectrum, and I'm not speculating on this, as you know, we have a lease on a portion of the spectrum that we're acquiring that we've shared with you, that we've put a large percentage of that already in service. When we do that, we are already testing network perception in those markets that we felt like it would most help in. We are seeing that perception shift. As a result of that perception shifting, it will help our wireless business just by nature. It will help in terms of customer growth and retention and all those things that drive value in on that.

As you know, when we can buy spectrum, there's economic value created that is capital efficiency and avoids us from having to build growth and capacity in other ways that are more expensive. That has been since the start of time, and that still plays into the factor. Then, as you are seeing, it's also allowed us to expand and increase our AIA or Internet Air penetration and distribution. I'm very happy with where we stand on that right now. As I said earlier, it's a fantastic tool for us to use, one, to get businesses that we haven't had before, and I think it's a very sustainable technology for certain types of businesses that are out there. Again, I'll go back to where you're seeing some improvement in our business performance. AIA is part of that.

It's what's helping us get into customers where maybe we didn't have fiber before, that have a little different broadband portfolio or profile that they need. We can be relevant and we can go into large multi-location bids for customers. Now we can do 100% of the bid in many instances rather than just 65% or 70% of the bid on fixed infrastructure for broadband. That's an important way that it helps us. I think in particular with our strength in the business market segment at AT&T, it's a natural pairing for us to be able to do that. Then in the consumer space pre-seeding in markets where we know we're going to have fiber and being aggressive about our deployment to hold converged customers, that growth is really good growth because the transition is from a fixed broadband connection ultimately to a fiber connection.

That transition is a very profitable connection when you have a converged customer in that situation. In the markets where we know we're not going to be in fiber in the near term, finding the right segments to attack that we can hold for a long haul with fixed wireless and wireless together as a converged customer. That's not every customer in those markets. There are clearly what I would call the scaled broadband profiles that are going to probably use terrestrial connections to ultimately sustain themselves. There's good places we can hunt in those markets that I believe a fixed wireless with wireless combination is a good combination. We've been able to open up and expand that market and grow in that space to drive some return off that spectrum as well. On your second question about copper retirement.

Look, probably five years ago, if I were letting you in on the inside baseball and started to kind of set the direction on where we're going to go on aggressively shutting down legacy infrastructure in this business, I would tell you I probably got some looks across the table from individuals within the business and said, "Never going to happen. We're going to be with it a long time." Big compliment to the team. It's like that's not an acceptable outcome and went to work on what we needed to do to literally get to a path to shut down the infrastructure. To sit here today, five years later, to have what we have in front of the FCC today is absolutely fantastic. It's the right move for this country because the old copper infrastructure does nobody any favors. It sucks a ton of power.

AT&T (T) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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