AT&T Pledges $250 Billion for New Infrastructure Improvements.
The company says it’ll invest the money over five years to expand its networks, including a bigger push into rural satellite service.
“AT&T said it will expand its rural coverage through its AST SpaceMobile partnership,” which isn’t exactly expanding the 5G network.
AT&T is buying spectrum from Echostar for $23B. DISH was supposed to build the 4th cellco but Charlie crashed and burned. Now Charlie is selling off DISH/Echostar spectrum to pay down debt.
But AT&T will rely on satellite connectivity for rural according to the news.
“The company also said in its spending announcement that it’ll continue building out FirstNet, an emergency network built specifically for first responders that includes built-in security controls.”
AT&T already spends $6B on legacy and $20-22B on 5G and IP networks annually. So that is half the $250B total. Add in the $23B for spectrum and the $5.75B for Lumen’s FTTH business and we are more than halfway there. This announcement sounds great but when you boil it down, they expanded territory with the Lumen purchase and they still have a lot of copper to replace with fiber.
They are third in cellular behind VZW and T-Mo. They need to do some work shoring up the 5G network to compete.
In comparison of a different 5 year span, “AT&T invested more than $145 billion in its wireless and wireline networks between 2019 and 2023 as telecom operators raced to expand high-speed connectivity.” [source]
With $136B in debt how does $125B more make sense over 5 years?
Also, “AT&T has secured the largest share of BEAD funding for fiber build‑outs, winning about $1.06 billion, according to New Street Research.” It will need to match 30% – or $300M not B.
AT&T operating income fell 7.25% to $6.1B in Q3 2025 despite fiber broadband revenue growing 16.8%. AT&T’s Advanced Connectivity segment produces 95% of EBITDA and grows at 6% annually versus 3% consolidated.
The FCC is about to rule that the ILECs can decommission copper faster. That certainly helps the POTS Replacement group – Granite, Ooma, Telcloud. It accelerates the amount of fiber AT&T has to deploy at a time when they are shutting off high-high margin customers on the copper network.
Side note: cellular, fiber and advanced services like VoIP are non-union. Traditional telco like copper was CWA union work. The faster they get rid of copper, the faster they get rid of the union.
Some AT&T stockholders are peeved because AT&T lost $47B on media assets sold in 2022. The Ellison family is now acquiring those assets for $111B. “AT&T acquired the bundle for $108.7 billion in 2018 and exited for roughly $43 billion in 2022, booking a $47 billion loss in the process. The Ellison family is now paying $111 billion for those same assets.”
AT&T (the LD carrier) bought cable companies in the late 1990s from TCI and MediaOne – names AT&T Broadband – before selling it to Comcast in 2002.