“We’re hoping for a more moderate approach to regulation under a Trump administration,” says AT&T Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson. Speaking at the UBS Global Media and Communications Conference on Tuesday, the telecom executive say he’s most excited about the president-elect’s position on corporate tax restructuring. “If we achieve meaningful corporate tax reform it will change tax investment, which is the driver of productivity.”
“Economists are underestimating the effect of pulling back on regulation,” says Stephenson. He notes AT&T is developing business plans for 2017 that take into account higher economic growth than expected, which is “encouraging.”
Its DirecTV acquisition is more like a “completion of a strategy than a pivot,” he explains, noting that in 2012, AT&T described itself as a connectivity business, embarking on an aggressive investment plan centered on mobility. “We’ve built an LTE network. We now pass 400 million people in North America. We are uniquely suited for video [delivery] and paired with 40MHz of fallow spectrum.”
That excludes its FirstNet bid, which would provide another 20 MHz of spectrum if AT&T wins that bid. To AT&T’s knowledge, there were three bidders to build the nationwide network for first responders, according to Stephenson. One company dropped out, another was told it was not within the competitive range and is now suing the government and the third is AT&T. “We were told we are in the competitive range. It’s a big opportunity for us and we intend to go very hard to try and win it,” he said.
Circling back to the DirecTV deal, AT&T predicts big demand for content delivered to a mobile device, including DVRs. The carrier delivered 40 million streams of content from DirecTV to devices in October. Demand has been “dramatic” for its introductory offer of $35 for 100 channels, for what the telecom executive describes as a “cable-like service delivered over-the-top.”
December 7, 2016
Menu
Menu
