AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And I’d like to get through a couple of the larger states to see how successful we are before I start to frame and characterize that for you moving forward. Is that healthy enough?

Michael Rollins: Yes, that’s very helpful. And just maybe one other sub-question that, does fixed wireless play a different role than you previously described in your broadband aspirations?

John Stankey: No. I mean, as I previously described it as — and I gave a characterization earlier is that, look, there will be some parts of the United States that are best served by fixed wireless, at least, I believe that they will be best served by fixed wireless. As I move around different states, I think there are some states who believe that’s the case. And there are some states that are looking at how do you get as many people on the Internet as quickly as possible at the highest economic return. And those states that have that point of view, I think, we will probably support fixed wireless awards. Now, I will tell you, not all 50 states necessarily have that viewpoint. In some cases, I think there are policymakers in certain states who are maybe biased more terrestrial infrastructure.

And I don’t know how that plays out. My guess is, they run out of money before they serve everybody based on the amount of money that’s available in subsidy and what’s out there, but time will tell whether they stick to their guns on that or maybe slightly revised their approach as they start to see bids coming in. But I do expect there’ll be places where economically fixed wireless is the optimum solution to get good solid Internet out as quickly as possible that will sustain things for a period of time. And I expect there’ll be parts of our footprint. World be a very good catch product for us, where we don’t maybe see either subsidy coming in or the business case to invest in fiber for those customers for the next couple of decades. And then thirdly, as I’ve said before, there are segments in the business market today that have very different use characteristics than a consumer household that tends to be pretty bandwidth-intensive, doing a lot of entertainment streaming, growing consumption at 30% and 40% a year.

You don’t see those kind of dynamics showing up in some of the small business and lower end of the midsize market and fixed wireless is a solution for those customers that can use that kind of service, especially when they need to marry it with mobile services to complement their business is a very attractive place for us to be thinking about using the product and the infrastructure, and I like the yields on that.

Michael Rollins: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question will come from the line of David Barden of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

David Barden: Thanks for taking the question. I guess it has to be me that’s going to ask this question. John, and I’m sure you have a bunch of talking points in front of you. So, the lead situation. So in the last 50 or 70 years, has there been a federal state or municipal organization that’s ever flagged this issue to AT&T that put it on the radar screen in a way that maybe we all should have known about? And then second, has there ever been a material amount of claims that somehow people were harmed by the existence of this lead in your network? And then people are throwing numbers around. When you talk to the credit rating agencies, what do they think? How do you talk about this issue to them and what it means to your leverage situation? And then finally, how does this issue affect how you think about capital allocation of the dividend? Thanks