American wireless carrier AT&T today said it’s committed to spend $21 billion towards Capex (capital spending) in 2014.
AT&T Capex for the first nine months was $17 billion and $5.2 for the third quarter of 2014. AT&T’s main focus area was LTE 4G network expansion to focus on mobile data revenue.
John Stephens, chief financial officer, AT&T, said: “We are still committed to the $21 billion for 2014. We expect that to be further step down to capital spending in the fourth quarter.”
AT&T said its IT broadband network reaches 57 million customer locations. About two thirds of U-verse video footprint has access to 45 megabit per second speed.
The company will be extending U-verse video footprint. AT&T will deploy ultra fast AT&T GigaPower service in 17 markets. AT&T fiber reached more than 600,000 new business customer locations and the target is to achieve one million.
Nearly three quarters of broadband base is on high speed U-verse IP broadband.
In the third quarter, AT&T added more than 500,000 connected cars as the 2015 model start to roll off the assembly lines. Digital Life, the all digital all IP home security and automation platform, has launched in 82 markets and has about a 140,000 subscribers.
AT&T Capex for 2015
Though AT&T did not share specific Capex details for 2015, the wireless carrier indicated that the company has already achieved several key milestones in terms of new infrastructure build outs for its customers in the U.S.
The Capex for 2015 will depend on tax extenders that will be passed in the post-election session of Congress.
AT&T 4G coverage has reached 300 million and fiber covered 600 million business locations till now.
IP broadband capabilities have already reached 57 million customers locations.
Can AT&T control Capex due to SDN?
AT&T recently trialed its software directed networks or network-on-demand in Austin. The company will roll out Network On Demand enabled Ethernet services in Austin by the end of this year.
The company expects its strategy involving SDN will enable it to manage its capital cost better. “We remain positive and optimistic about SDN. We are receiving savings or achieving value from those software directed networks and we hope to increase those amounts overtime,” Stephens added.
AT&T revenue for Q3
AT&T said its Q3 revenue rose 2.5 percent to $33.0 billion, while net income dropped 21 percent to $3.0 billion from $3.8 billion.
AT&T added more than 2 million new wireless and wireline high-speed broadband connections during the third quarter.
AT&T wireless revenues rose 4.9 percent, while wireless data billings grew nearly 24 percent.
The company added nearly 1.2 million new postpaid smartphones and smartphones accounted for 91 percent of postpaid phone sales. More than half of Mobile Share accounts are on data plans of 10 gigabytes or higher.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com