AT&T Inc.

AT&T has extended its contract with the Dallas Cowboys to power AT&T Stadium's mobile network and fan connectivity, keeping the company's name on the stadium. The company will also debut new stadium technology during the 2026 season, including fan experiences, mixed reality, and AI-powered moments. AT&T Stadium will now be equipped with AT&T Turbo, giving every fan, including customers of other carriers, high-priority network access to post and stream during the game, along with Starbase Connection, which transforms fan-submitted photos into custom Cowboys hype videos across stadium boards. Fans can also "Pose with the Pros" using augmented reality and put themselves in mixed reality catch-and-compete moments with the players. AT&T Stadium currently boasts one of the largest networks in the U.S. with more than 261 miles of fiber and close to 1,000 antennas throughout the stadium. AT&T has been a corporate sponsor of the Dallas Cowboys since 1996 and obtained stadium naming rights in 2013.

AT&T has introduced Cricket 5G Home Internet, extending fixed wireless broadband over its existing 5G network for Cricket Wireless customers, and has partnered with LifeMD to give eligible AT&T subscribers free virtual healthcare visits and related telehealth services. The two moves widen AT&T's bundled connectivity offer by adding home broadband and healthcare benefits to its consumer plans, with the LifeMD benefits available to more than 100 million eligible customers. AT&T operates as a large US telecom provider with a market value of about $183.1b, and the company must fund the new perks while still managing heavy 5G and fiber spending and legacy revenue pressure. Analysts' forecasts assume 2.5% annual growth and a 13.4% margin, and the key commercial question is how many Cricket users bundle mobile and home service and what that does to churn. Investors will watch subscriber metrics over the next few quarters, especially Cricket 5G Home Internet adoption, uptake of LifeMD benefits, bundle penetration, fiber plus wireless households, and any disclosure on healthcare-driven engagement or reduced churn tied to AT&T's &More program.

Reaves Long Term Value Wrap Strategy reported a 10.55% gain in the second quarter of 2026, outperforming the MSCI USA Infrastructure Index, which fell 6.31%, while cash distributions rose 6.7% from the second quarter of 2025. In its quarterly investor letter, the strategy singled out T-Mobile US as a detractor, citing renewed concerns about competitive intensity in US wireless. The letter said new pricing plans at Verizon and AT&T narrowed T-Mobile's premium gap at retail, while satellite headline risk reached feverish levels around the much-anticipated SpaceX IPO, and it added that it believes Starlink lacks the assets to be disruptive to wireless in the near term but acknowledged the overhang may persist. Rumors that parent company Deutsche Telekom may be interested in consolidating the T-Mobile minority shareholders also pressured the stock, according to the letter. T-Mobile closed at $176.26 per share on September 16, 2026, down 4.90% over the past month and 27.84% over the past year, with a market capitalization of $184.95 billion and a 52-week range of $165.66 to $242.37. The letter also noted that 85 hedge fund portfolios held T-Mobile at the end of the second quarter, unchanged from the previous quarter.

A steep 5.9% jump in Americans' wireless bills from July to August, the largest single-month increase since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the category nearly two decades ago, helped persuade the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates for the first time in three years. The surge followed T-Mobile's late-July decision to retire over 1,000 older plans, shifting customers to newer offerings at an added cost of as much as $6 per line per month, and AT&T's Aug. 5 rate hikes of $10 to $20 on some older plans plus a $1 increase in a monthly per-line fee. Wall Street analysts estimate the category contributed about 10 basis points of August's 0.3% month-over-month rise in core consumer prices, cementing expectations for the Fed's 25 basis-point hike on Wednesday. Carrier spending on new sites and expanded network capacity topped $30 billion last year, according to the industry trade group CTIA, while taxes, fees, and government surcharges reached a record 27.6% of the average wireless bill, per the Tax Foundation. Bank of America strategists called the August CPI jump in phone service a one-off tied to AT&T's changes, though cheaper options from mobile virtual network operators like Spectrum Mobile and Boost Mobile remain available for consumers willing to shop around.

AT&T Inc. has partnered with LifeMD, Inc. to give its eligible wireless and fiber customers complimentary access to virtual care and pharmacy services. Under the agreement, more than 100 million eligible AT&T customers will receive a LifeMD membership worth $228 annually, with the regular $19 monthly fee waived. The benefit is offered through AT&T's &More program, and customers must enroll to activate the complimentary membership, paying only for the visits, prescriptions, or other services they use. The rollout will initially cover about 29 million AT&T customers in 11 states and is expected to expand nationwide in January 2027. The initiative supports AT&T's efforts to broaden customer benefits and strengthen engagement as demand for telemedicine grows, amid competition from Verizon Communications, Inc. and T-Mobile US, Inc., which are advancing their own AI-powered and 5G healthcare offerings.

Cricket Wireless is launching Cricket 5G Home Internet, a fixed wireless home internet service running on the AT&T network, the company announced on Sept. 16, 2026. The service offers unlimited data for streaming, gaming, browsing and everyday household connectivity, with no annual contracts and all plan taxes included in the monthly price. New customers can bundle Cricket 5G Home Internet with Cricket Wireless starting at $75 per month, while existing Cricket Wireless customers can add home internet for $45 per month and save $15 per month when they bundle. Setup is designed to be self-installed in minutes through the myCricket Internet App, with a Cricket Gateway device required at a purchase price of $49.99 plus tax. Angela Rittgers, President of Cricket Wireless, said customers want fast, reliable internet that is simple to buy, easy to understand and backed by a brand they trust. Availability varies by location, and customers can check whether the service is offered where they live at a participating Cricket Wireless store. Cricket is a subsidiary of AT&T Inc.

AT&T announced a deal with Amazon to become the first telecom company in the U.S. to offer broadband satellite services via Amazon Leo, which uses the tech giant's low Earth orbit satellite network. AT&T, which already offers fiber and 5G, says that with satellite services it is now uniquely positioned to provide reliability by bringing together three critical network layers. The move comes as investors have worried that SpaceX's Starlink internet service might chip away at AT&T's market share, and the company has shown it will not be passive in that area. AT&T stock has declined 12% over the past 12 months while the S&P 500 has risen more than 16%, and it trades at less than nine times trailing earnings with a dividend yield of 4.3%, far above the S&P 500 average of around 1.1%.

A record jump in the price of cellular phone services helped push a key measure of US inflation above forecasts, likely sealing the deal for a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase next week. The consumer price index excluding food and energy climbed 0.3% in August from a month earlier, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data out Friday, while the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey called for a 0.2% increase. The 5.9% surge in wireless telephone services prices alone added about a 10th of a percentage point to the core reading, a gauge that largely reflects prepaid and monthly plans offered by cellular carriers. Economists at Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc and Pantheon Macroeconomics flagged recent plan changes by major carriers like AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile US Inc. as likely culprits, with AT&T saying earlier this year it would implement price increases on certain plans in August and T-Mobile recently retiring some legacy plans. Omair Sharif, president of Inflation Insights LLC, said that while the wireless index added 10bps to the core CPI and core ex-wireless would have been 0.20%, he does not think the Fed will have the luxury of slicing and dicing the data at the meeting next week.

AT&T executives said at a Citi conference that the company's multiyear investment strategy has strengthened its network assets, reduced leverage and positioned its connectivity businesses for further growth. Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches said AT&T has invested more than $150 billion over the past five years and now has what he described as the nation's largest fiber broadband network and its strongest spectrum position to date, crediting the divestitures of DirecTV and Time Warner and a reduced dividend with enabling reinvestment in core operations. Desroches said the company has guided for double-digit earnings-per-share growth this year and plans to return about 100% of free cash flow to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, and he reiterated guidance for 3% to 4% EBITDA growth this year, accelerating to more than 5% by 2028. Melissa Arnoldi, executive vice president and general manager of AT&T Business, said the segment's nearly 2% year-over-year advanced connectivity service-revenue growth in the second quarter marked an inflection point, with strategic wireline and wireless products now accounting for 80% of the AT&T Business portfolio, a mix reached about a year ahead of the timeframe previously discussed with investors. Desroches said AT&T expects by year-end it will no longer be required to offer copper service across more than 85% of its footprint and will be able to discontinue copper service in about 30% of its footprint, with a full exit from copper infrastructure expected by the end of the decade.

AT&T CEO John Stankey said SpaceX's Starlink will not displace established wireless carriers, describing the relationship as a "complementary dynamic" rather than direct competition. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Tech Conference, Stankey said Starlink "doesn't get through buildings very well" and cannot penetrate high-rises or crowded stadiums, leaving AT&T uniquely positioned to meet customer performance expectations. He acknowledged Starlink's strengths in airlines, rural areas, and IoT applications such as connected vehicles with line of sight to the sky, and said AT&T could aggregate traffic and bring customers to satellite operators including Amazon and SpaceX through the wholesale market. Concerns have been rising on Wall Street that Starlink, after acquiring terrestrial spectrum and deploying advanced satellites, could move from rural broadband into a standalone cellular network and direct mobile competitor, pressuring carriers' enterprise, emergency service, rural, and international roaming revenue. KeyBanc analyst Brandon Nispel said investors are giving Starlink Mobile too much credit despite clear scaling challenges, and that no impact on broadband subscriber growth has been seen.

AT&T has elected Fazal F. Merchant to its board of directors, effective September 8. Merchant, who will serve on the Audit Committee and the Corporate Development and Finance Committee, most recently was President and Chief Financial Officer of Wiz, Inc., a cloud and AI security company, and previously held top roles at Tanium Inc., DreamWorks Animation, and DIRECTV. AT&T Chairman and CEO John Stankey said Merchant's expertise in corporate development, finance, and technology will be invaluable as the company evolves and invests for growth. Merchant also serves on the board of Warner Bros. Discovery and has held board positions at several other companies.

AT&T will launch automated quoting for its Wavelength Metro and Wavelength Long-Haul services first on Connectbase's Connected World Platform, with services expected to go live in early Q4 2026. This makes Connectbase the first platform where customers and partners can automatically quote AT&T Wavelength services, which provide dedicated connectivity for high-bandwidth workloads. The move streamlines traditionally manual quoting, allowing eligible Connectbase customers to digitally qualify, price, and quote services in near real time. Connectbase CEO Ben Edmond called it a significant industry moment, and AT&T's Ande Hazard emphasized a faster digital path to their network as demand for high-capacity connectivity grows.

AT&T Chairman and CEO John Stankey will speak at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference tomorrow at 4:05 p.m. ET, where he will update shareholders on the company's multi-year growth strategy. AT&T reiterated its financial outlook and capital allocation plan from its second-quarter 2026 earnings release, including plans to return over $45 billion to shareholders during 2026-2028 through dividends and share repurchases, with approximately $10 billion in buybacks this year. The company expects its net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio to return to its target of around 2.5x within about three years. AT&T also highlighted its record quarter for combined fiber and fixed wireless net additions, with over 1 million Advanced Connectivity subscriber additions, and reaffirmed its expectations for improved growth in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS through 2028.

Verizon Communications has emerged as the clear winner among major telecom stocks in 2026, with shares up 29% year-to-date, while T-Mobile dropped 9%, and AT&T gained 7%. Only Verizon beat the S&P 500's 13% gain, as dividend yield and fiber execution proved more valuable than 5G branding. Verizon's Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.30 beat consensus, and the company raised its full-year guidance to $4.99-$5.04 and expanded buybacks to $4.5 billion. AT&T also beat estimates with EPS of $0.65, accelerated buybacks to $10 billion, and generated $4.67 billion in quarterly free cash flow. T-Mobile reported the highest revenue growth at 7.9% but saw its stock decline amid narrowing subscriber growth and activist pressure on Deutsche Telekom.

AT&T's consolidated operating income rose 8.3% year over year to $7.04 billion in the second quarter, with adjusted EBITDA margin expanding to 39.1% from 38%. The company is benefiting from increased scale in its 5G and fiber operations, as well as cost transformation efforts, including a plan to achieve $4 billion in annual cost savings by 2028. AT&T added 432,000 postpaid phone net additions and saw service revenues grow 5.1% in its Advanced Connectivity business. Meanwhile, competitors show mixed results: Verizon's adjusted EBITDA hit a record $13.7 billion, but net income fell 22.9% due to special charges, while T-Mobile's net income rose modestly to $3.24 billion. AT&T shares have declined 11.2% over the past year, and the company trades at a forward P/E of 10.42, below the industry's 37.57.

Etherstack PLC reported record first-half revenue of $8.5 million, up 40% year-over-year and equal to 84% of its full-year FY25 total, while guiding to full-year revenue of $17.5 million to $18.5 million, implying roughly 70% growth. The company said annual recurring revenue reached $2.7 million in the half and is expected to exceed $5.5 million for FY26 and hit $10 million by 2028. Major contract wins include a $20 million AT&T deal and a $20 million UK government deal, with an order book above $50 million and potential for additional variable components. CEO David Deacon said one-off ramp-up costs of $350,000 to $400,000 tied to UK and US expansion weighed on first-half margins but have largely washed out, setting up significant margin improvement and stronger free cash flow in the second half. The company also said it is undertaking a strategic review to optimize capital structure and shareholder returns, and that exclusivity with Samsung has ended as it broadens relationships with other switch vendors.

EchoStar Corporation reported second-quarter net income of $8.46 billion on total revenues of $3.58 billion, but the profit surge was driven by a $9.73 billion non-cash deconsolidation gain from restructuring. Stripping away accounting adjustments, EchoStar's retail wireless business lost 118,000 net subscribers to close at 7.38 million, while its pay-TV segment lost 241,000 users. AT&T Inc. reported revenues of $31.56 billion and adjusted EPS of $0.65 on July 22, beating Wall Street estimates of $0.59, and generated $4.67 billion in quarterly free cash flow. Hedge fund holders of EchoStar increased from 90 in Q4 to 102 in Q1, while short interest stands at 23.33% of float; AT&T's hedge fund holders fell from 77 to 72, with short interest at just 1.57% of float.

AT&T's chief data and AI officer said OpenAI models already power about 25% of the telecom's total AI usage, with a target of 70% to 80% over time, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has spent the past month leading a consortium championing open-weight AI. AT&T says switching from closed proprietary models to open ones cut costs by 80% to 90% in certain applications, and the company processes an average of 45 billion AI tokens a day through a smart router that picks the cheapest suitable model for each task. AT&T also built its own customized open model called OTel and says its AI initiatives have delivered a fivefold return on investment this year. Nvidia's open-weight cheerleading rests on the Jevons paradox that cheaper AI leads to far more usage, which can eat up just as much computing power as before, though the assumption that usage grows enough to offset efficiency gains remains unproven. AT&T was held by 72 hedge funds as of Q1 2026, down from 77, while Nvidia was held by 275, up from 264.

Hark announced a partnership with AT&T to bring the next generation of AI-native consumer devices to market, with AT&T also investing in Hark and collaborating on device certification and network connectivity. The collaboration will enable Hark's devices to operate untethered from phones or Wi-Fi, leveraging AT&T's reliable connectivity and advanced network capabilities. Hark founder and CEO Brett Adcock said the relationship helps further the company's mission to put personalized AI in people's hands, while AT&T COO Jeff McElfresh said Hark's vision aligns with where consumer technology is headed. Hark is developing its own foundation models and hardware to create a new interface to artificial intelligence.

Wall Street analysts see significant upside in three quantum computing stocks—Rigetti Computing, IonQ, and D-Wave Quantum—despite their speculative nature and recent volatility. Rigetti leads with an implied upside of about 81.4% based on a $28.81 target versus its $18.67 close, supported by a letter of intent for up to $100 million in CHIPS Act funding and a 185.3% year-over-year revenue jump to $5.14 million. IonQ posted record Q2 revenue of $80.05 million, up 286.8% year over year, raised full-year 2026 guidance to $280–$290 million, and carries a 68.19% implied upside from its $46.84 close. D-Wave's first-half bookings surged to $35.5 million from $2.9 million a year earlier, with AT&T integrating its annealing platform to cut processing time from one hour to under 15 seconds, though its implied upside is the smallest at 19.7%.

Analysts have raised their earnings estimates for AT&T over the past 60 days, with fiscal 2026 and 2027 projections up 1.29% to $2.35 and 1.18% to $2.57 respectively. The company added more than 1 million fiber locations in the second quarter, bringing total fiber locations to 38.6 million, and expects to exceed 40 million by end of 2026 and 60 million by 2030. AT&T also added 432,000 postpaid phone customers with churn of just 0.86%, and 279,000 fixed wireless connections. However, the company faces high capital expenditure requirements, with net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA at 2.68X and total debt of $144 billion, and management expects leverage to rise to about 3.2X after the planned EchoStar spectrum acquisition. The stock has lost 14% in the past year, underperforming Verizon's 9.3% gain but outperforming T-Mobile's 29.2% decline, and currently trades at 9.86 forward earnings versus the industry's 33.07.

AT&T closed a $23 billion acquisition of wireless spectrum licenses from EchoStar on July 28, adding roughly 50 MHz of low-band and mid-band spectrum covering more than 400 markets. The deal includes about 30 MHz of nationwide 3.45 GHz mid-band and 20 MHz of nationwide 600 MHz low-band, aimed at boosting 5G capacity and speeds. AT&T also extended its wholesale network partnership with EchoStar, which will continue operating as a hybrid mobile network operator under the Boost Mobile brand. The transaction arrives as AT&T shares have climbed 18% since the start of July, recovering ground lost after SpaceX's public debut in June spooked telecom investors. Second-quarter revenue rose over 2% to $31.6 billion, with diluted EPS of $0.66, and the company reiterated plans to reach more than 40 million fiber locations by the end of 2026.

AT&T has agreed to expand its use of D-Wave Quantum's computing technology across its network operations, moving from proof-of-concept testing to broad operational deployment. The telecom giant plans to apply D-Wave's platform to additional workloads including outage detection, technician routing, and traffic management after early testing cut an optimization workload's processing time from one hour to under 15 seconds. D-Wave ended the second quarter with approximately $546.2 million in cash and marketable securities, while hedge fund ownership rose to 26 funds in the first quarter from 22 in the prior quarter. The expanded deal provides important validation for D-Wave's quantum computing platform, which targets optimization problems such as routing and scheduling.

AT&T has chosen Ericsson to supply 600 MHz dual-band radios that will put newly acquired spectrum from EchoStar to work across its nationwide wireless network. The 600 MHz spectrum travels farther and penetrates buildings better than higher-frequency bands, improving coverage in urban and rural areas as well as indoors. AT&T is more than 60% through its network modernization, and in upgraded areas customers are seeing up to a 2x improvement in average speeds, a 10% reduction in dropped and blocked calls, and up to 70% fewer instances of slower data speeds. The Ericsson radios also enable AT&T to deploy 8RX technology on low bands for the first time, reducing uplink interference by up to 80% and strengthening performance for AI-driven applications. The capital investments are included in AT&T’s second-quarter 2026 financial outlook, with further deployment details to be announced later.

Azio AI Holdings has completed its merger with AZIO AI Corporation and changed its Nasdaq ticker from EVTV to AZIO, marking its transformation into a dedicated AI infrastructure company. The company announced a $27.9 million AI infrastructure and capacity agreement with Power Champion Investment Limited, scalable to as much as $100 million as deployment expands, and has received initial deposits. It also executed a Master Services Agreement with AT&T, committing approximately $2.4 million for high-capacity fiber services to support its planned 500-megawatt Texas AI infrastructure platform. Additionally, AZIO AI entered into a Power Purchase and Hosting agreement with a GPU customer for an initial modular buildout at the Texas site. The company is building an integrated platform spanning AI data centers, enterprise GPU compute, high-performance computing, and digital power solutions, targeting enterprise, institutional, hyperscale, and government-related customers.

AT&T has introduced the amiGO Jr. Tab 2, an upgraded tablet designed for children, now available online and in stores. The device runs on AT&T's 5G network and features an 8.7-inch anti-glare display, a stylus pen, and all-day battery life. Current promotional pricing lowers the cost from $6.67 per month to $4.99 per month over 36 months with bill credits and a qualifying new line and installment plan. Without the installment plan, the tablet retails for $239.99. The amiGO Jr. Tab 2 is part of AT&T's exclusive lineup of kid-focused devices, which also includes the amiGO Jr. Phone and amiGO Jr. Watch 2, and is managed through the AT&T amiGO companion app for parental controls.