AT&T’s fiber investments are sustaining growth

AT&T CEO John Stankey said the company’s sustained growth is being fueled by investments in 5G and fiber. AT&T had about $22 billion in capital investment in 2024 and plans to see the same in 2025 as it continues to focus on modernizing its wireless network, expanding its fiber footprint, and improving customer experience.

“Over the past several years, we’ve pivoted the AT&T brand by using our deep knowledge and insights to orient our services around putting our customers and what they want first,” said Stankey during AT&T’s fourth quarter earnings call. “This has led to improvements in how customers feel about AT&T as evidenced by our broadband customer satisfaction leadership, our improving wireless Net Promoter Scores, and our overall continued low churn.”

AT&T reported total revenues in the fourth quarter of $32.3 billion, up 0.9% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA of $10.8 billion, up 2.2% year-over-year.

Growing consumer fiber

AT&T had 307,000 consumer fiber net adds in the quarter and ended 2024 with 28.9 million locations passed. Consumer wireline revenues for the quarter were $3.5 billion, up 3.4% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA was $1.2 billion, up 9.8% year-over-year.

Fiber ARPU was $71.71, up 4.7% year-over-year, which CFO Pascal Desroches attributed to pricing actions and a favorable plan mix.

“This solid subscriber growth reflects durable demand for AT&T Fiber as a result of its superior experience as well as the increased pace at which we’ve been expanding customer locations served by our fiber network,” he said. “We also believe we benefited from some pent-up demand following a 1-month work stoppage in the Southeast during the third quarter.”

In contrast, business wireline revenues suffered, with AT&T reporting revenues of $4.5 billion for the quarter, down 10% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA of $1.2 billion, down 22%. The company expects this trend to continue into 2025.

In the fourth quarter, the company added 158,000 AT&T Internet Air subscribers as part of its effort to offset declines in its legacy copper subscriber base.

“We also expect to realize cost savings as we evolve our technology stacks and work to exit our legacy copper network operations across the large majority of our wireline footprint by the end of 2029,” said Stankey.

AT&T also continues to drive mobile service adoption in its fiber base, ending the year with 40% penetration.

“Over the long term, we expect to grow our fiber penetration and our penetration of converged services within our fiber footprint,” said Desroches.

The year ahead

AT&T expects consumer fiber revenue growth in the mid-teens for 2025 and plans to continue leaning heavily on converged services to achieve the growth.

“In 2025, we’ll focus on executing against the priorities we laid out at our Analyst and Investor Day,” said Stankey. “This starts with our customers. We plan to grow 5G and fiber subscribers by offering an elevated customer experience with a compelling opportunity to enjoy both of these connectivity services from one provider.”

For related articles, visit the Broadband Topic Center.

For more information on high-speed transmission systems and suppliers, visit the Lightwave Buyer’s Guide.

To stay abreast of fiber network deployments, subscribe to Lightwave’s Service Providers and Datacom/Data Center newsletters.