WEBVTT - AT&T CEO John T Stankey Talks AI

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<v Speaker 1>Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

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<v Speaker 2>Let's just shift our attention to telecoms.

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<v Speaker 1>Now.

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<v Speaker 2>There's the news out of billionaires Avier Neil. He's exploring

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<v Speaker 2>a bid to buy out other shareholders the Latin American

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<v Speaker 2>telecom provider Millicom, which will value that carried about four

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<v Speaker 2>point one billion dollars. Neil's holding company that's at this

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<v Speaker 2>invested estimate says it is exploring financing options to support

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<v Speaker 2>an offer price of about twenty four dollars per Minicon

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<v Speaker 2>common share, though it cannot guarantee and offer will materialize,

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<v Speaker 2>and there's already the biggest shareholder in the company with

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<v Speaker 2>the twenty nine per cent stake. We want to dive deeper, though,

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<v Speaker 2>into this industry group right now. We want to talk

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<v Speaker 2>about it from the US perspective and globally. One of

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<v Speaker 2>the biggest telecom providers here is AT and T. And

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<v Speaker 2>I'm pleased to say that the CEO, John Sankey, joins

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<v Speaker 2>us now fresh off comments from a company's multi year

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<v Speaker 2>growth strategy over at the JP Morgan Technology Conference, And

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<v Speaker 2>I just want to weave in the era that we're

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<v Speaker 2>sitting in at the moment, the fact that we just

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<v Speaker 2>hear from Johnson Wang and Ai, and we're talking about

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<v Speaker 2>open versus clothes. We're talking about infrastructure needs a quip

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<v Speaker 2>and needs to talk about energy efficiency. And in many

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<v Speaker 2>ways you're having a very similar conversation over in the

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<v Speaker 2>world of telecoms at the moment innovation, the needs for

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<v Speaker 2>open and in particularly Gone and Ericsson fourteen billion dollars

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<v Speaker 2>spend revamp wireless network focus. You want to have an

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<v Speaker 2>open platform?

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<v Speaker 1>Why we do?

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<v Speaker 3>And we're pretty excited about what I heard before because

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<v Speaker 3>the more workloads that Jensen produces that you have to

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<v Speaker 3>go somewhere and we like carrying those around on our networks,

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<v Speaker 3>whether they're wireless or fixed. So it's an exciting time

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<v Speaker 3>to be in telecom. And our point of view is

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<v Speaker 3>if you're going to scale at the level we're talking about,

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<v Speaker 3>you need to have more cost efficiency and you need

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<v Speaker 3>to be able to scale more dramatically, and so open

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<v Speaker 3>separating hardware and software and our infrastructure starts to give

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<v Speaker 3>us that cost curve and that flexibility, and that's going

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<v Speaker 3>to be critical to have the agility to move forward

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<v Speaker 3>in this.

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<v Speaker 2>Environment agile at a time why wireless demand is plateauing,

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<v Speaker 2>maybe slowing no, not at all.

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<v Speaker 3>Wireless demands up thirty percent a year and it's not

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<v Speaker 3>slowing down. And I think as you start to look

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<v Speaker 3>at where we are with what's occurring from a usage perspective,

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<v Speaker 3>you start getting workloads that come out of AI, it's

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<v Speaker 3>going to continue to fuel that. And really it's one

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<v Speaker 3>of the key things that this country needs to deal

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<v Speaker 3>with is if you're going to continue to see usage

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<v Speaker 3>go up thirty thirty five percent a year, you've got

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<v Speaker 3>to build bigger highways to take that. And that all

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<v Speaker 3>comes on the foundation of spectrum, and we need to

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<v Speaker 3>make sure we got policy right in this country to

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<v Speaker 3>get more spectrum out there to deal with the rising workloads. So, yeah,

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<v Speaker 3>a handset demand might be coming down a little bit.

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<v Speaker 3>We're not seeing quite the growth we saw ten years ago,

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<v Speaker 3>but the utility of connected devices, how people are using

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<v Speaker 3>those handsets, and the demand for the traffic that they

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<v Speaker 3>generate isn't coming down at all.

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<v Speaker 4>John good Morning is ed in San Francisco. Look, my

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<v Speaker 4>head is often outside the bounds of our atmosphere and

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<v Speaker 4>up in space, and I was really interested to see

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<v Speaker 4>your deal with AST. You know, Starlink is doing a

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<v Speaker 4>lot with the other carriers. I just wanted in the

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<v Speaker 4>first sense, if you have a really clear view of

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<v Speaker 4>what the addressable market is for Constellation direct to sell.

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<v Speaker 1>I think we have a view of it.

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<v Speaker 4>ED.

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<v Speaker 3>I don't know whether or not we're going to all

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<v Speaker 3>understand exactly how consumers are going to use this, but

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<v Speaker 3>we've done a lot of work to not only understand

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<v Speaker 3>who's the segment of the population that truly needs always

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<v Speaker 3>on connectivity. I mean, that's really what we want to

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<v Speaker 3>do here. Most people wake up in the morning they say,

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<v Speaker 3>I can't afford to be off the internet. And some

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<v Speaker 3>folks have a lifestyle that take them to places where

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<v Speaker 3>they do, unfortunately get to the bottom of the Grand

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<v Speaker 3>Canyon on a rafting trip and can't continue to post

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<v Speaker 3>to their website about what's going on with their family

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<v Speaker 3>and it's really important to them, or they have an

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<v Speaker 3>important business call. There's others who do it incidentally. Maybe

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<v Speaker 3>they're on a road trip and they're out on an

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<v Speaker 3>interstate somewhere and they drive off the network and they

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<v Speaker 3>need it for a day. So we know those kind

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<v Speaker 3>of behaviors in our customer base because we run the

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<v Speaker 3>networks and we know what our customers are doing. We

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<v Speaker 3>think there's a good application for this, just like when

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<v Speaker 3>somebody leaves the United States and needs the roam on

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<v Speaker 3>a network outside the US to make sure that they're

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<v Speaker 3>they're connected when they're.

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<v Speaker 1>In Europe or Asia or wherever they're going.

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<v Speaker 3>So this is just the next step and simplifying connectivity

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<v Speaker 3>and ensuring customers be connected wherever they.

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<v Speaker 4>Go, John YaST and not starling in SpaceX well.

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<v Speaker 3>As you pointed out at it's a nascent area where

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<v Speaker 3>the technology is starting to develop. We think AST has

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<v Speaker 3>done a remarkable job of getting the technology right where

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<v Speaker 3>it's consumer centric. The customer doesn't have to change any

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<v Speaker 3>equipment and doesn't have to change anything they're doing with

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<v Speaker 3>their handset, and they can still avail themselves of the service.

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<v Speaker 3>That's really important in our view. And so what we

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<v Speaker 3>have going on in other parts of the industry is

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<v Speaker 3>we're kind of taking satellites and services that we're fit

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<v Speaker 3>for fixed wireless connections or fixed satellite connections and now

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<v Speaker 3>trying to make the mobile and it's a little.

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<v Speaker 1>More clunky as a result of that.

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<v Speaker 3>And so I think what we're looking at is cost performance,

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<v Speaker 3>how do we make it easy for the consumer and

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<v Speaker 3>I don't think there's going to be one winner. I

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<v Speaker 3>think there's going to be multiple opportunities going forward or providers,

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<v Speaker 3>and we think that's good for us, especially when we

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<v Speaker 3>have partnerships that ultimately we can have the right kind

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<v Speaker 3>of relationships to satisfy the needs of our customers.

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<v Speaker 2>Satisfying the needs of a customer, you articulated very well

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<v Speaker 2>why we as customers are going to need yet more

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<v Speaker 2>and more data, more and more wareless. But the actual

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<v Speaker 2>business is selling wyness has kind of been slowing for

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<v Speaker 2>you and competitors. How do you stand apart, how do

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<v Speaker 2>you make sure people reach the AT and T versus

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<v Speaker 2>Verizon T Mobile when you have had some hits perhaps

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<v Speaker 2>too worries about data security for example.

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<v Speaker 3>First of all, you know, despite the fact that customer

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<v Speaker 3>net ads are slowing, utility and use is continuing to grow.

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<v Speaker 1>And so we had a very good year.

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<v Speaker 3>When you think about what happened from a service revenue

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<v Speaker 3>growth perspective, we led the industry. We're still seeing healthy growth.

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<v Speaker 3>It's a bit higher than what the GDP levels are

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<v Speaker 3>and an infrastructure business like ours, that's kind of what

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<v Speaker 3>you want to see happen. And so it's not a

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<v Speaker 3>bad thing, but in terms of what we do going

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<v Speaker 3>forward on this is It's what I just talked about.

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<v Speaker 3>Customers want to be connected everywhere. Customers want to make

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<v Speaker 3>a simple decision of how they get on the internet.

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<v Speaker 3>They don't wake up in the morning relishing having two

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<v Speaker 3>or three relationships to be able to use my phone

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<v Speaker 3>when I'm on the go, or my phone at home

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<v Speaker 3>or my computer at home. They want to call somebody

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<v Speaker 3>say just get me on the internet. And I think

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<v Speaker 3>our position at AT and T is about doing that

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<v Speaker 3>better than anybody else. And our focus is on making

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<v Speaker 3>sure we take our great fiber assets, we take our

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<v Speaker 3>wireless business, bring it together, start to do things like

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<v Speaker 3>add value to a customer to ensure that their privacy

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<v Speaker 3>is protected, their traffic is secure. They only have to

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<v Speaker 3>call one place to get it done at a great value.

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<v Speaker 3>They can use it in the Grand Canyon, they can

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<v Speaker 3>use it at home. That's the race were on right now,

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<v Speaker 3>and that's what we're focused on doing tod AT and T.

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<v Speaker 2>John, thank you. I wish we had more time. Thank

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<v Speaker 2>you so much for talking us through the focus and

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<v Speaker 2>of course some of those commitments to the financial goals

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<v Speaker 2>that were reinstated yesterday and restated and at the JP

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<v Speaker 2>Morgan event we thank him so much. John Thanky of

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<v Speaker 2>eighty