AT&T CEO John Stankey (pictured) praised the US Federal Communication Commission’s deregulation initiative that includes rolling back rules for decommissioning legacy copper lines during a Q1 earnings call.

Talking to analysts, the CEO explained AT&T is making great progress for retiring its legacy copper network as it transitions to more investments in 5G and fibre build outs.

“We have an opportunity to move even faster following recent FCC orders. We appreciate chairman [Brendan] Carr and the FCC for their leadership to advance the tech transition and update requirements to better reflect today’s technology and competitive marketplace.”

He characterises the FCC’s new posture under the administration of President Donald Trump as moving from a regulatory headwind to a tailwind.

Stankey said new regulations are enabling “clean sailing” for retiring copper lines in about 25 per cent of its central offices and that AT&T has additional applications pending with the FCC.

He stated deregulation by the FCC is allowing AT&T to focus more on operations instead of legal and regulatory affairs.

“I know there’ll be a couple departments that will be running down the hallways cheering and skipping and saying that they’re not on the critical path anymore, and that’s the way I feel,” he said. “I feel that we are now at a point where our operating groups need to go get the work done and there’s plenty of runway in front of them to do that.”

Tariffs
Stankey said the Trump administration is pursuing “laudable” policies for creating more equitable global trade and for improving domestic manufacturing capabilities, but noted tariffs could increase the cost of smartphones and other devices as well as the cost of network and technical equipment.

“Based on the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs and our visibility into the supply chain, we believe we can manage the anticipated higher costs within the 2025 financial guidance we provided at the beginning of the year,” he said.

CFO Pascal Desroches noted phone upgrades are trending higher ever since the tariffs were announced in early April and that they are accelerating in Q2.

“We think some of this may be a pull forward in anticipation of the tariffs,” he said.

Ericsson deal
AT&T added 181,000 fixed wireless access (FWA) subscribers for its Internet Air service compared to 110,000 a year ago. It ended Q1 with 803,000 FWA customers.

The operator has been slower to embrace FWA services than rivals T-Mobile US and Verizon. Stankey said despite the increase in Q1, AT&T will continue to deploy FWA strategically in areas where it does not yet have fibre.

He explained the locations where the operator is replacing Nokia gear with more modern kit from Ericsson is leading to additional FWA deployments and improvements in spectrum use.

“We’re seeing better performance off of that investment than what we would have anticipated,” he said of the move to Ericsson. “We’ve gotten better yield and traffic management in some ways. We can use some of those efficiencies back against the network in places that maybe we hadn’t anticipated two years ago that have opened up some opportunity.”

Q1 numbers
While rival Verizon lost post-paid subscribers in Q1, AT&T added 324,000, which is down from 349,000 a year ago. Mobility service revenue of $16.7 billion is up 4.1 per cent from a year ago.

Stankey continues to push the operator’s converged play of mobile and fibre services with four out of ten fibre customers now choosing its wireless offerings.

Revenue grew 2 per cent to $30.6 billion due in part to higher mobility and consumer wireline increases. Net income for the quarter came in at $4.7 billion versus $3.8 billion. Despite the economic uncertainty of the proposed tariffs, AT&T plans commence share repurchases in Q2.