First, the good news for a struggling economy: AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) says it plans to
invest $17 billion to $18 billion in 2009 and add about 3,000 jobs to support increased customer demand in mobility, broadband and video. The multibillion-dollar investment is in line with its 2007 capital expenditures of $17.7 billion.
The Dallas-based telecom giant noted, however, that it expects to reduce jobs in other areas (about 12,000, primarily in wireline) due to economic pressures and the ongoing shift by residential customers from wired voice services to wireless and broadband.
AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson said in a statement: "Demand for broadband continues to grow, leading to data traffic on our network growing more than 50% year over year on average." Stephenson continued, "We expect demand will only escalate when the larger economy rebounds."
A big focus is 3G service for mobile Internet. The firm says it has services now available in nearly 350 U.S. metropolitan areas, expecting to expand that service to 20 new markets this year. It is also researching in critical areas such as development of 4G technology, which it dubs Long-Term Evolution, or LTE.
Clearwire Corp. has a higher standard in WiMax technology and just
hired a new CEO to drive its wireless growth. But The Deal's Chris Nolter says, while WiMax is more developed than LTE -- giving Clearwire a head start in the marketplace -- Clearwire will require significant capital to complete its network construction. And despite its multibillion-dollar 2008 transaction with Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE:S), Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and others, the capital could be hard to come by. -
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