AT&T to invest $750 mln in Internet business
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AT&T Inc.  said on Tuesday it will invest more than $750 million in 2007 to accelerate the delivery of global Internet Protocol services and solutions to businesses and multinational companies in key markets worldwide.
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AT&amp;T&#160;reported net income of $3.1 billion for the third quarter of 2007, up from $2.2 billion a year earlier, largely due to its&#160;acquisition of BellSouth.AT&amp;T nearly doubled its revenue from a year ago, going from $15.6 billion to $30.1 billion, but those 2006 numbers don&#39;t factor in the BellSouth acquisition and revenue from Cingular Wireless, which AT&amp;T and BellSouth co-owned. The BellSouth deal closed Dec. 29, 2006.AT&amp;T&#39;s revenue was up 3.2 percent from the combined revenue from AT&amp;T, BellSouth, and Cingular in the third quarter of 2006. Comparable earnings per share were $0.50 compared to $0.56 the third quarter of 2006.AT&amp;T&#39;s adjusted third-quarter earnings, which exclude costs and accounting effects associated with the acquisition, were $4.3 billion, or $0.71 per diluted share, up from $2.4 billion, or $0.63 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2006.AT&amp;T&#39;s third-quarter results were &quot;excellent,&quot; Randall Stephenson, AT&amp;T chairman and CEO, said in a statement. Stephenson cited growth in wireless, broadband, and U-verse TV customers as the reason for a strong quarter.AT&amp;T&#39;s renamed wireless division saw an increase in 2 million customers in the quarter, the company said. The company&#39;s wireless division now has 65.7 million subscribers.AT&amp;T&#39;s merger integration efforts are on schedule, the company said, and cost savings are running ahead of the original estimates. In the first three quarters of 2007, cost savings from the BellSouth merger were about $2.8 billion, and AT&amp;T expects those savings to reach more than $3 billion for the year.Wireless data revenue increased 63.9 percent from last year, driven by increases in consumer and business data usage, including messaging, media bundles, laptop connectivity, and smart phone connectivity, AT&amp;T said.In the broadband space, AT&amp;T&#39;s connections, including DSL (Digital Subscriber Line), AT&amp;T U-verse, and satellite broadband services, increased by 499,000 in the quarter to reach 13.8 million. That&#39;s up 2.2 million, or 18.6 percent, over the past year.
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AT&T Inc., the nation's largest telecommunications company, earned $3.1 billion during the fourth quarter on gains in its wireless business and growth in its broadband Internet sales, the company reported Thursday.
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AT&T is expanding its network infrastructure in the Middle East and building up its local presence there.
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Rogers Communications Inc. said Monday it had reached a tentative deal to buy AT&amp;T Wireless Services Inc.&#39;s 34 percent stake in Rogers Wireless Communications in a deal worth C$1.
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AT&T Inc. said on Monday it will open  two new Internet data centers, one in Shanghai and the other in  Oak Brook, Illinois.
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SBC Communications Inc. has agreed to acquire AT&T Corp. in a $16 billion deal that would create the nation's largest communications company, the companies said early Monday.
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AT&amp;T hasn&#39;t decided whether it will bid for the highly desirable 700MHz band because it doesn&#39;t know if it can build a profitable business, given the open-access rules set for the wireless spectrum by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in July.Calling the rules &quot;interesting,&quot; AT&amp;T&#39;s CEO Randall Stephenson said the company is hard at work crunching numbers and analyzing business scenarios, but hasn&#39;t reached a conclusion yet.&quot;Is there a business model there? I&#39;m not sure if there is or not,&quot; he said Friday at the&#160;Web 2.0 Summit, where he answered questions from conference chair John Battelle and from audience members.The FCC conditions, which include&#160;open-access rules on a third of the spectrum, have been a major source of controversy.The winner of 22MHz of spectrum must allow any wireless devices to connect to the network, permitting wireless telephone customers to use handset devices from other carriers. The winning bidder also can&#39;t block or slow down wireless and Web content from competitors.Some telecom carriers wanted no conditions, while some consumer advocacy groups and Google wanted the FCC to require that winning bidders also resell the spectrum at wholesale rates to competitors, something the FCC didn&#39;t adopt.The FCC is scheduled to auction 62MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band beginning in January. The spectrum is ideal for long-range wireless telephone and broadband services, with signals that travel up to four times farther than in higher spectrum bands.&quot;It&#39;s a huge opportunity. It&#39;s beachfront property. When it comes to buying spectrum, it&#39;s the best you&#39;re going to find for a long time,&quot; Stephenson said.Data consumption on wireless networks is growing fourfold year over year, so a company&#160;such as&#160;AT&amp;T needs to bulk up on spectrum to keep up with the demand, he said.&quot;It&#39;s very obvious we&#39;re going to have to add to our spectrum holdings,&quot; he said.That&#39;s why AT&amp;T earlier this month reached an agreement to&#160;buy 12MHz of high-speed wireless spectrum&#160;in the 700MHz band from Aloha Partners for $2.5 billion.&quot;It&#39;s the first time, I think, that we&#39;ve ever paid $2.5 billion for a company that had no revenue,&quot; Stephenson said.The Aloha spectrum covers 196 million U.S. residents, including 72 of the 100 largest markets in the United States.In other matters, Stephenson said he was very satisfied with the&#160;iPhone deal between his company and Apple.&quot;I&#39;m not sure I could have asked for much more out of it than what we got,&quot; he said.Asked to comment on the decision to use the slower EDGE network for the iPhone, Stephenson said it was a request from Apple CEO Steve Jobs.&quot;He wanted a broad ubiquitous data network. The EDGE network is the only data network that covers the entire United States,&quot; he said. The situation will improve as AT&amp;T upgrades markets to 3G, he said.Stephenson acknowledged that AT&amp;T&#39;s directory assistance business is being challenged by ad-supported options from Internet companies&#160;such as&#160;Google.&quot;We better get our advertising-supported [directory assistance] model up fast,&quot; he said, adding that AT&amp;T is building such a service internally.On a lighter note, he said he&#39;s &quot;envious&quot; of Google and the success it has had with its business model. &quot;It&#39;s a great gig if you can get it,&quot; he said.(Grant Gross in Washington, D.C. contributed with this story.)
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Investor's Business Daily - After spending billions to upgrade their infrastructure for broadband communications, telecom firms are fast filling their wireless and fiber networks with video traffic.
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Beginning next month, AT&T Inc. will raise the price of its most common broadband Internet services in many of the states where it operates, a company spokesman said Monday.
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AOL said it has purchased buy.at, an online affiliate marketing network, as part of a strategy to bolster its Internet advertising operations.
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AT&amp;T is attracted to Voice over IP because Internet telephony is cheaper to offer to businesses and consumers and requires less upfront investment than the old copper wire and traditional switching networks.
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AT&T Inc. earned $3.1 billion in the fourth quarter as its wireless and broadband businesses did well, a trend the nation's largest telecommunications company said would help it keep growing even in a sputtering economy.
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By Alejandro Bodipo-Memba, Detroit Free Press  Feb. 21--AT&T Inc. and General Motors Corp. have signed a five-year $1-billion networking contract to deliver next-generation telecommunications to the Detroit automaker.
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Time Warner Inc's  AOL said on  Tuesday it has purchased buy.at, an online affiliate marketing  network, as part of a strategy to bolster its Internet  advertising operations.
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AT&amp;T Corp. (TN: Quote, Profile, Research) will cut about 7,000 jobs and reduce the value of its assets by $11.4 billion due to its retreat from traditional consumer telephone services, the company said on Thursday.
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Just how much will the iPhone boost AT&T's business?