AT&T CEO highlights FirstNet role as ‘foundation’ to carrier’s 5G plans

AT&T’s top priority for 2018 will be completing the merger with Time Warner, but the telecom giant also will be “laser-focused … on building the world’s premier gigabit network,” Stephenson said.

“FirstNet, combined with our fiber and our 5G deployment, is giving us a powerful platform to accelerate our move into a gigabit world,” Stephenson said. “I love our position here. We expect to be the first U.S. company to launch mobile 5G service by the end of this year, and our fixed 5G trials are also going very well.”

AT&T’s 5G efforts were buoyed last week, when the FCC issued an order that allows the carrier to proceed with plans to leverage about 360 MHz of nationwide millimeter-wave spectrum that was included as part of AT&T’s acquisition of FiberTower, Stephenson said. AT&T will deploy mobile 5G in 12 markets, but Stephenson acknowledged that a shortage of 5G handsets will hinder adoption of 5G this year.

However, Stephenson expressed excitement about the long-term implications of 5G, noting that its low-latency characteristics promise to enable numerous important use cases, including autonomous cars and the Internet of Things (IoT).

“It’s all about low latency,” Stephenson said. “People say 5G, and you’re thinking about speed. Speed and throughput are important, but the most important element is having low latency 5G is the first technological innovation that truly gets us to low latency.

“The latency is also critical as you think about super IoT, connected devices, and connecting everything. It’s going to be important for virtual-reality and augmented-reality applications. So, we're taking this use case by use case, and that is what's determining our deployment and our build plans.”

Even with the larger capital expenditures planned for this year, Stephens said that AT&T is projecting that the company will have $21 billion in free cash flow during 2018—a notable increase when compared to the $17.6 billion in free cash flow that AT&T realized last year.