AT&T CEO John Stankey has said the company’s target to roll out fiber to 60 million premises by 2030 remains achievable, as the carrier passed 10 million fiber customers.

The telco added 288,000 fiber net adds during Q3, while consumer fiber broadband revenues increased by 16.8 percent year over year to $2.2 billion.

AT&T also added 270,000 net Internet Air customers during the latest quarter, taking that service’s total customer base to more than 1.25 million.

For the quarter, the carrier reported revenue of $30.7 billion, an increase of 1.6 percent, which the carrier said was due to higher mobility, consumer wireline, and Mexico revenues.

The telco added 405,000 postpaid phone net adds with postpaid phone churn of 0.92 percent for the quarter.

Fixed on fiber

AT&T has set out a target to reach 60 million premises with its fiber network by 2030, and is currently just past the halfway mark of that goal.

Stankey is bullish that the number can be reached, despite a competitive market.

In response to a question asked by an analyst from Wolfe Research LLC, which estimates that fiber expanders, builders, and developers across the US are aiming to roll out fiber to 110 million locations, in a country with 135 million homes, Stankey said AT&T is building the most effectively.

“While I know there's a lot of announcements out there that maybe add 110 million homes being built, it doesn't mean they're getting built,” said Stankey on the earnings call.

“It doesn't mean that people are effectively getting permits, or they have their supply chain issues worked out. And our job is to remove that friction and be better than everybody else and ensure the 60 million that we're building are in fact the first, and that we're doing it more effectively than anybody else.”

AT&T’s fiber drive has been helped through acquisitions, such as the planned $5.75 billion acquisition of Lumen’s mass-market fiber business. Lumen’s fiber footprint reaches more than 4 million fiber locations across 11 states. The deal is expected to complete next year.

The carrier also faces competition in the market from its rivals Verizon and T-Mobile, which have also made high-profile acquisitions.

Despite this, Stankey is confident that AT&T is best placed to serve the fiber market.

“I would not change position with any company in this industry right now, given the asset base we have and the plays that afford us to run,” he added.

Out with copper... in with the FWA?

Out with the old and in with the new could be applied to the company’s approach to its legacy DSL base.

Amid its major fiber build-out, AT&T plans to retire its copper network by 2029. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that these services will be replaced by fiber, notes Stankey, who suggests Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) will play a key role.

“We don't want that equipment on our network anymore. We don't want it sucking down power. We don't want to be maintaining copper,” he said.

“And so part of what you're seeing is a very deliberate approach. In almost all instances, we can replace DSL with fixed wireless in places where we're not building fiber, or we can actively replace it with fixed wireless if we're in a holding pattern where we know we're not going to be getting our overbuild in place of fiber for another two years or so.”

Last month, AT&T said that its $23 billion acquisition of EchoStar's wireless assets can help the carrier speed up its copper phase-out.

As part of the deal, AT&T will acquire approximately 30 MHz of nationwide 3.45 GHz mid-band spectrum and approximately 20 MHz of nationwide 600 MHz low-band spectrum.

The carrier has wasted no time in deploying this spectrum already, Stankey stated.

“We started deploying the 3.45 GHz spectrum that we have agreed to acquire from EchoStar under a short-term spectrum manager lease. Based on our current rate and pace, we expect these mid-band licenses will be deployed in cell sites covering nearly two-thirds of the US population by mid-November.”

According to Stankey, the spectrum will improve AT&T’s 5G wireless performance in a “cost-efficient manner, while allowing us to grow Internet Air at a faster pace.”

“This should position us to further expand the availability of Internet Air in our sales channels in 2026.”

At present, AT&T is offering its Internet Air service in parts of 47 states, where it's focusing initial deployments where the carrier does not have a fiber footprint.