AT&T has outlined plans to increase its fiber buildout this year as it edges closer to finalizing its $5.75 billion acquisition of Lumen's fiber business.

The carrier, which is aiming to reach 60 million locations across the US with its fiber network by 2030, stated its ambitions to ramp up its fiber buildout.

In the company's earnings call yesterday (January 28), AT&T's CEO John Stankey said that AT&T will increase the rate at which it's constructing its fiber network.

"Our investments in 5G and fiber, both organically and through our acquisitions, have positioned us to accelerate and scale the execution of our strategy in 2026. This includes the pace of our fiber expansion," said Stankey.

"Within our traditional operating region, we continue to expect that our annual pace of fiber construction will ramp from three million new locations in 2025 to a run rate of four million by the end of this year."

Beyond the end of this year, this figure will increase to five million, he added.

Hungry for more fiber

AT&T's fiber network currently extends to 32 million locations as of the end of 2025. The carrier wants to increase this to 40 million by the end of this year. For the full year, AT&T added a million net fiber subscribers for the eighth consecutive year.

"Including GigaPower and the fiber assets that we're acquiring from Lumen, we expect to reach over 40 million customer locations with our fiber services by the end of this year, up from 32 million at the end of 2025," added Stankey, who said the acquisition of Lumen's assets will significantly boost AT&T's fiber expansion plans.

Lumen’s fiber footprint reaches more than four million fiber locations across 11 states.

AT&T said it expects to receive cash from an equity partner that will also co-invest in the acquired Lumen Fiber assets. This would be similar to its JV with Gigapower.

"We're acquiring a fiber network with only 25 percent customer penetration. Well below AT&T Inc.'s fiber penetration of 40 percent," said Pascal Desroches, chief financial officer, AT&T. "We estimate that fewer than 20 percent of these customers also subscribe to our wireless services. This is less than half of the convergence rate we've achieved in our current fiber footprint."

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

EchoStar spectrum put to good use, copper retirement progresses

During the earnings call, AT&T also provided an update on its deployment of the EchoStar spectrum the carrier acquired last year. Although the $23 billion deal hasn't been finalized, like the Lumen deal, Stankey expects the deal to close soon.

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.

"As we complete our 5G network modernization and continue to deploy spectrum from our EchoStar transaction," said Stankey.

The carrier has also made progress with its legacy copper retirement.

In January of last year, AT&T agreed to sell a portfolio of Central Offices in an $850 million sale-leaseback deal involving more than 70 properties across the US to private real estate development firm Reign Capital.

The carrier is pushing to retire its copper network in its “wireless-first areas,” locations where AT&T isn't deploying residential fiber.

"We're also making progress towards our goal of discontinuing legacy services in the large majority of our footprint by 2029. We stopped the sales of all targeted legacy copper-based services in 85 percent of our wire centers," said Stankey.

"The FCC has approved our applications to discontinue copper-based services in more than 30 percent of our wire centers by 2026. We appreciate the FCC and Chairman Carr's continued recognition of the importance of modernizing communications infrastructure and remain committed to supporting our customers every step of the way."

He added that the move to remove copper is driving the transformation of AT&T's cost structure, while it also helps simplify the carrier's business processes.

Ending the year on a high, revenue up 3.6 percent for the full year

AT&T ended the financial year strongly, reporting revenue of $33.5 billion, up 3.6 percent Year-over-Year (YoY).

According to AT&T, this was due to higher mobility, consumer wireline, and Mexico revenues, although it was partially offset by a decline in Business Wireline.

For the full financial year, AT&T posted revenues of $125.6bn, versus $122.3bn in 2024, up 2.7 percent YoY. The company reported net income of $23.4bn for the full year, and operating income of $24.2bn.

The carrier added more than 1.5 million postpaid phone net adds for the year.

"We achieved or surpassed all of our consolidated full-year guidance for 2025," said Stankey. "With new investments in spectrum and fiber, we're set to win more customers in more categories and geographies across the US. Backed by the best assets in the industry, we are accelerating our strategy to deliver improved growth, the best customer experience, and enhanced returns for shareholders over the next three years."