Whether it's fixed, wireless or fiber-based, AT&T CEO John Stankey said his management team is squarely focused on broadband as one of its three core areas.
Speaking at the UBS Global TMT Conference Tuesday morning, Stankey said the other two core areas of focus for AT&T's management team included building a software-based platform that allows AT&T to have direct relationships with its customers, and providing world class content through services such as HBO Max.
Stankey said AT&T's market focus "is about being one of the greatest broadband providers that is out there in the United States."
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In its third quarter results released in October, AT&T added 357,000 AT&T Fiber subscribers and had 158,000 net broadband adds. AT&T is on track to grow its fiber base by 25% en route to adding 1 million new subscribers this year. AT&T Fiber currently has 4.7 million fiber subscribers and a 33% penetration of fiber homes passed. AT&T Fiber passes 14 million homes.
While those broadband adds were notable for AT&T, they trailed broadband subscriber additions, and the total number of subscribers, in Comcast's and Charter's most recent earnings reports.
In its third quarter, Comcast posted the best broadband quarterly results in its history by adding more than 633,000 residential and business subscribers while Charter reeled in 537,000 residential and small business internet customers.
Despite trailing Comcast and Charter, Stankey, who took over as CEO on July 1, is bullish on AT&T Fiber's prospects going forward.
"We're gaining share where we've deployed our fiber infrastructure, and we have 10 points of higher customer satisfaction than our significant competitor, when you look at how customers respond to our broadband product," he said. ""In this pandemic, where symmetrical bandwidth has become so important because of what people are doing in their house, they love the product.
"And they love how we brought it to market with a very simple straightforward value proposition—a lot of bandwidth for a very attractive price. I think the management team has done a good job of marketing and communicating that."