I could start by going back to the T-Mobile merger failure. Which was massive. But starting with more recent history. First, T missed a huge opportunity by not investing or underinvesting in fiber. Execs at the time thought they could continue to leverage the copper plant with U-verse Internet and TV. Even with the early obstacles of laying fiber, T lost at least a 5-7 year lead they could have in the market. Their competitor Verizon were closer to getting this correct. In mobility, revenues were flat for maybe a 3 year period. Rather then take this opportunity to invest in fiber and get a head start in 5G. RANDALL and Stinkey became bored with being telco heads and had to go Hollywood. Mountains and mountains of money were blown on the failed Directv and Warner Media mergers. While it was enticing to be able to offer a triple pay package, they were unable to foresee the budding streaming revolution which at the time was in it’s infancy but did exist (Netflix). Being distracted with their new toys (and running around saying stuff like ‘I know more about entertainment then anyone’, pi----g off the talent at HBO who left) and jet setting between Dallas and El Segundo. T got absolutely Smoked by T-Mobile in the race for 5G. Eye off the ball. In addition, the cloud computing revolution was occurring during this time and T was caught totally flat footed. Still fascinated with their toys and becoming pretend Masters of the Universe. They say companies can’t walk and chew gum but I would argue that T can’t chew gum period. It was IMPOSSIBLE that T would pull off fiber, 5G, video, video content, and Cloud simultaneously. In my final stint at T another project which got a lot of hot air but little actual work done was retiring data centers and transitioning T workloads to the Cloud. While they outsourced these resources to IBM and fired the person over Cloud, it was the running joke that data centers would be retired before many people working their retired. The DC I worked with, they had so much overflow equipment coming in to be installed that they ran out of storage space. And this was after this DC was on the list for retirement and they tried to sell it to MS and others, no takers. This was because when the DC was built, they did not have the foresight to build it big enough so no one wanted it. This is just one example of the lack of vision, foresight, and EXECUTION which T Execs lacked. Don’t choose your priorities and they will be chosen for you. A cluster.
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Excellent recap of Stinkey’s Foleys.
Why can’t / won’t someone (SEC or the board) hold former or current CEO responsible for so many bad decisions?
Number one: They hired you. They really screwed up there.
lets not forget digital life. The wonderful product that many good sales reps were forced out of their job because they did not sell the home security system. Lets see.... you go to a cell phone store to buy a phone and the sales rep is cramming a home security system down your throat so they can keep their job. Worst idea ever.
Another Stankey failure is getting rid of phone booths. $0.25 a call is a lot of revenue.
Gonna keep repeating it until I'm blue in the face. Deal with it.
I feel like I’m watching a re-run of the worst tv show ever when I come to this board. Yes, we all know what happened. Thanks for stating the obvious. Mo--n
Thanks for 500th recap, Captain Obvious.
Is there ever an original thought on this board? Ever?
Whatever happened with AirGig? You know, it was supposed to deliver up to 1G speeds over electric lines to rural and distant communities. That just evaporated.
My god, people. Why dwell on the past when we can mock AT&T's present-day screwups? For example, their embarrassingly late entry into the FWI market with AT&T Internet Air (with extremely limited availability for home use only, no business plans).
Yet another instance of AT&T's comically bad decision-making and total lack of foresight, making them late to the game with a weak launch that will have them forever behind in market share.
“The reason for our ‘lead offer’ approach, if you will, is that we know that the physics of fixed wireless cannot serve the demand for what a household is looking for, or a business is looking for ...” Jeff McElfresh, 2022
Another major failure has been T retaining such a bloated workforce for so long. Steps are finally being taken to course correct but it is too late.
Nobody pays breakup fees. They are just mentioned to speed the acquisition along. It is actually never paid for acquisitions.
Did you really figure it out a long time ago? Sometimes it takes a long time to figure it out. No shame in admitting that.
“After 10 year, you figured it out. You are so smart.”
Figured it out a long time ago, just recapping.
T tried to acquire T-Mob. T-Mob was on it’s knees at the time. T was so arrogant that the deal would be passed they agreed to a massive break up fee. Money, spectrum, etc. The deal was blocked. T-Mob received the break up fee and this is enabled them to become strong and kick T’s a** down the road. Again a major cluster by RANDALL. Another major cluster was the Warner acquisition. The Trump DOJ attempted to block it 3 times primarily because Trump hated CNN. This added time and dollars to the acquisition.
After 10 year, you figured it out. You are so smart.
AT&T should have acquired T-Mobile. Would have been a great move. Too bad Stankey didn't have the foresight to do that.
When did all of this happen?