AT&T

AT&T Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate, Delaware-registered but headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company, the largest provider of mobile telephone services, and the largest provider of fixed telephone services in the United States through AT&T Communications. Since June 14, 2018, it is also the parent company of mass media conglomerate WarnerMedia, making it the world's largest media and entertainment company in terms of revenue. , AT&T was ranked #9 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

AT&T began its history as Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, a subsidiary of the Bell Telephone Company, founded by Alexander Graham Bell in 1877. The Bell Telephone Company became the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in 1885 and was later rebranded as AT&T Corporation. The 1982 United States v. AT&T antitrust lawsuit resulted in the divestiture of AT&T Corporation's ("Ma Bell") subsidiaries or Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), commonly referred to as "Baby Bells", resulting in several independent companies, including Southwestern Bell Corporation; the latter changed its name to SBC Communications Inc. in 1995. In 2005, SBC purchased its former parent AT&T Corporation and took on its branding, with the merged entity naming itself AT&T Inc. and using its history, iconic logo and stock-trading symbol. AT&T Inc. acquired BellSouth in 2006, the last independent Baby Bell company, making its formerly joint venture Cingular Wireless (which had acquired AT&T Wireless in 2004) wholly owned and rebranding it as AT&T Mobility.

The current AT&T reconstitutes much of the former Bell System, and includes ten of the original 22 Bell Operating Companies along with the original long-distance division.

Origin and growth (1885–1981)
AT&T traces its origins to the Bell Telephone Company, founded by Alexander Graham Bell, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, and Thomas Sanders after Bell's patenting of the telephone. One of that company's subsidiaries was the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), established in 1885, which acquired the Bell Company on December 31, 1899, for legal reasons, leaving AT&T as the main company. AT&T established a network of subsidiaries in the United States and Canada that held a phone service monopoly, authorized by government authorities with the Kingsbury Commitment, throughout most of the twentieth century. This monopoly was known as the Bell System, and during this period, AT&T was also known by the nickname Ma Bell. For periods of time, the former AT&T was the world's largest phone company.

Breakup and reformation (1982–2004)
In 1982, U.S. regulators broke up the AT&T monopoly, requiring AT&T to divest its regional subsidiaries and turning them each into individual companies. These new companies were known as Regional Bell Operating Companies, or more informally, Baby Bells. AT&T continued to operate long-distance services, but as a result of this breakup, faced competition from new competitors such as MCI and Sprint.

Southwestern Bell was one of the companies created by the breakup of AT&T Corp. The architect of divestiture for Southwestern Bell was Robert G. Pope. The company soon started a series of acquisitions. This includes the 1987 acquisition of Metromedia mobile business and the acquisition of several cable companies in the early 1990s. In the latter half of the 1990s, the company acquired several other telecommunications companies, including some Baby Bells, while selling its cable business. During this time, the company changed its name to SBC Communications. By 1998, the company was in the top 15 of the Fortune 500, and by 1999 the company was part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (lasting through 2015).

Purchase of former parent and acquisitions (2005–2014)
In 2005, SBC purchased AT&T for $16 billion. After this purchase, SBC adopted the better-known AT&T name and brand, with the original AT&T Corp. still existing as the long-distance landline subsidiary of the merged company. The current AT&T claims the original AT&T Corp.'s history (dating to 1885) as its own. However, it retains SBC's 1983-2005 corporate structure. It also retains SBC's pre-2005 stock price history, on the company's website there is also historical date for all AT&T companies and subsidiaries.

In September 2013, AT&T Inc. announced it would expand into Latin America through a collaboration with América Móvil. In December 2013, AT&T announced plans to sell its Connecticut wireline operations to Stamford-based Frontier Communications.

Recent developments (2014–present)
AT&T purchased the Mexican carrier Iusacell in late 2014, and two months later purchased the Mexican wireless business of NII Holdings, merging the two companies to create AT&T Mexico.

In July 2015, AT&T purchased DirecTV for $48.5 billion, or $67.1 billion including assumed debt, subject to certain conditions. AT&T subsequently announced plans to converge its existing U-verse home internet and IPTV brands with DirecTV, to create AT&T Entertainment.

On March 19, 2016, following an eventual bidding war with three other suitors, AT&T acquired British pay television company Telewest Group for £13.8 billion in cash and stock. Following the deal, Telewest would become part of the AT&T International division along with AT&T Mexico and DirecTV Latin America.

On October 22, 2016, AT&T announced a deal to buy Time Warner for $108.7 billion in an effort to further increase its media holdings.

On July 13, 2017, it was reported that AT&T would introduce a cloud-based DVR streaming service as part of its effort to create a unified platform across DirecTV and its DirecTV Now streaming service, with U-verse to be added soon. In October 2018, it was announced that the service would launch in 2019. Named HBO Max, the service's release date was pushed to May 2020.

On September 12, 2017, it was reported that AT&T planned to launch a new cable TV-like service for delivery over-the-top over its own or a competitor's broadband network sometime next year.

On November 20, 2017, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim filed a lawsuit for the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division to block the merger with Time Warner, saying it "will harm competition, result in higher bills for consumers and less innovation." In order for AT&T to fully acquire Time Warner, the Department of Justice stated that the company must divest either DirecTV or Turner Broadcasting System.

, AT&T is the world's largest telecommunications company. AT&T is also the largest provider of mobile telephone services and the largest provider of fixed telephone services in the United States.

On March 7, 2018, the company prepared to sell a minority stake of DirecTV Latin America through an IPO, creating a new holding company for those assets named Vrio Corp. However, on April 18, just a day before the public debut of Vrio, AT&T canceled the IPO due to market conditions.

On June 12, 2018, AT&T was given permission by U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon to go ahead with its $85 billion deal for Time Warner. The DOJ had attempted to stop the merger fearing it would harm competition. The merger closed two days after, becoming a wholly owned subsidiary and division of AT&T with a new name, WarnerMedia, announced the next day.

Three months after completing the acquisition, AT&T reorganized into four main units: Communications, including consumer and business wireline telephony, AT&T Mobility, and consumer entertainment video services; WarnerMedia, including Turner cable television networks, Warner Bros. film and television production, Turner Broadcasting, and HBO; AT&T Latin America, consisting of wireless service in Mexico and video in Latin America and the Caribbean under the Vrio brand; and Advertising and Analytics, since renamed Xandr.

By 2019, AT&T had developed partnerships with health care providers to develop mobile health-related connectivity devices that aid inpatient care. Key products include a telemetry device that monitors patient metrics, while toggling between WIFI and cellular connectivity.

In September 2019, activist investor Elliott Management revealed that it had purchased $3.2 billion of AT&T stock (a 1.2% equity interest), and had pushed for the company to divest assets to improve its share value.

On March 4, 2020, AT&T announced its intent to perform major cost-cutting moves, including cuts to capital investment, and plans to promote AT&T TV (which officially launched nationally on March 2) as its primary pay television service offering. AT&T will still primarily promote DirecTV "where cable broadband is not prevalent", and as a specialty option.

On April 24, 2020, AT&T announced that effective July 1, 2020, company COO John Stankey will replace Randall Stephenson as CEO of AT&T. It was also acknowledged that AT&T's acquisitions of DirectTV, Telewest and Time Warner had by this point resulted in a massive debt burden of $200 billion for the company.

On July 1, 2020, John Stankey officially took over as AT&T CEO, while Randall Stephenson would continue to serve as executive chairman of the company through January 2021. On December 4, 2020, Jason Killar, Stankey's successor as CEO of WarnerMedia, was appointed chief creative officer of AT&T. The following day, AT&T announced a major reorganisation to dissolve WarnerMedia, by arranging its properties into four main units: Consumer, Entertainment (Warner Bros., HBO and cable channels, HBO Max) News & Sports (CNN and Turner Sports), and International (international entertainment networks, home entertainment and distribution). On December 11, 2020, the company also announced that it would be rebranded as Warner Inc. in early 2021, with the intent of phasing out the AT&T brand on all of its consumer-based services in favour of the "Warner" brand. The aforementioned changes took effect on January 7, 2021.

Landline operating companies
Of the eight companies that were part of the Breakup of the Bell System, these five are a part of the current AT&T:


 * Ameritech, acquired by SBC in 1999
 * AT&T Corp., acquired by SBC in 2005
 * BellSouth, acquired by AT&T in 2006
 * Pacific Telesis, acquired by SBC in 1997
 * Southwestern Bell, rebranded as SBC Communications in 1995

Former operating companies
The following companies have become defunct or were sold under SBC/AT&T ownership:


 * Southern New England Telephone: sold to Frontier Communications in 2014
 * Woodbury Telephone: merged into Southern New England Telephone on June 1, 2007.

Decline of rural landlines
Of the Baby Bells, Ameritech sold some of its Wisconsin landlines to CenturyTel, in 1998; BellSouth sold some of its lines to MebTel, during the 2000s; U S WEST sold many historically Bell landlines to Lynch Communications and Pacific Telecom, in the 1990s; Verizon sold many of its New England lines to FairPoint, in 2008, and its West Virginia operations to Frontier Communications, in 2010.

On October 25, 2014, Frontier Communications took over control of the AT&T landline network in Connecticut after being approved by state utility regulators. The deal was worth about $2 billion, and included Frontier inheriting about 2,500 of AT&T's employees and many of AT&T's buildings.

Corporate governance
AT&T's current board of directors :• Randall L. Stephenson – executive chairman

• Matthew K. Rose

• Samuel A. DiPiazza, Jr.

• Richard W. Fisher

• Scott T. Ford

• Glenn H. Hutchins

• William E. Kennard

• Debra L. Lee

• Stephen J. Luczo

• Michael B. McCallister

• Beth E. Mooney

• Cynthia B. Taylor

• Geoffrey Y. YangThe current management  includes:


 * John Stankey – president and chief executive officer (CEO)
 * John J. Stephens – executive vice president and chief operating officer
 * Jason Kiliar – chief creative officer
 * Jeff McElfresh - chairman of WarnerMedia Consumer
 * Lori Lee – chief executive officer of Vrio and global marketing officer
 * Ann Sarnoff - chairwoman of WarnerMedia Studios & Networks
 * Jeff Zucker - chairman of WarnerMedia News & Sports
 * Tony Gloncaves - chairman of WarnerMedia Global Entertainment
 * David R. McAtee II – senior executive vice president and general counsel
 * Angela Santone – senior executive vice president of human resources
 * Ed Gillespie – senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs
 * David S. Huntley – senior executive vice president and chief compliance officer

Subsidiaries
WarnerMedia comprises the following four major units:


 * WarnerMedia Consumer consists of operations largely focusing on on wireline, consumer, digital television, satellite television, fixed line telephone, mobile phone, broadband, home security, IPTV, OTT services, network security, and pay television offerings, as well as business applications, mostly using the Warner brand. The division's businesses include Warner Mobile, Warner TV, DirecTV, Warner Business, among others.
 * WarnerMedia Studios & Networks encompasses the company's television series/motion picture production, video game development/publishing and programming units, including the company’s film and television studios - both of which use the Warner Bros. brand. Other units include WarnerMedia Interactive, cable networks (HBO, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, among others) the comic book publisher DC Entertainment, and a 50% interest in The CW, in a joint venture with ViacomCBS.
 * WarnerMedia News & Sports encompasses the company's U.S.-based and international broadcast news and sports networks, including CNN and Turner Sports (which in turn includes the AT&T SportsNet family of regional sports networks and digital media brands such as Bleacher Report).
 * WarnerMedia Global Entertainment oversees the company's advertising sales, distribution, home entertainment, theme parks, publishing, consumer products and content licensing units. The division also owns of certain international variations of the company's domestic entertainment television channels, with a few region-specific channels (eg. Telewest in the UK), and the advertising/analytics company Xandr.
 * HBO Max (legally known as WarnerMedia Direct) is responsible for the product, marketing, consumer engagement and global rollout of the company's direct-to-consumer streaming service of the same name.

Facilities and regions
The company is currently headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards tower, located in New York City. Until 2021, the company was based at Whitacre Tower in downtown Dallas, Texas.

On June 27, 2008, AT&T announced that it would move its corporate headquarters from downtown San Antonio to One AT&T Plaza in downtown Dallas. The company said that it moved to gain better access to its customers and operations throughout the world, and to the key technology partners, suppliers, innovation and human resources needed as it continues to grow, domestically and internationally. AT&T Inc. previously relocated its corporate headquarters to San Antonio from St. Louis, Missouri, in 1992, when it was then named Southwestern Bell Corporation. The company's Telecom Operations group, which serves residential and regional business customers in 22 U.S. states, remains in San Antonio. Atlanta, Georgia, continues to be the headquarters for AT&T Mobility, with significant offices in Redmond, Washington, the former home of AT&T Wireless. Bedminster, New Jersey, is the headquarters for the company's Global Business Services group and AT&T Labs and is where the original AT&T Corp. remains located. St. Louis continues as home to the company's Directory operations, AT&T Advertising Solutions.

AT&T offers also services in many locations throughout the Asia Pacific; its regional headquarters is located in Hong Kong. The company is also active in Mexico, and on November 7, 2014, it was announced that Mexican carrier Iusacell would be acquired by AT&T. The acquisition was approved in January 2015. On April 30, 2015, AT&T acquired wireless operations Nextel Mexico from NII Holdings (now AT&T Mexico).

Political involvement
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, AT&T was the fourteenth-largest donor to United States federal political campaigns and committees from 1989 to 2019, having contributed more than US$84.1 million, 58% of which went to Republicans and 42% of which went to Democrats. As an example, in 2005, AT&T was among 53 entities that contributed the maximum of $250,000 to the second inauguration of President George W. Bush. Bill Leahy, representing AT&T, sits on the Private Enterprise Board of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC is a nonprofit organization of conservative state legislators and private sector representatives that drafts and shares model state-level legislation for distribution among state governments in the United States.

During the period of 1998 to 2019, the company expended US$380.1 million on lobbying in the United States. A key political issue for AT&T has been the question of which businesses win the right to profit by providing broadband internet access in the United States. The company has also lobbied in support of several federal bills. AT&T supported the Federal Communications Commission Process Reform Act of 2013 (H.R. 3675; 113th Congress), a bill that would make a number of changes to procedures that the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) follows in its rulemaking processes. The FCC would have to act in a more transparent way as a result of this bill, forced to accept public input about regulations. AT&T's Executive Vice President of Federal Relations, Tim McKone, said that the bill's "much needed institutional reforms will help arm the agency with the tools to keep pace with the Internet speed of today's marketplace. It will also ensure that outmoded regulatory practices for today's competitive marketplace are properly placed in the dustbin of history."

In May 2018, reports emerged that AT&T made 12 monthly payments between January and December 2017 to Essential Consultants, a company set up by President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, totaling $600,000. Although initial reports on May 8 mentioned only four monthly payments totaling $200,000, documents obtained by the Washington Post on May 10 confirmed the figure of 12 payments, which had begun three days after the President was sworn into office. AT&T confirmed the report the same day. The report from the Washington Post, as well as additional reporting from Bloomberg, revealed the payments had been made for Cohen to "provide guidance" relating to the attempted $85 billion merger with Time Warner, to gain information on the Trump administration's planned tax reforms, as well as about potential changes to net neutrality policies under the new FCC. However, Chairman of the FCC Ajit Pai denied Cohen ever inquired about net neutrality on AT&T's behalf. A spokesperson for AT&T said that the company had been contacted by the Special Counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller regarding the payments, and had provided all the information requested in November and December 2017.

In early 2019, the Democratic House Judiciary requested records related to the AT&T-Time Warner merger from the White House.

Historical financial performance
The financial performance of the company is reported to shareholders on an annual basis and a matter of public record. Where performance has been restated, the most recent statement of performance from an annual report is used.

Buildings



 * North Tower – Corporate Headquarters, New York City, NY
 * AT&T 220 Building – building in Indianapolis, Indiana
 * AT&T Building – building in Detroit, Michigan
 * AT&T Building – building in Indianapolis, Indiana
 * AT&T Building – building in Kingman, Arizona
 * AT&T Building – (aka "The Batman Building") in Nashville, Tennessee
 * AT&T Building – building in Omaha, Nebraska
 * AT&T Building Addition – building in Detroit, Michigan
 * AT&T Building – building in San Diego
 * AT&T Center – building in Los Angeles
 * AT&T Center – building in St. Louis, Missouri
 * AT&T City Center – building in Birmingham, Alabama
 * AT&T Corporate Center – building in Chicago, Illinois
 * AT&T Huron Road Building – building in Cleveland, Ohio
 * AT&T Lenox Park Campus – AT&T Mobility Headquarters in DeKalb County just outside Atlanta, Georgia
 * AT&T Midtown Center – building in Atlanta, Georgia
 * AT&T Switching Center – building in Los Angeles
 * AT&T Switching Center – building in Oakland, California
 * AT&T Switching Center – building in San Francisco
 * AT&T Tower - building in Minneapolis, MN
 * AT&T Building - building in (Meriden), CT
 * AT&T Entertainment Group HQ - DirecTV corporate campus in El Segundo, California

Venues



 * AT&T Center – San Antonio, Texas (formerly SBC Center)
 * AT&T Field – Chattanooga, Tennessee (formerly BellSouth Park)
 * AT&T Plaza – Chicago, Illinois (public space that hosts the Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park)
 * AT&T Plaza – Dallas, Texas (plaza in front of the American Airlines Center at Victory Park)
 * AT&T Performing Arts Center – Dallas, Texas
 * AT&T Stadium – Arlington, Texas (formerly Dallas Cowboys Stadium)
 * AT&T Stadium - Glen Jean, West Virginia (outdoor open-seating stadium at the Boy Scouts of America's Summit Bechtel Reserve
 * Jones AT&T Stadium – Lubbock, Texas (formerly Clifford B. and Audrey Jones Stadium, Jones SBC Stadium)
 * TPC San Antonio – San Antonio, Texas (AT&T Oaks Course & AT&T Canyons Course)
 * War Memorial Stadium, AT&T Field - Little Rock, Arkansas

Sponsorships

 * AT&T Byron Nelson - Irving, Texas (golf)
 * AT&T Cotton Bowl Classic (formerly Mobil Cotton Bowl Classic, Southwestern Bell Cotton Bowl Classic, SBC Cotton Bowl Classic) – played in Arlington, Texas, at AT&T Stadium (football)
 * AT&T National – Washington, D.C. (golf)
 * AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (golf)
 * AT&T Red River Rivalry – Dallas, Texas (formerly Red River Shootout, SBC Red River Rivalry) (football)
 * Major League Soccer and the United States Soccer Federation, including the U.S. men's and U.S. women's national teams and the Major League Soccer All-Star Game from 2009
 * Mexico national football team
 * United States Olympic team
 * National Collegiate Athletic Association (Corporate Champion)
 * AT&T American Cup, artistic gymnastics competition. Sponsored by AT&T since 2011.
 * Red Bull Racing (Formula 1 racing team), technical support and sponsorship, since 2011.
 * Cloud9, sponsorship since March 2019.
 * Club América, Sponsorship since July 19, 2018