I wonder what the overall direction looks like for T beyond 2020. If leadership successfully reduces head count by 20-40%, sells off majority of buildings and select assets reaching the goal of paying down 20+ billion in debt in 2019/2020, then what? Will we still have additional build out of fiber and or maintain the facilities in place or will the zero expense and cut at all cost continue? For those “lucky” enough to keep a job does the future hold stock options, a decent pay increase and annual bonus or just more of the 2020 BS of treating employees like a liability as opposed to assets? Even if we “survive” through 2020 and cut until it hurts to pay back 20 billion, doesn’t that still leave around 160 billion in debt? So then what... project 2021...2022...2023 until we just stop building or maintaining anything and go down to under a hundred thousand employees. I’m sorry Randy you aren’t running Google, Amazon or Facebook. We own fiber and copper facilities from one end of the country to the other and like it or not you have to maintain this stuff and build out to keep customers. Sell Puerto Rico and Mexico services off along with DirecTV and focus on providing fast reliable wired and wireless broadband that you can sell your movies and other content over BUT you have to spend Capitol and Expense dollars to operate our infrastructure or we’ll lose every customer to Verizon and T-Mobile.
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Randall is working towards making AT&T a sticker company. By that I mean getting rid of most employees on the payroll - shipping them off to Tech Mahindra, IBM, etc. so that all that is left are people to slap the sticker that says AT&T on it rather than actually creating and doing anything of substance. He has/is effectively riding the company into the ground like a comet and will be laughing his a– off with the millions he has made and will continue to make as he does so.
The estimated net worth of Randall L Stephenson is $75 million as of 23 May 2019. As the Chairman and CEO of AT&T, he gets a whopping salary of $28 Million per annum.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/03/13/att-ceo-rakes-in-29m-salary-while-laying-off-12k-americans-since-tax-cut/
The correct answer is more of the 2020 BS of treating employees like a liability as opposed to assets.
"For those “lucky” enough to keep a job does the future hold stock options, a decent pay increase and annual bonus o"
What stock options and raises???
Sprint is a good example.
Rely on name\brand recognition? Sounds like more of a liability to me.
The original plan was to cut 2/3’s (yes, 60%) of the workforce. Outsource most jobs and send customer service overseas. This includes corporate retail sales stores and infrastructure and rely on name/brand recognition. This was Legacy T’s game plan when SBC bought them. It’s been down hill ever since.
Cash our friends. Lump Sum while you still
can.
Nothing but Crash and Burn.
The correct answer is B - more of the 2020 BS of treating employees like a liability as opposed to assets?
Our correct answer is to fight back with our wallets and refuse or use as few of their products as possible.
Built out the Fiber in our area. Equipment placed in the field and CO’s, and then the clec’s gobbled up everything that wasn’t already connected to a customer.
I read an article that T is experimenting with a new transmission delivery method for their wireless phone service. The idea is to take 2 tin cans with a string placed in between them. T engineers claim that this ultra low frequency transmission path will produce crystal clear voice service and provide a drastic improvement over the current configuration. In order to accommodate multiple calls at once, the T engineers have developed a simple half hitch knot that can be tied at any point along the route. Being cost conscientious as always, they cite the half hitch as being 4 times more economical than a traditional grand-pappy approved double hitch. Also noted that with labor contract negotiations going on now, the company is wanting to outsource placement of the string but the union is fighting like h€!! to keep it in house.
As for now, wireless data services will be handled by ultra light carrier pigeons which are fed a gluten free diet. They have been proven to be greener than the traditional fiber, cell tower, electricity, and battery setup(Remember, no job is so important and no service is so urgent that we can not take time to perform our work in a safe and environmentally responsible manner).
Hopes are that as string quality improves and we get back to US manufactured tin cans that we can dominate the market. #barrelingtowards2020.
The solution to overcoming all the major products of the company are in the mature/decline of the product life cycle still hasn't materialized. This is the biggest problem with the company going forward.
Forget T, the whole country is moving towards a world of automation. More and more people are going to be out of work. It’s going to be the new norm everywhere.
I may have detected some company pride and excitement while reading, but of course it could’ve been sarcasm....sometimes it’s just hard to tell.
Don’t get hopeful on the "stock options" caveat....T tried that, forgetting what year the options were handed out the amount was approx. $32 set to expire in ten years....the natural hope was that T would soar and we’d pay the lower amount of $32 on a much higher stock....the options expired around $30. and I framed the letter......T has a way of disappointing, it’s just how things are.
Feel like fiber will continue to be deployed but with a strategic view of a wireless world vision based on economics. AI, Big Data and automation will be a bigger focus if and when they get the debt paid down to a acceptable level to the investment community. Doesn’t make sense to buildout fiber to every location but I have seen the dramatic effects in the work load when it has been deployed. The constant calls at night after bad weather concerning call sites basically disappeared after that deployment. Seen F1 trouble basically disappear in areas that had fiber run to the VRAD’s. Reading that 5G is showing promise to eliminate all wiring in some of the business locations it is being deployed. RS said that he is hearing about business use cases where this is happening with a router and in the future that won’t be needed. Already seeing it in the home. One broadband connection and tv, voice, home security etc is being run off of one wire and a router.
I'm hearing that we will probably reenergize our open wire routes for high speed telegraph service and bundle it with a slick manual typewriter package which we overpaid a company for by a few billion. We will also use an app on our phones to show the customers everywhere we can put a trimline set in their house. Residential techs will also be required to keep the extra long curly cords on their trucks for new wall phones in the kitchen. Business services will be installing Merlins as a package deal along with hoot & holler circuits. Proud to be working for a cutting edge company. #2020
my opinion is this CF of constant cutting and constant disregard of the core businesses and infrastructure will continue til we are all gone. they truly see employees as the problem.
Only the minds of randy and the johns know. But I don't recommend t services to anybody and I know so many people who dropped their services I can't count on my toes and fingers.
t has such a bad wrap in the real world it isn't even funny. One thing I know for sure is they are a wireless company and are only building out fiber because they were forced to so they could have direct tv. My guess is they are betting on 5g as their ace in the hole. But it hasn't been proven safe yet for humans but I am sure that won't stop randy and the johns.