Thread regarding AT&T layoffs

When there are news articles on how DirecTV will give you a $90/month discount just for calling in, and people "paying as little as $5 a month after the discounts." Then are they really 'customers'? Sure you can try to retain them and make nothing, but if they ultimately are going to leave, why bother? How many people who live where they are forced to use Satellite are getting discounts, even though they'd pay full price if you weren't throwing discounts at them? One article says you get a $90 discount making the package $5/month, then a $300 Visa gift card too. You got people who don't want to leave asking for discounts every year cause that's just how it works.

Yes -cash flow doubled year to year...which is huge. But losing customers?????? .....and accepting that we are losing customers as ok? Me thinks a shake up is coming.

My guess is they're dying to finally reach a point where they no longer are required to fund the pension plan.

Some MBA has figured out that the fewer people remain on the pension plan, the less funding they have to keep in it. Once you get rid of everyone who is grandfathered into it, you don't have to keep it funded at all.

Is my theory on why they're specifically targeting certain folks. Slashing and burning some of your best employees because of where they work ( which is company mandated btw ) makes absolutely zero sense.

We lost >540K subs since last earnings report. Called customer service woth a billing question. The robot responded that they are no longer available, call back between the hours of 8:30AM To 9:00PM EST. Monday through Friday.... We lost > 540K subs since last earnings report.... The strategy is paying off.

Rs and the John's already gave up on any attempts to develop new products. Instead, they are happyly turning a blind eye to the decay of dtv, a business THEY bought and paid at a premium. Remember rs and the NFL tkt/red zone????

Now, they want to turn T as a broker for these integrators to do all the work, allowing them to keep laying off more and more headcount.

The earnings call transcript is here.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/t-inc-t-q1-2019-192958505.html

The one thing I saw relevant to staffing is discussion relating to the fiber buildout.

• We've kept at about 25% of the available fiber out there. We've been pretty consistent that no matter how much more we put out 1 million or 1.5 million a quarter, we continue to immediately utilize 25% of that, because we've continued to add capacity and we'll finish off adding that capacity at least from the FCC requirements we have in July.

So apparently, there was an agreement with the FCC to build out the fiber footprint that will complete in the next couple of months. After that, I suspect any further buildouts will be more selective as cash is shifted from capex to paying down debt.

That could affect techs hooking up service if the rollout stops.

Randy and the Johns ruin everything they touch

“Our first-quarter results show that we’re delivering on what we promised,” - I guess he is right about that. they are delivering what they are promising. good job. keep raising your prices and losing customers. you are promising and delivering on that pretty well. don't worry AI and data mining will save us.

i truly think randy wants the company to be him and stankey with a bunch of robots running the company.

Pretty sure any average Joe would not be buying ATT stock while it underperforms across the board. We are very unattractive as a growth stock

Randy spinning again. Reality missed revenue across the board to include Warner. Churn is up, losing customers in every way possible. This place is a joke.

RS will never cut the dividend. The stock price would drop to the low to mid 20's and he would finally be voted out by the Board. Much easier to surplus and off-shore our jobs.

Before he cuts the dividend, he'll cut headcount first.

• End of 1st quarter Mar 31, 2019: 262,290 employees

• End of 1st quarter Dec 31, 2018: 268,220 employees

• Total reduction: 5930

All of these layoffs we see posted on this board as happening, aren't happening. They'll start happening before that dividend is cut. With headcount totals like these, they look very inefficient.

You know he's just dying to cut the dividend but they won't let him. Can you imagine what would happen to the stock price?

Randall Stephenson would make a great politician. The polish he put on his turd is nothing short of spectacular. More layoffs to come at this rate of decline.