ATandT Plans $1 Billion Investment in Network Capabilities

Telecommunications and technology giant AT&T announced plans to invest approximately $1 billion in 2010 to scale its delivery of applications, mobility and cloud services for global companies; to expand small business services within the United States; and to continue extending its network globally. AT&T's 2010 program includes scaling application services by enhancing the company's current portfolio of flexible collaboration services and applications such as managed hosting, cloud-based services, telepresence, unified communications (UC), digital media solutions and security.

Continuing AT&T's focus on delivering mobile solutions, applications and integrated devices to companies of all sizes, the company said it will invest in enterprise mobility applications, including continued investment in Long Term Evolution (LTE) and WiFi-based applications to support the increase in demand for mobile broadband-based services. The company said it plans to maintain a vertical industry focus by creating and deploying applications in the finance, manufacturing, retail, health care, education and government sectors. It will also expand its presence in emerging applications including markets such as machine-to-machine communication and will roll out fixed mobile convergence and location-based solutions, along with mobile platform and portal enhancements.

Part of the investment package includes enhancing small business operations by deploying platforms and systems across its 22-state U.S. footprint to deliver an enhanced customer experience and to accelerate the provisioning of multiple products and services. AT&T also plans to increase broadband speeds up to 24M bps downstream where possible in more than 120 markets across the company's U.S. market. This integrates into the company's plan to build out its global network to deliver services and applications to the markets and geographies where multinational companies today are doing business and/or housing their operations.

"Despite the continuing challenges of today's economic environment, we continue to deliver on our commitment to provide companies with the network-centric capabilities and applications they need to enhance their operations," said Ron Spears, president and CEO of AT&T Business Solutions. "IP-based solutions and applications have become ever more important to companies aiming to take their productivity to a new level while transforming their operations to adapt to their customers' changing needs."

Including this year's planned investment, AT&T will have invested more than $4 billion since 2006 in business-focused networks, systems and applications. Specific areas of AT&T's planned investment in 2010 include deploying, upgrading or adding diverse IPv6-capable MPLS nodes to support Layer 3 VPN and Global Managed Internet Services, including Gigabit Ethernet customer access across multiple locations in Europe, Central and Latin America, and the Asia Pacific region. The company also announced plans to increase support for the more than 750 wireless devices already connected to the AT&T network-such as e-readers, netbooks, digital photo frames, personal navigation devices, and home security monitoring and smart grid devices-for use by business customers.