Infrastructure company Azio AI Holdings signed a master services agreement (MSA) with AT&T worth roughly $2.4 million to provide enterprise fibre connectivity for its first AI data centre campus.

The deal covers a 500-megawatt site and establishes a standardised connectivity framework across the campus, delivering the high-capacity, low-latency network infrastructure needed to support AI training, inference, GPU cloud computing, enterprise colocation, and other high-performance computing workloads.

Azio said the connectivity buildout is intended to streamline network deployment as it brings on additional customers under its hyperscale AI strategy. The company pointed to a recent power purchase and hosting agreement with a GPU customer, which it said will require a rapid, modular buildout at the Texas site.

“This agreement establishes the networking framework supporting our initial 500-megawatt Texas AI platform while creating a scalable operating model that can support future expansion as additional projects move forward under our hyperscale AI strategy,” Azio COO Elgin Tracy stated.

The company’s broader strategy centres on scalable, liquefied natural gas-backed energy capacity intended to meet rising demand for GPU cloud and AI workloads.

It stated the Texas site was picked in part due to the location being able accommodate large-scale industrial infrastructure without the land-use and community constraints which can complicate data centre projects in urban areas.

The agreement adds AT&T to the growing list of telecoms operators positioning themselves as connectivity partners for the AI infrastructure buildout, as data centre operators race to secure the fibre capacity needed to link GPU clusters to enterprise and hyperscale customers.

Azio did not disclose a timeline for construction completion or when the Texas campus is expected to become operational.

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AT&T switched on a dedicated standalone (SA) 5G core for public safety network FirstNet, which the operator described as the first and only such nationwide network built specifically for first responders.

The new core is physically separate from AT&T’s commercial network infrastructure, a design intended to give public safety agencies greater security, reliability and control over their connectivity.

AT&T stated the architecture was shaped by feedback from first responders and is intended to meet operational needs which differ meaningfully from everyday consumer use.

Scott Agnew, president of FirstNet at AT&T, said the SA core was purpose-built around the mission of public safety rather than adapted from a consumer network.

“This milestone keeps America’s public safety network strong for the future, because when our first responders succeed, our communities are safer.”

AT&T stated the dedicated core functions as the central nervous system for the FirstNet network, keeping public safety traffic separate from commercial traffic.

It runs across multiple geographically-distributed core sites to add redundancy, an approach AT&T stated improves performance and resilience.

The upgrade also brings faster upload data rates and improved responsiveness, capabilities AT&T stated are increasingly necessary as first responders adopt connected tools including body-worn cameras and mission-critical communications applications.

Security beyond the standard measures used on commercial networks is built into the core.

Access is restricted to devices using a FirstNet SIM, which it stated protects subscriber data from potential attackers, while a dedicated security operations centre monitors the network around the clock for threats.

Adaptive Mission Performance
AT&T positioned the service as groundwork for a broader initiative called Adaptive Mission Performance to tailor network performance to specific public safety applications and use cases rather than relying on a single network slice from commercial infrastructure.

The operator stated it plans to deploy the capabilities over time as more subscribers migrate to the new core.

FirstNet subscribers are already being transitioned to the new core at no additional cost.

While laying claim to a nationwide launch, AT&T did note the service requires a compatible device and plan, and it is not available everywhere.

The operator deployed its SA 5G core in 2025, five years later than T-Mobile US.

Verizon Frontline rolled out its service in select markets in 2025.

T-Mobile and Verizon are using their SA 5G cores to provide network slicing for first responders.

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T-Mobile US won the most categories in Opensignal’s latest network experience report, which also examined the performance of AT&T and Verizon over a 90-day period during a window which included the FIFA World Cup.

Opensignal stated the Q2 research covered tested operators’ ability to manage network congestion both at stadiums and across host cities.

Verizon, as the World Cup’s official telecommunications sponsor, deployed private 5G and fixed wireless access to support broadcast and retail operations at venues, alongside investment in surrounding communities.

AT&T launched a premium Turbo Live service in January to ease congestion at live events and introduced a World Cup eSIM for visiting fans, while T-Mobile rolled out new Dynamic CX capabilities on its AI-powered self-organising network and promoted its T-Priority service for first responders.

Opensignal pointed to a Federal Communications Commission spectrum auction in June, a re-auction of mid-band licences previously held by Dish Network, as a key factor shaping future capacity.

On network performance, T-Mobile won best download speed outright at 192.5Mb/s, nearly 97Mb/s ahead of second-placed AT&T at 96Mb/s and Verizon third at 89.4Mb/s.

T-Mobile also led the 5G download speed category at 247.4Mb/s, ahead of AT&T’s 223.5Mb/s and Verizon’s 179.2Mb/s, and swept both upload speed (16 Mb/s) and 5G upload speed (19.2 Mb/s) awards.

In reliability and consistency, T-Mobile won reliability experience with 942 points, narrowly ahead of AT&T’s 939 and Verizon’s 932, and led consistent quality at 82.8%, ahead of Verizon’s 80.4% and AT&T’s 79.4%.

Coverage
Verizon won the coverage experience award outright with 9.7 points out of 10, narrowly ahead of AT&T, while T-Mobile was ranked third, but won 5G coverage with 8.5 points.

AT&T topped time on network at 99.6%, though T-Mobile led 5G Availability at 91.8%, with Verizon closing the gap significantly, up seven percentage points from the prior report.

For video and gaming, T-Mobile won video experience and live video experience, while Verizon took top honours across 5G video experience and 5G live video Experience. T-Mobile also swept both games experience and 5G games experience awards.

All told, T-Mobile won 12 out of the 16 categories.

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AT&T reported a 2.3% year-over-year revenue increase to $31.6 billion in Q2, driven by net adds across fibre, fixed wireless access (FWA) and post-paid phone subscribers.

While slightly below analysts’ estimates, the small increase was driven largely by growth in Advanced Connectivity fibre and wireless revenues, including the impact of AT&T’s first-quarter acquisition of Lumen’s mass markets fibre business.

The operator added more than 1 million Advanced Connectivity customers during the quarter. Advanced Connectivity service revenue grew 5.1% year-over-year to $23.5 billion.

AT&T rolls its fibre broadband, FWA, post-paid phone and business fibre services into its Advanced Connectivity category.

It recorded 646,000 total consumer and business internet net adds, comprised of 367,000 fibre and 279,000 FWA connections, marking a record quarter for combined fibre and fixed wireless additions.

Post-paid phone net adds totalled 432,000 to top analysts’ projections of 338,500, according to FactSet.

AT&T chair and CEO John Stankey (pictured) noted on the earnings call those additions mark the strongest consumer post-paid wireless account growth in more than three years. Post-paid churn of 0.86% was down slightly from 0.87% a year ago.

Stankey has long been a proponent of a converged strategy of wireless and fibre services as a key differentiator for the company.

“At the end of the second quarter, 42.5% of our advanced home Internet customers also have a post-paid wireless account with AT&T,” he said on the earnings call. “This convergence rate reached 45% when excluding customers within our acquired footprint from Lumen.

“These are high lifetime value subscribers, and our strong customer growth is a key driver of our accelerated financial growth during the second quarter,” he added.

The operator added more than 1 million total consumer and business fibre locations, bringing its total to 38.6 million. Stankey said it remains on track to exceed 40 million fibre locations by the end of 2026 and more than 60 million by 2030.

Income from continuing operations rose 3.6% to $5.0 billion, while adjusted EBITDA climbed 5.2% to $12.3 billion.

Stankey stated the results demonstrate the company’s structural advantages heading into the next era of connectivity, and confirmed AT&T is accelerating planned share repurchases to approximately $10 billion this year.

SpaceX
The AT&T chief was asked about forging a wholesale agreement with Elon Musk-owned SpaceX but he stated AT&T does not see a need for satellite service as a core part of its distribution strategy because it already handles more than 98% of traffic across its converged customer network.

“I don’t feel a need right now that I need to have a satellite partner as a main distribution vehicle for me because I don’t think it addresses a part of the market that I can’t get to on my own,” he said.

Stankey pointed to the joint venture AT&T formed with Verizon and T-Mobile US, stating it allows the operators to work with multiple satellite operators, including SpaceX, Amazon, and AST SpaceMobile, for the small percentage of coverage which falls outside their terrestrial networks.

“By the time we get into next year, we will have solved for that other 2% and we will be in the market doing what customers want, which is providing them the assurance that they can buy from one provider and always be on the internet,” he said.

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California state regulators say AT&T lied to the Federal Communications Commission in an attempt to shut off its old copper phone network without providing an adequate replacement.

"AT&T asserts that California seeks to prohibit or hinder wireline carriers from discontinuing copper facilities and investing in fiber," said a June 15 filing by the state of California and the California Public Utilities Commission. "Indeed, AT&T has been making this argument for years. It is not and has never been true."

As we reported last month, AT&T sued California over the state’s refusal to let it stop providing phone service to all potential customers in its wireline network territory. AT&T also petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to declare that California cannot enforce its rules and to let AT&T stop providing service to about 199,000 phone customers.

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AT&T named former McAfee executive Jennifer Biry as its next CFO, replacing Pascal Desroches who is set to retire at the end of the year.

In a regulatory filing, AT&T explained Biry will first take the position of deputy CFO, effective 6 July 2026, before assuming the role as senior EVP and CFO from 1 January 2027.

Biry has served as CFO and COO of security company McAfee since October 2023. Before that, she had a long career at AT&T spanning 22 years in numerous positions across sales, finance and strategy.

As part of this tenure, Biry had an 18-month stint as CFO of WarnerMedia when it was owned by AT&T.

Desroches has been CFO of the US operator for five years, taking on the position in 2021. Before this, he held positions across the WarnerMedia group.

During his time as AT&T’s finance chief Desroches has led a cost cutting drive and moved to simplify the operator’s balance sheet, while taking on major investment in 5G and fibre.

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AT&T Business expanded the reach of its 400G wavelength connectivity into 16 additional US metropolitan areas, extending the service as enterprises face mounting pressure to support AI-era traffic at scale.

With the 400G wavelength edgeless handoff capability now live across 440,000 properties serving more than 2.3 million business tenants, the mobile operator is targeting rapid deployment within 15 days where eligible.

AT&T stated the 400G rollout is designed to connect AI workloads from any location to the cloud, with security embedded in the network rather than added on top.

The company’s edgeless design approach anchors 400G at key interconnection hubs where cloud, network and enterprise traffic converge. It is currently in more than 130 carrier hotel locations nationwide.

The architecture is intended to deliver consistent handoff and predictable performance without requiring traditional network edge builds at every location or data centre.

Amrit Singh, industry principal for information communications technology at Frost & Sullivan, stated AT&T’s wavelength services reflect the infrastructure rigour required for the AI era, citing the company’s fibre reach and a successful 1.6 Tb/s single-carrier wavelength trial.

For enterprises scaling AI across multiple sites, AT&T noted the ability to avoid stitching together multiple smaller circuits as workloads grow is a key benefit for the service.

Branch locations, campuses and edge environments requiring high-capacity connectivity to centralised compute and cloud services are among the primary use cases for the service.

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Cash App's AT&T-based MVNO will offer an unlimited 5G data plan for $40 per month including taxes and fees. The new mobile service is powered by Gigs, the same firm behind the Klarna mobile service that launched last year with the same pricing and is "rolling out to select users, with broader availability planned in the coming months."

Cash App also says it's planning connections to its Cash App Green rewards program and Cash App Families, its setup for managing supervised child and teen accounts.

Cash App Mobile:

Beyond unlimited connectivity: Cash App, the #1 personal finance app in the US2, plans to deepen how Mobile connects to t …

Read the full story at The Verge.

AT&T unveiled a 24-hour unlimited wireless data service for iPad users in the US, available to any customer regardless of their existing operator for a flat daily rate of $3.

The company claimed to be the first major US wireless provider to offer on-demand connectivity for iPad users on a pay-as-you-go basis. The service is for models with mobile and Wi-Fi connectivity capabilities, with the 24-hour data window beginning shortly after purchase.

AT&T explained it is targeting consumers who do not activate mobile connectivity on compatible iPads, pitching the benefit of short-term network access for periods where users are not in Wi-Fi range.

It highlighted ease of use, stating the service is activated in device settings without the need for a dedicated app.

The first day pass is complimentary, with subsequent purchases charged to a credit or debit card.

Josh Goodell, VP of consumer product management, said the goal is to make connectivity simple across the devices people use most.

The operator positioned the launch as part of a broader effort to simplify connectivity and provide flexible options without long-term commitments.

Model compatibility ranges from seventh-generation iPads to the latest Pro and Air models with M3 chips.

AT&T ultimately plans to expand the service to other 5G-enabled devices including Android tablets, smartwatches, laptops and drones.

Multi-day options are also planned.

AT&T noted data rates may be temporarily reduced during periods of network congestion.

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AT&T has introduced a new "Unlimited Day Pass" cellular data offer for iPad users who need brief connectivity instead of signing up for a long-term plan. The day pass is available for $3 in the US starting today, providing 24 hours of unlimited data, with no contracts, subscriptions, or credit checks required.

This offer is available to anyone, including non-AT&T customers, with the 24-hour data activation beginning shortly after purchase. The first day pass is free as part of an introductory deal. There are no caps on speed or data mentioned in AT&T's announcement, but the company says it may "temporarily slow data speeds if the network is …

Read the full story at The Verge.

Interview: AT&T completed a controlled introduction phase of its cloud RAN deployment, with roughly 25 sites running live traffic on Intel’s Sapphire Rapids processors as it plans to aggressively scale deployment when Intel’s next-generation Granite platform arrives over the coming months.

The Sapphire deployment is currently handling the TDD layers of the network, which represent the largest share of traffic, but not yet the full stack.

Rob Soni (pictured), VP of the operator’s RAN architecture, told Mobile World Live (MWL) Granite, which is already in AT&T’s labs, will enable a full stack covering FDD, TDD, NR and LTE from a single server design.

“This is all coming in phased pieces through the fall and early next year,” he said. “We plan to scale more aggressively on Granite than we did on Sapphire.”

He said AT&T expects to move from a few hundred Sapphire sites to thousands on Granite through 2026 and into 2028.

Performance on the Sapphire sites is matching traditional RAN on call drop rates and throughput, Soni said, and the team is beginning to utilise the platform’s promise of faster feature delivery.

The leading example is AI-driven link adaptation, developed with Ericsson, which replaces rules-based scheduling algorithms with a deep neural network.

Trials are showing roughly 10% gains in spectrum efficiency and 15% improvements in individual user throughput, with further benefits expected as AT&T tunes the global Ericsson model to its own network morphology.

“We’ve done a lot of trailing with the kind of global model of Ericsson,” Soni explained. “We’re now in the process of tuning the model to the AT&T morphology, the AT&T usage. That will change the nature, and we expect there to be more gain.”

Halfway point

In cellular networks, Soni stated a base station must determine on every transmission frame which users to serve, what modulation and coding scheme to use and how to balance competing demands across the spectrum.

It is a computationally intense optimisation problem, and the traditional approach has been to encode engineering judgment into static rule sets. The AI model Ericsson developed learns from network behaviour and adapts more fluidly to changing conditions.

Link adaptation is a critical algorithm for determining the overall multiple user performance in a cellular network,” he stated.

Rival T-Mobile US stated in May 2026 it is also trialling Ericsson’s AI-native scheduler with link adaptation on live 5G-Advanced traffic, but Soni noted AT&T has been trialling it since December 2025.

Soni told MWL AT&T is just past the halfway point for switching out Nokia’s RAN gear for Ericsson’s as part of a five year plan to transition 70% of its network traffic to run on open platforms by end of year.

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AT&T deepened its partnership with EV maker Rivian, confirming its 5G network will power connectivity inside its R2 model, which is slated for availability from 9 June.

The collaboration builds on a relationship dating to 2023, when AT&T became the connectivity provider for Rivian vehicles across the US and Canada.

With the R2 coming to market, the arrangement expands to cover the automaker’s next-generation platform, ensuring its more affordable mass-market model arrives with the same always-on network backbone as its predecessors.

The operator stated its 5G infrastructure will support faster over-the-air software updates, richer infotainment and real-time services which enable the R2 to improve performance and personalisation over time.

“Connectivity is increasingly central to how vehicles are designed, delivered, and improved,” stated Matt Harden, VP of connected solutions at AT&T.

At an automaker technology conference in the US state of Michigan, AT&T also revealed an expansion of its connected car platform in collaboration with Cisco and LiveOne, the parent of Slacker Radio.

The three-way arrangement is designed to simplify how automakers integrate premium entertainment into connected vehicles. AT&T’s wireless network provides the backbone, Cisco contributes multi-party billing infrastructure through its SIM management platform, and LiveOne will be supplying personalised audio content ranging from curated playlists to live programming.

Rather than requiring each automaker to negotiate separate connectivity deals with individual content providers, AT&T noted its platform acts as a single integration layer.

LiveOne joins existing AT&T partners including iM Media Labs and SiriusXM as part of a content ecosystem now reaching more than 60 of the world’s top automotive brands.

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