AT&T CEO John Stankey (pictured) outlined the advantages he sees over the potential threat of a direct-to-device (D2D) service by SpaceX during a Q3 earnings call, which included much more low-band spectrum, a scaled network and the ability to penetrate buildings with its mobile service.

During yesterday’s (20 October) SpaceX earnings call, president Gwynne Shotwell said the low-band spectrum her company agreed to buy earlier this month can be paired with Wi-Fi for mobile connectivity indoors, along with devices in towers and Starlink installs across businesses and consumers’ homes.

Shotwell said Wi-Fi accounts for the vast majority of mobile connectivity, estimating its share at between 85% and 93% without providing details on how portals and passwords will be used.

“There are significant loads, even with robust Wi-Fi networks, that are out there,” AT&T’s Stankey countered on the operator’s own financial call today (21 October). “I think it takes a lot of years and a huge level of investment to get to the kind of performance levels that customers have become accustomed to in scaled networks that are running on the infrastructure that most of the incumbent providers have today.”

SpaceX has touted the nationwide low-band spectrum portfolio it bought from Grain Management as the means to enable in-building penetration for its D2D service, which Musk said yesterday will generate billions of dollars in revenue on a yearly basis.

“I wouldn’t over-rotate on what I would call one carrier of low-band spectrum,” Stankey said. “Let’s put this in perspective.”

By contrast, Stankey said AT&T operates six to eight carriers of low-band spectrum, deploying it not only at macro sites but also across every indoor building system in high-rises, hospitals and stadiums.

“We’ve got the scale where the scale matters,” he said. “98% of the traffic is where we’ve already built and where we already have capabilities and customers have become accustomed to a level of service that is pretty high.”

He added: “I feel really good about where we’re at.”

Q3 metrics
AT&T revenue grew 5.3% to $32.3 billion in the quarter ended 30 September, up from $30.7 billion a year ago.

Total service revenue increased 3.8%, its best consolidated growth in more than four years, reaching $26.3 billion. Wireless, fibre and the Lumen mass markets fibre business all contributed. Equipment revenue rose 12.1% year-on-year to $6 billion.

Income from continuing operations came in at $1.3 billion compared with $9.7 billion in the year-ago quarter, which benefited from the DirecTV transaction gain.

Post-paid phone net adds were 379,000, down 6.4% from 405,000 a year ago, with churn flat. The post-paid phone base now stands at 75.283 million, up 2%. Prepaid phone lost 21,000 customers.

Consumer and business internet net additions rose 25.4% to a record 769,000 from 613,000 a year earlier. Fibre net additions increased to 442,000 from 309,000, while fixed wireless access additions climbed to 327,000 from 304,000.

Total internet connections increased 29.3% to 16.2 million. Combined with phone additions, this pushed AT&T’s Advanced Connectivity net additions above 1 million for the second consecutive quarter. Advanced Connectivity service revenue reached $23.9 billion, up 6.1%.

AT&T added approximately 350,000 converged customers, with 42.8% of households using its fibre or Internet Air service also taking its mobile service.

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SpaceX plans to turn on its direct-to-device (D2D) service in early 2028 after launching the second generation Starlink Mobile constellation during 2027 and integrating spectrum it is acquiring.

On its Q3 earnings call, president Gwynne Shotwell said the low-band spectrum SpaceX agreed to buy earlier this month and the Federal Communications Commission’s approval to launch 15,000 next generation V2 birds “pave the way for Starlink Mobile to become a major mobile carrier in the US”.

On 8 October, SpaceX struck a deal to buy up to 14MHz of paired spectrum in the 800MHz band to support its plans. The agreement with Grain Management is expected to close in the first half of 2027, subject to regulatory approval.

Shotwell indicated comments on the previous quarter’s call covered smaller radios for the D2D service, which she described as not quite tower capable, that SpaceX could place on homes and businesses where Starlink is already installed.

“So, it’s not just the spectrum that we’ve talked about with the S-band,” she said on yesterday’s (20 October) earnings call. “We will basically leverage the real estate from Starlink installs and other towers.”

SpaceX plans to pair its satellites with ground-based radios to provide 5G mobile coverage, a plan many executives in the industry consider far-fetched.

When asked about the roles the satellite and terrestrial networks will play for the D2D service, CEO Elon Musk said a more detailed presentation may be needed to explain Starlink’s connectivity strategy and why the company believes it could eventually generate several hundred billion dollars in annual revenue.

“You are missing some of the pieces that we know about internally,” he said. “I can say we do see a clear path to several hundred billion dollars a year in connectivity revenue, but I think we should probably describe that in more detail in a forum that’s not limited to a few minutes at an earnings call.”

Q3 numbers
SpaceX reported net income of $4.4 billion for Q3 (ending 30 September), compared with a $1.1 billion loss a year earlier, as revenue more than doubled to $14.6 billion, driven largely by its AI business.

It was the company’s second earnings report since its June stock market listing. Revenue was up 161% year-on-year.

The Super Intelligence segment, previously reported as AI, accounted for around $6.7 billion of the roughly $9 billion increase, with revenue rising to $7.6 billion from $813 million. SpaceX attributed the segment’s growth to new cloud services agreements, the Cursor acquisition and growing use of Grok.

Income from operations was $2.8 billion, compared with a $273 million loss a year ago, and adjusted EBITDA was $8.8 billion, up 306%.

Connectivity revenue rose 69% to $5.2 billion and operating income climbed 99% to $2.4 billion.

Starlink had 13.6 million consumer broadband subscribers, up 1.6 million in the quarter and from 7.2 million in Q3 2025.

For its direct-to-device service, Shotwell said Starlink Mobile surpassed 22 million monthly users at the end of the quarter, up 37% from the previous quarter.

SpaceX remains loss-making for the year to date, with a nine-month net loss of $413 million.

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Descubre cómo habría cambiado la historia si JFK hubiera sobrevivido al atentado de Dallas y qué consecuencias pudo tener para Estados Unidos y el mundo.

Apple added a US titanium supplier for the iPhone Duo, committing up to $100 million to Pennsylvania-based Perryman Company while expanding domestic production of camera technology for the iPhone 18 Pro.

As part of its American Manufacturing Program (AMP), Apple said today (20 October) the deal with Perryman is over the next three years for titanium used in its products, including the iPhone Duo, which starts at $1,999.

The announcement follows reports of tight supply for Apple’s first foldable. The phone is due in stores on 23 October, but online delivery estimates slipped to January 2027 within minutes of preorders opening on 16 October.

Apple stated Perryman will melt, forge, and roll grade 5 titanium, which it said will contain at least 80% recycled material. Titanium is used for the Duo’s enclosure, providing durability, according to the iPhone maker.

It is also expanding its partnership with Qnity Electronics, headquartered in the US state of Delaware, to produce technology for the new variable aperture in the iPhone 18 Pro camera system.

Apple said nearly 100 components used in the iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro, from wireless chips to the silicon which powers key functions across the devices, are produced by US companies across more than a dozen states.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s (TSMC) Arizona plant will produce more than 100 million chips for Apple in 2026, while ​Corning’s Kentucky facility ​will make ⁠all cover glass for iPhones and Apple Watches sold worldwide by year end.

Apple also highlighted investments with other AMP partners, including Broadcom for US-made chips and Amkor Technology, which is building a semiconductor packaging and testing facility in Peoria, Arizona.

“We’re thrilled to expand our work with companies producing advanced materials and components for our newest iPhone lineup right here in America,” stated Apple COO Sabih Khan.

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Globalstar secured US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval for its next-generation C-3 satellite system as Amazon prepares to acquire the company.

The FCC granted nationwide authority to operate the system, which is designed to connect hundreds of millions of mobile devices in the US, including through direct-to-device (D2D) links to smartphones. The order also covers ground station antennas in Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada, Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico.

The approval strengthens the regulatory position of an asset central to Amazon’s effort to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink for D2D services.

C-3 will comprise 48 low Earth orbit birds at an altitude of 1,414 kilometres, along with six in-orbit spares and about 90 six-metre ground antennas worldwide. MDA Space is building the satellites in Canada, while control centres in Toulouse, France and at Globalstar’s Louisiana headquarters will oversee operations. France filed the system’s notification with the ITU.

CEO Paul Jacobs described the approval as a key step in improving the capacity, performance and flexibility of Globalstar’s services. Regulatory affairs chief Barbee Ponder said it concluded a multi-year licensing process with the FCC’s Space Bureau.

In April, Amazon agreed to acquire the satellite company for $11.6 billion as part of a push to add D2D services to its Amazon Leo constellation. The deal is expected to close in 2027, subject to regulatory approval and Globalstar meeting specified satellite milestones.

In July, Amazon Leo applied to the FCC in July for permission to deploy up to 5,105 satellites for direct-to-device services.

As of October, Amazon communications manager Zack Brown said the company had 396 LEO satellites in orbit and had built more than 1,000 at its 172,000-square-foot production facility in Kirkland, Washington.

Apple is a long-term Globalstar partner and has invested more than $1 billion in the company. Globalstar’s existing fleet supports iPhone satellite features including emergency texting, messaging, roadside assistance and location sharing.

Amazon also signed a separate agreement to provide satellite connectivity for current and future iPhones and Apple Watches, and committed to maintaining those services.

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Trees are suffering one devastating epidemic after another, unleashed by insects and bacteria that enter the country because of global trade.

Long time Boingo Wireless executive Derek Peterson (pictured) revealed on LinkedIn he has joined AST SpaceMobile as CTO, Enterprise & Platforms while also leading the satellite player’s CIO and CSO functions.

Peterson was at Boingo Wireless for 15 years, most recently as CTO Emeritus and strategic advisor after serving as CTO, CIO, COO, CSO and CPO at the wireless company for over 14 years.

In his new role at AST, he will lead enterprise IT, platforms, infrastructure, corporate networks and cybersecurity, including the CIO and CSO functions, and building the US software team while driving Wi-Fi and OpenRoaming integration.

“Connecting a regular phone straight to a satellite is the piece that completes the convergence picture,” he stated on LinkedIn. “I’ve spent my career chasing seamless connectivity, and I’m excited to join an innovative team that’s building it from space

AST SpaceMobile previously projected 45 to 60 of its next-generation satellites would launch this year for its direct-to-device service but is now targeting having approximately 45 in orbit by early 2027.

The delay was revealed in a Securities and Exchange Commission regulatory filing tied to a $1 billion notes offering and followed a serious setback to one of its two main launch partners.

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Tyrannosaurs sit at the top of the food chain in the popular imagination, but a newly described fossil from Alberta, Canada, suggests that a much smaller predator may have fed on the carcass of Albertosaurus sarcophagus, a tyrannosaur relative.

The post Small Raptors Likely Feasted on Fallen Tyrannosaur, Fossil Bite Marks Suggest appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Fossils from Montana show a small oviraptorosaur with a jaw that slid front to back, a feature shared with fruit-eating parrots.

The post Small, Chicken-Like Dinosaur May Have Had a Jaw Built for Fruit appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Meta Platforms added fresh podcast tools to its Threads social media service to simplify promotion and boost listener retention.

The features include profile banners and posts to help listeners find shows.

Podcasters can also feature their favourite episode and highlight links to others.

Transcription, video and guest detail tools are also being added, along with the ability to save posts to access later.

An opt-in reminder prompts producers to alert listeners when a new episode is published.

Podcast Insights offers metrics on audience reach and engagement including the number of clicks, saves and views dissected into followers, non-followers and overall audience.

Meta Platforms recently revealed Threads had reached 500 million monthly active users.

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OpenAI reportedly confirmed it discussed AI safety with rivals Anthropic and Google DeepMind for several weeks, at a time of concern over the risks posed by increasingly capable models.

Chris Lehane, OpenAI global policy chief, told CNBC the AI start-up does not believe the companies require an antitrust waiver to coordinate on safety, arguing collaboration was preferable to pursuing separate approaches.

Speaking in Washington DC yesterday (15 September), Lehane added OpenAI would support bipartisan legislation to mitigate catastrophic AI risks.

Google DeepMind and Anthropic did not respond to CNBC requests for comment, leaving OpenAI as the only company to confirm the discussions.

Slowdown
The reported discussions come after several industry leaders publicly called for a slower pace of frontier AI development.

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei argued in an essay published on 12 September that frontier laboratories should deliberately slow capability gains. He warned a swarm of increasingly capable AI agents could take over the internet through a persistent botnet within six- to 12-months.

Amodei proposed embedding independent evaluators inside AI laboratories, adopting common safety standards among developers in democratic countries and pursuing international regulatory coordination.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed the call to pace frontier development, describing independent evaluators with employee-like access as “a great idea” and saying OpenAI would adopt the same approach. He later clarified that pacing did not mean stopping development.

Altman also ruled out an OpenAI public listing in 2026, telling Fortune that safety concerns made it an ill-advised time for an initial public offering.

Trump dismisses AI slowdown
US President Donald Trump rejected calls for a slowdown, saying “very negative forces” were exaggerating the risks and arguing the US needed to preserve its AI lead over China.

China also brushed off the proposal. Its foreign ministry urged an “open, inclusive and benevolent approach” to AI, while state-run Global Times described Amodei’s plan as a “Cold War playbook” intended to contain the country’s ambitions.

OpenAI stated the cross-company discussions began before Amodei published his essay and before a former Anthropic researcher resigned publicly over the approach taken by leading AI laboratories.

The discussions follow a July proposal by Google DeepMind chair Demis Hassabis for a US-led frontier AI standards body modelled on the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

Hassabis proposed a public-private body funded by industry and staffed by independent technical experts to evaluate advanced models before release.

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Paleontologists have identified a new species of ancient, distant mammal relative from two fossil specimens found decades apart in the Manda Beds of Tanzania.

The post New Dicynodont Species from Tanzania Suggests Younger Age for Rocks Tied to Earliest Dinosaurs appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Accenture agreed to pay the US government $25 million to settle allegations it used race and sex as factors in hiring and promotion decisions at its federal services business.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) alleged Accenture Federal Services (AFS) falsely certified it was complying with anti-discrimination requirements attached to federal contracts while using race and sex in employment decisions from 2017 onwards.

The government claim AFS “took race or sex into account when making hiring decisions to achieve progress toward non-public workforce composition goals”. According to the DoJ, AFS provided business leaders with monthly reports summarising the percentage of each race and sex within the unit to show how closely the workforce matched representation targets.

“These demographic goals were designed to, and did, drive changes in hiring practices based on race and sex,” the DoJ argued, adding the targets prompted a round of entry-level recruitment at the company in late 2020 and early 2021.

It also stated candidates who advanced AFS’ demographic goals received additional visibility during managing director promotion discussions and that the company reserved access to some training, mentoring, leadership development and education programmes based on race or sex.

The agreement added the settlement was not an admission of liability.

An Accenture spokesperson told Reuters: “We have cooperated with the government’s review, and we are pleased to put ⁠this ​matter behind us to avoid the costs ​and resource demands of prolonged litigation.”

The Donald Trump administration has taken aim at DEI practices across the federal government and its contractors. Deloitte agreed to pay $21.5 million in August, while IBM agreed to a $17 million settlement in April over allegations concerning illegal DEI practices.

Last year, US operators T-Mobile US, Verizon and AT&T ended or scaled back diversity initiatives.

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Amazon Prime Video launched short-form news clips, expanding its offering with on-demand coverage of local and national stories.

News Clips is currently available through the dedicated news section in the Prime Video app on living-room devices. The playlists appear in the Trending Topics and Local News carousels, with mobile and web support due to follow.

The tech giant stated each playlist brings together reports from multiple news providers, allowing users to follow a developing topic without watching a live channel or full-length programme.

The service is open to all Amazon customers in the US, regardless of whether they have a Prime membership. It sits alongside free, 24-hour local, national and international news feeds.

Brian Griffin, head of global app experience at Prime Video, stated customers coming to Prime Video for news could previously only watch breaking coverage live or tune into full-length on-demand programmes.

He explained News Clips gives them a quick way to catch up on stories from their neighbourhood and around the world when they cannot watch live.

News Clips extends Amazon’s push to broaden Prime Video beyond entertainment into sport and news. In May, the company expanded Clips, its scrollable short-form mobile feed, to feature moments from films, series and National Basketball Association (NBA) coverage.

According to TechCrunch, Prime Video is not the first streamer to add short-form news content. Peacock introduced the format in March, followed by HBO Max and Netflix in July, then Disney+ in August.

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Paleontologists from Fundación Dinópolis have identified the first confirmed fossils of the genus Diplodocus found outside North America.

The post Diplodocus, Long Thought Exclusively American, Turns Up in Spain appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Ciena launched a new corporate venture capital programme with an initial $200 million commitment, aimed at investing in early-stage companies and venture funds shaping AI-driven networking.

The Ciena Ventures fund targets network infrastructure and operations, next-generation data centre architectures, and optical networking and interconnects.

It will also invest in adjacent areas including computing, materials and emerging communications technologies, complementing the vendor’s existing R&D and acquisition strategy.

David Rothenstein, EVP and CSO for Ciena, stated the fund gives the company another vehicle for executing its long-term strategy and capital allocation priorities as AI reshapes the networking landscape.

He said investing through Ciena Ventures will strengthen the wider innovation ecosystem, expand visibility into emerging technologies and help Ciena evolve its portfolio into adjacent markets.

The programme is led by Loai Louis, Ciena’s VP of corporate development, and marks the company’s first corporate venture capital initiative.

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Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman issued calls to slow the pace of frontier AI development, arguing safety measures must keep up with increasingly capable models.

“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei stressed in an essay, adding that “AI has been advancing drastically faster” due to “recursive self-improvement”. “Left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems,” he warned.

The Anthropic chief pointed to a July incident involving an OpenAI hack on Hugging Face, arguing a more capable system could have caused “catastrophic damage”

“Given the accelerating rate of AI capability development, it’s my worry that in six-12 months such a swarm could be capable of taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet,” he cautioned.

Amodei proposed a three-step framework to pace frontier AI, including permanent, embedded third-party evaluators with employee-like access to frontier AI companies, common safety standards among AI developers in democratic countries and global regulatory coordination.

Act responsibility
In a post on social media platform X, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed the proposal, stating independent evaluators were “a great idea” and confirmed the company would also implement the approach. “The world deserves confidence that American companies developing increasingly capable AI will act responsibly,” he said.

Altman further explained that “when we talk about ‘pacing’, we do not mean ‘stopping’,” adding “no amount of American competitive pressure should justify recklessness, or let capabilities get ahead of alignment and monitoring”.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also offered a brief endorsement, posting: “Dario is right”.

Concerns have been mounting across the world over the behaviour of increasingly capable autonomous systems. Last week, Anthropic disclosed attempts by threat actors to misuse its Claude models for activities including cyberattacks, surveillance and weapons development.

Days earlier, Anthropic alignment researcher Evan Hubinger issued a dire warning stating there was a greater than 10% chance increasingly capable AI could “kill all humans” within the next decade.

Geopolitical dominance
US President Donald Trump rejected the calls for a slowdown. Speaking to reporters, he said: “I think you have a lot of very negative ⁠forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up and they’re bringing up things that won’t ​happen.”

“We’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins,” he argued.

China’s government also pushed back. According to Reuters, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called for “an open, inclusive ​and benevolent approach ⁠to AI”, warning that “fomenting various threats, engaging in confrontation and malicious competition will only disrupt the process of global governance”.

The country’s state-backed newspaper Global Times also published an editorial describing Amodei’s proposal as a “Cold War playbook” targeting China’s AI development and “geopolitical dominance”.

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Paleontologists have identified a new species of extinct alligatorid that lived in what is now Colorado just a few hundred thousand years after the asteroid impact that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs.

The post Ancient Alligator Relative Lived Right After Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.

Mid-sized and large US enterprises face a widening gap in operational stability, with nine out of 10 organisations failing to detect third-party or supply chain disruptions until operations are actively impacted.

According to research from Economist Enterprise supported by AT&T Business, enterprise resilience strategies fall short where network connections, vendor systems and rapid digital deployments intersect.

The company surveyed 1,020 senior technology and operations executives to evaluate modern operational risks. The research identifies five key areas where resilience strategies are falling short of disruption risks.

The study found resilience priorities do not match disruption realities. Cybersecurity receives the largest share of spending, even though over one-third of the organisations cite third-party and supply chain failures as the primary driver of their most significant disruptions.

It also found trust stands in for verification. Over half of respondents assess the resilience of critical technology suppliers based on market reputation or assurances rather than empirical evidence or rigorous technical testing.

While larger companies have more resources, they also have more ground to cover. Despite having bigger budgets and specialised talent, only 5% of large enterprises avoided a major technology incident over the past year, compared to 27% of mid-market firms, largely due to legacy infrastructure and complex ecosystems.

Survey results indicate that AI adoption is moving faster than resilience preparation. Although relatively few (4%) companies identified AI or automation failures as the cause of their most significant disruption, the research shows organisations further along the AI adoption curve have already experienced at least one AI-related incident last year. Overall, preparedness for AI-related risks remains behind many other resilience capabilities.

It also found highly resilient organisations actively learn from past incidents, maintain clear executive ownership and regularly test recovery plans. While most companies practice cyber response, only 15% rehearse for wider geopolitical or supply chain disruptions.

Key
Zee Hussain, SVP of Global Enterprise Solutions at AT&T Business, emphasised technology resilience has evolved beyond traditional IT management into a core business strategy.

“Organisations that invest in visibility, resilient connectivity, and recovery readiness are better positioned to maintain customer trust, respond to disruption, and adapt to change,” he stated.

The findings are based on an Economist Enterprise survey of executives at mid-sized and large US enterprises across seven sectors, conducted between June and July 2026.

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Paleontologists in Montana have discovered remarkably preserved feathers of an ancient aquatic bird inside a fossilized dinosaur dropping, offering rare insight into why certain birds survived the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

The post Exceptionally Preserved Bird Feathers Found in 66-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Coprolite appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.