Fibertower Corp fka FBBT

[wirelessman77]

Fibertower is a HUGE priority for AT&T

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4074190-ts-t-management-presents-4th-annual-moffettnathanson-media-and-communications-summit-results?part=single

Craig Eder Moffett

Let's talk about network densification and particularly the path to 5G for a minute. You looked at Straight Path, decided not to chase it. How confident are you – you've got your FiberTower spectrum and you have some spectrum, but how confident are you in the millimeter wave business as a business plan? Have you seen enough yet to give you confidence that there's a real return on investment there for building out the density that's going to be required at the spectrum adds?

John Stephens

Yes. So let me say it this way, we're extremely confident of our overall wireless network strategy. For us, it's a comprehensive strategy. It doesn't just rely on millimeter wave working or not working. It's comprehensive. It's the deep spectrum position we have, it's the deep fiber. We have more fiber out there than I think anybody based on our Legacy business, it’s based on what we're doing with fiber-to-the-prem, based on the number of businesses just passed. It's based on all of it.

So the millimeter wave is an important piece to it. Our FiberTower holdings – opportunity for FiberTower holdings because we don't have FCC approval yet. But we do think we're going to get a meaningful footprint out of that at a very, very attractive price that will allow us to build out in the 30-gigahertz space. You guys can look at the filings. They have somewhere under license, somewhere in the, just under 400 megahertz nationwide. So we'll work through – they've got some challenges that they'll work through in the FCC, we're encouraged that we’ll get a meaningful footprint to build off of.

But we – our strategy doesn't just rely on that. We can get fiber-to-the-home with Airgig – excuse me, broadband-to-the-home with Airgig. We can get broadband-to-the-home with fiber. We can get broadband-to-the-home with fixed wireless local loop. When you think about most of the nonurban areas of the country and you think about the low-band spectrum we're going to have in service, there's going to be a tremendous mobile broadband speed capabilities that you can get from that process. So we're optimistic about millimeter wave helping. I think it's small cells backhaul, will be very good.

I think getting 5G not necessarily the no way the 5G into the core network will be very, very helpful. We will see how millimeter wave, as a broadband replacement to the home, works out. We're interested in it because we’ve got so much local footprint that we can leverage off of that millimeter wave to the home and offload it on to our own network, making owners’ economics really sensible. The challenge for others is if you don't own that network, you have to pay freight to somebody on that and that's what causes it.

So we love for it to work for us because we're in the best economic position, but it's not our only game. The network team has done a great job of having multiple choices in this ongoing trip or ongoing path to the best – continuing in the best quality, highest speed, deepest network.

Craig Eder Moffett

I know with a huge transaction like Time Warner on your plate, it's hard to as a CFO to even imagine what comes next. But we already hear people talking about, well, what about the synergies that could come from the satellite business with DISH Network or more content? Or is there a sort of – how do you think about the different options that come after Time Warner?

John Stephens

So the first thing is probably paying down some debt. That's the first thing. That's the thing that comes first. And we have a great tremendous cash-generation machine, where we can buy these assets. So let me get that, first that will be our focus. But if you look at things like what comes next? Well, quite frankly, we need to get through the FiberTower and work through it in a very respectable manner the FCC to get approval for that, then we will move to that auction that is going to be coming up probably, here hopefully by the end of 2018, but certainly, really

Craig Eder Moffett

The millimeter wave ..

John Stephens

Yes. I look at 1400 megahertz of spectrum auction at offer. I would assume that anybody who buy a Straight Path would be interested in buying any more may be limited, so that participation that will give us an easy path to finish that off. You can think of things like that, it's a very easy, doable.