With earnings season getting underway and the major wireless carriers set to report results starting with Verizon July 25, AT&T was down 4.10% Friday to $14.50/share after J.P. Morgan analyst Philip Cusick downgraded the company. "Based on recent commentary from management lowering estimates for wireless (in May and again in June) and broadband (in June), we believe AT&T is facing marginally more pressure in Mobility (from Verizon, T-Mobile, and cable) and Consumer Wireline (from cable, [fixed wireless access]) as well as ongoing pressures in Business Wireline," Cusick told investors. He predicted AT&T will grow its postpaid subscriber base by 2.5% this year, compared with 4.7% in 2021 and 3.5% in 2022. Cusick lowered his rating on AT&T to neutral from overweight and cut his per-share price target to $17 from $22. AT&T Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches warned last month the carrier expects net postpaid phone adds in the 300,000 range this quarter, compared with 424,000 in Q1 (see 2306200026). Meanwhile, Finland's Nokia cut its annual outlook Friday, and Sweden’s Ericsson reported lower quarterly profits due to a slowdown in consumer spending. Nokia now projects $26 billion-$27.6 billion in sales this year, down from $27.6 billion-$29.4 billion. “The weaker demand outlook in the second half is due to both the macro-economic environment and customers’ inventory digestion,” Nokia said: “Customer spending plans are increasingly impacted by high inflation and rising interest rates along with some projects now slipping to 2024 -- notably in North America. There is also inventory normalization happening at customers after the supply chain challenges of the past two years.” Ericsson reported overall sales dropped 9% year-over-year as it lost $67.2 million, primarily due to restructuring charges. The company cited a “sharp decline in sales in North America … partly offset by strong sales" in India, which is now deploying 5G. “As we've said before, 2023 is a choppy year and Q2 developed much in line with our expectations and what we have said to the market,” CEO Borje Ekholm told analysts. India “continued its strong development and network rollout, and by delivering a record build-out, we now have the leading market share” there, he said: “As expected, we saw a softening in other markets, primarily front-running 5G markets and that includes, of course, North America.” Ekholm noted world data traffic continues to grow. “In addition, we see that 3/4ths of all base station sites outside of China are not yet updated with 5G mid-band, so this, in combination with the migration to 5G stand-alone, will basically continue to drive the need for investments in 5G networks,” he said. Ericsson expects a “gradual recovery” in late 2023, with improvements next year.

Incompas held Wednesday's webinar on international Section 214 licenses (see 2307120069).

Astound Broadband is expanding the footprint of its Astound Mobile service to cover roughly 4 million homes in 12 states, including the Greater New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Houston and Dallas markets, it said Wednesday. Astound Mobile operates via a mobile virtual network operator agreement with T-Mobile. The company said it plans to launch Astound Mobile Business later this year.

Residential phone service costs in the U.S. in June rose 5.9% over last year, and cable, satellite and livestreaming TV service costs were up 4.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics consumer price index unadjusted data out Wednesday. Wireless phone service costs were down 0.7% year over year, but internet was up 3.3%. Smartphones prices dropped 16.1%, and computers, peripherals and smart home assistants fell 5.2%, it said. June prices overall were up 3% year over year before seasonal adjustment, BLS said.

AI is hot, as evidenced by the number of mentions on 71 Q1 earnings calls analyzed by LightShed, analyst Walter Piecyk told investors Tuesday. “Mentions of AI or related terms doubled in Q1 to 319 times and was mentioned on nearly half the calls we tracked,” the firm said: “That’s up from 155 times on just over a quarter of the calls we tracked in Q4. This has far surpassed any buzzword we have previously tracked. Google and Meta accounted for one-third of the mentions.” Mention of inflation on quarterly calls “has declined dramatically in the last two quarters,” LightShed found. The term was mentioned in 3% of calls monitored by LightShed in Q1, compared with 62% in Q2 of last year. Recession was mentioned in 23% of calls, up from 14% the previous quarter, but that’s lower than the 32% in Q2 of 2022, LightShed said.

Satellite-delivered supplemental mobile coverage from space could have as many as 200 million connections by 2031, ABI Research said Thursday. It said notable revenue growth will come from services based on the 5G-based NR-NTN communications standard, which is expected to be introduced in 2026.

Charter Communications' advertised broadband speed claims challenged by Frontier Communications aren't misleading, the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Review Board said Thursday. The finding reverses a BBB National Advertising Division finding that recommended Charter qualify its speed claims. NARB said a majority of its panel, which is the appellate advertising body, found the challenged speed claims made by Charter don't mislead reasonable consumers.

APCO named Melvin Maier its new CEO Friday, replacing Derek Poarch, former FCC Public Safety Bureau chief who has led the group since 2011. Maier was APCO chief technology officer and previously was vice chair of the FirstNet Public Safety Advisory Committee. He's current chair of the Next Generation 9-1-1 Coalition. Maier joined APCO last year, after 32 years in law enforcement, most recently as a captain and chief of public safety communications for the Oakland County, Michigan, Sheriff’s Office. APCO said it did “an exhaustive and competitive nationwide search involving more than 200 applicants.” Poarch will stay on “over the next several months to ensure a smooth transition” and will remain CEO until he leaves. Maier becomes executive director immediately and will add the CEO title when Poarch departs, APCO said. Poarch and his team have grown APCO "in monumental and unprecedented ways," said Angela Batey, APCO president and a public safety instructor in Georgia.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals approved a request Thursday for an en banc rehearing of Consumers' Research's challenge of the FCC's method for funding the USF. In March, a three-judge panel ruled unanimously against Consumers' Research, saying the FCC "has not violated the private nondelegation doctrine because it wholly subordinates" the Universal Service Administrative Co., and Congress "supplied the FCC with intelligible principles when it tasked the agency with overseeing" USF (see 2303240049).

The person who told the FCC that direct broadcast satellite wholesale services provider Spectrum Five was dropping its complaint against Intelsat had no right or authority to do so, Spectrum Five lender BIU told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in a petition for review last week (docket 23-1163). BIU said it's FCC precedent to take back actions that were initiated by a party lacking proper authority, and the unauthorized withdrawal of the petition "amounts to a fraud on the Commission itself." Spectrum Five's 2020 petition, which it withdrew in April (see 2304130048), sought revocation of the Intelsat 30 and Intelsat 31 satellite licenses for willful violations of license terms. BIU said it received no response to a June 9 letter to the Enforcement Bureau asking that 2020 petition be reinstated. In that letter, BIU said the withdrawal of the 2020 petition and the subsequent bureau order dismissing the petition "were procured by fraud." It said the person representing himself as a senior officer of Spectrum Five had given BIU sole authority to withdraw the petition. In withdrawing the petition himself, BIU said, "we ... must assume that he was compensated by a party-in-interest in the proceeding to do so -- that is, he was bribed." Our calls to an Austin number for Spectrum Five weren't answered. The FCC didn't comment.