AT&T delivers on U-Verse rollout promise

“I’m a big believer that history tends to repeat itself,” Stankey said. “When you are successful and making money, which we think we are on a path to do here, that tends to drive that decision.”

Going forward, another primary focus for AT&T will be on unifying its broadband and wireless business units with the TV division, according to Stankey. Going back to its BellSouth and Cingular acquisitions, consumers have long stressed the desire to make it easier to do business with their communications provider. Both on the enterprise and consumer side, this means one bill, one customer care line and other basic adjustments to simplify the relationship. This was where AT&T had a gap, Stankey said, but it is looking towards changing that through methodically taking steps in that direction.

“This is the next logical step for us,” Stankey said. “One consumer-facing organization and one business-facing organization with the shared services and infrastructure and the power of the AT&T network behind those organizations. That’s the structure we have before us. It is the next logical step of integration that we set out to do at the time of that transaction. It’s a little different kind of integration. It’s not the low-hanging fruit kind. It tends to get more into work processes and operations and information technology, but it’s the one that we’re about right now.”

Stankey outlined five underpinnings of moving in this direction, including one AT&T service experience for customers who call in, eliminating duplication in expenses across the entire business, leveraging distribution, deploying capital more efficiently and get a faster pace on delivering simple to use, integrated services customer expect over time.

With regard to the challenging economy and steep headcount reductions last week, Stankey just said that AT&T runs a big business with a huge supply chain so he expects to see benefits year over year from saved energy costs, material and moderated supply costs from consumption, commodities and raw materials. On the wireless front, AT&T is focused on transforming its mobile data business and today closed its acquisition of hotspot provider Wayport, giving it the largest WiFi network in the US.

“Our wireless business and enterprise is only poised for greater growth given the strength of our footprint and relationship with Fortune 500 companies,” Stankey said. “While it’s going to be a tough cycle in 2009, we understand that we have great drivers in growth that will also support the business.”