AT&T: On Track for 8 Million Fiber Locations This Year, 60 Million in 2030
Company adds 221,000 fixed wireless, 283,000 fiber subs in Q4 2025
WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2026 – AT&T is planning to expand its fiber footprint by 8 million locations in 2026, the company said Wednesday. That number includes AT&T’s pending acquisition of Lumen assets and locations served by the carrier’s Gigapower joint venture.
That would put the company at 40 million fiber passings, two-thirds of the way to its goal of 60 million passings by the end of 2030. AT&T CEO John Stankey said the company planned to expand its fiber footprint by 5 million locations annually after 2026 through the end of the decade, the pace needed to meet that goal.
The company added 283,000 fiber subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2025, more than analysts had expected but down from the same time last year, for a total of more than 10.4 million. Fixed wireless adds were 221,000 in the quarter, down from a record 270,000 the previous quarter and below the roughly 260,000 Wall Street had predicted.
That would put the company at 40 million fiber passings, two-thirds of the way to its goal of 60 million passings by the end of 2030. AT&T CEO John Stankey said the company planned to expand its fiber footprint by 5 million locations annually after 2026 through the end of the decade, the pace needed to meet that goal.
The company added 283,000 fiber subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2025, more than analysts had expected but down from the same time last year, for a total of more than 10.4 million. Fixed wireless adds were 221,000 in the quarter, down from a record 270,000 the previous quarter and below the roughly 260,000 Wall Street had predicted.
Stankey said there was some seasonality in the results and fixed wireless additions would generally be lower in fourth quarters. MoffettNathanson founder Craig Moffett said in a research note that a seasonal impact in the fourth quarter is normal, but was still “something of a surprise” given that AT&T’s fixed wireless service is relatively new.
Still, AT&T COO Jeff McElfresh said the company plans for fixed wireless were to “sell more this year than we did last year,” and that advertisements for the service would increase over the course of the year.
AT&T added 875,000 fixed wireless customers in 2025, for a total of nearly 1.5 million. That puts the carrier behind Verizon and T-Mobile’s third quarter 2025 totals of 5.3 million and nearly 8 millions respectively.
Betting on convergence
The company’s push for fiber expansion is an effort to get more customers on bundled fixed and mobile broadband plans, which the company says reduces subscriber churn. Postpaid phone churn was 0.98 percent, up from last year and sequentially.
Moffett and KeyBanc’s Brendon Nispel agreed the relatively flat average revenue per user (ARPU) in AT&T’s fiber unit was a sign the company was using steep discounts to acquire more converged subscribers.
Stankey said on the earnings call that that was “more of a feature, not a bug.”
“As we bundle more customers, we are making the decision at the front end to provide some better economics to the customer to do that,” he said. “We think that plays out efficiently over time through the form of lower churn.”
Postpaid phone net additions were 421,000, slightly below estimates, but the segment’s ARPU of $56.57 beat analyst expectations.
That should calm investors concerned about a price war in the wake of Verizon’s CEO shake up in October, according to New Street Research analyst David Barden.
“In-line ARPU and net adds should be seen as a positive sign that industry dynamics are stable for the other carriers as well,” he wrote
The carrier’s mobile penetration is 42 percent in its fiber footprint, which Stankey said was about 10 percentage points higher than the rest of the country. The goal is to hit 50 percent, he said.
While the emphasis is on convergence with fiber, fixed wireless is going to be AT&T’s way of selling bundles in places where it can’t lay fiber, which Moffett repeatedly notes is much of the country.
To help with that, AT&T reached a $23 billion deal to buy spectrum licenses from EchoStar last year, including 3.45 GigaHertz (GHz) licenses the company is already using through a lease agreement.
The company is planning to close that deal and its acquisition of Lumen’s consumer fiber assets in the first quarter of 2026. Stankey said he expected to find an equity partner to co-invest in the Lumen assets this year.
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