AT&T Boasts 2-Year, $40B+ Spend

BARCELONA -- Mobile World Congress 2017 -- AT&T says its 2017 capex outlay of $22 billion will take its investments over a two-year period to more than $40 billion, with more than 40% of that going to expand its portfolio of smart, agile, mobile and integrated business solutions worldwide.

The investment covers its domestic and international business and consumer infrastructure spend. "This global investment in part fuels innovation around SDN, security, smart city, next-gen collaboration, IoT and wireless," Steve McGaw, chief marketing officer of AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) Business Solutions, told Light Reading here in Barcelona.

According to the operator's official statement, AT&T's investments include strategic investments in the expansion of NetBond, Network on Demand (including FlexWare) and SD-WAN.

McGaw said FlexWare, a virtualized network functions solution launched late last year, lets customers download routers and firewall and application accelerators rather than take the traditional route of buying hardware. The service is currently available in 150 countries and will expand to 180 countries this year. "Traditionally business have to buy the hardware but with FlexWare they can download software applications just like you would get an app from the app store," said McGaw.

On the heels of releasing its latest Cybersecurity Insights report, which found that AT&T experienced a 400% increase in attackers searching for vulnerabilities in IoT devices during the first half of 2016, AT&T said that some of the $40 billion will go toward building out its Threat Intellect security foundation to improve cybersecurity processes, tools and training. (See AT&T: IoT Cyber Attacks Increase 400% in 2016.)

In addition, AT&T will invest in data-powered analytics and virtualized security capabilities, and facilitate the innovation of new security approaches and solutions within its Foundry locations, according to the press release. (See AT&T Continues to Invest to Expand Integrated Solutions for Businesses Worldwide.)

Other areas of investment include IoT, where AT&T will expand its multi-network IoT connectivity and professional services globally. The CSP will also focus on connectivity by continue to deliver high-speed wireline and wireless connectivity to more cities -- and will expand its North American WiFi, add availability to Mexico and Canada and beyond.

"We are pushing fiber deeper into the network, closer to the customer so that we can deliver higher reliability and give customers more control over the management of their infrastructure," added McGaw.

— Elizabeth Miller Coyne, Managing Editor, Light Reading