New York, June 7, 2026, 11:03 (EDT)
- AT&T closed Friday at $22.75, falling 8.3% since the last Friday close. U.S. trading is shut for the weekend.
- SpaceX is expected to hit the Nasdaq this week. Oppenheimer warned that Starlink could hit older broadband firms like AT&T.
- AT&T rolls out its new, simpler fiber plans on Sunday. CFO Pascal Desroches will speak at the Mizuho conference Tuesday.
ccccccccccccccc Inc (T.N) is down 8% ahead of the new week as investors look at new competition from SpaceX’s Starlink and the telecom’s ongoing effort to add wireless and fiber customers in more homes.
Shares finished at $22.75 Friday, little changed for the session and down from $24.80 a week earlier. The hardest hit came midweek, sinking 4.42% on Wednesday and dropping a further 3.31% on Thursday.
AT&T’s pitch to investors relies now on “convergence,” or getting the same customer to sign up for both mobile and home broadband. Fiber internet works through glass cables using light, which makes it faster and more reliable than older copper or cable options. For the first quarter, AT&T said it made 584,000 net additions in advanced-connectivity internet, counting both fiber and fixed wireless gains after customer losses. The company also reported 294,000 net new postpaid phone lines. AT&T Newsroom
Market got hit with a higher benchmark out of nowhere.
Oppenheimer said last week SpaceX’s Starlink could shake up the $1.6 trillion U.S. communications sector, putting legacy broadband players like AT&T at risk. The firm pointed to faster drops in subscribers and revenue at AT&T, Verizon Communications and T-Mobile US if Starlink keeps growing.
Oppenheimer’s Timothy Horan downgraded AT&T to “Perform” from “Outperform,” saying in a note that the market could be “underestimating” the risk from low-Earth-orbit satellite services, MarketWatch said. These satellites operate closer to earth than standard satellites, so they can cut internet delays. Horan said prices for offerings like Starlink now match older broadband services. MarketWatch
SpaceX plans to start trading on Nasdaq June 12 with a reported $1.75 trillion valuation, Reuters said. The IPO would be the company’s first stock sale to public investors.
Selling in the broader market Friday was heavy. The S&P 500 fell 2.64%, while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 4.18%, with a strong May jobs report dimming hopes for a near-term Fed rate cut, according to Reuters. Most of the pressure was in tech and chip stocks. AT&T, though, traded mostly on its own sector and company news.
AT&T is steering the conversation back to price and bundles. Starting Sunday, the company will offer four AT&T Fiber speeds: 300 Mbps, 500 Mbps, 1 GIG and 5 GIG. Mbps stands for megabits per second, how internet speed is measured. Customers who sign up for both AT&T wireless and home internet could save as much as $420 a year, according to the company.
Jenifer Robertson, executive vice president and general manager of AT&T Consumer, said the company is focusing on offering plans that are “packed with value, savings, and powered by a network that performs.” AT&T Newsroom
John Stankey, the CEO, described the strategy after first-quarter earnings. “We saw our best first quarter ever for Advanced Connectivity internet customer net additions,” he said, noting that AT&T is set up to offer “fiber and 5G all from one provider.” AT&T Newsroom
Regulatory pressure rose Thursday after the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the Federal Communications Commission in a dispute over its ability to issue fines, ruling against AT&T and Verizon. The case focused on penalties related to the handling of customer location data. The FCC had fined AT&T $57 million, Verizon $47 million, T-Mobile $80 million, and Sprint $12 million.
The selloff may have two sides. If Starlink only sticks as a rural or niche broadband player, AT&T’s cheaper shares and its dividend might attract investors again. The bigger risk is if a strong SpaceX IPO keeps satellite competitors in focus, pushes old-line carriers into bigger discounts, and stirs worries about whether AT&T’s fiber spend will pay off.
AT&T CFO Pascal Desroches is set to appear Tuesday at the Mizuho Technology Conference. The company’s next earnings call won’t come until July 22, so investors won’t get another chance to hear directly from management for a few weeks. Until then, they’ll be weighing whether last week’s drop was a fluke or points to a bigger problem.
