Randall Stephenson on FirstNet
From Randall Stephenson, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, AT&T · · Boston College Chief Executives Club
“We bid to spend 40 billion dollars to build out this network and we want it we won it last year and so we have a number of years to get this network built but it requires us to cover the entire country with high speed wireless tape ability and that's really great for first responders and I'm excited about that but it also is a big deal for our rural communities because we are now building out mobile broadband capability that will cover the entire United States it's going to be a very pervasive build and where we build this network here in Boston and down in Florida particularly it will be what we call a hardened Network it's gonna have bunkering it's gonna have serious backup power to all these cell sites of so forth to withstand hurricanes flooding etc like this after this past year you saw the importance of having that kind of hardening of these networks that can withstand serious natural disasters and and man-made disasters as well”
On , Randall Stephenson, Former Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at AT&T, spoke about FirstNet during Randall Stephenson, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer, AT&T on Boston College Chief Executives Club.
About Randall Stephenson
Randall Stephenson, former chairman and CEO of AT&T, has spoken publicly about the company's strategy regarding its proposed merger with Time Warner, 5G technology, and broader economic policy. In 2016 testimony before a Senate subcommittee, Stephenson argued that the merger would benefit consumers by providing more choices and lower-priced options, and he stated that AT&T would not withhold Time Warner content to disadvantage competitors. He also said that AT&T had been the largest investor in the United States for five consecutive years and that he expected that to continue. At the 2019 FinTech Ideas Festival, Stephenson discussed the potential of 5G networks, stating that the technology would enable precise location tracking of devices within centimeters, which he said could change how authentication and identity are handled in digital transactions. Stephenson has also addressed social and political issues. In a 2018 interview, he discussed a 2016 speech he gave to AT&T employees about Black Lives Matter, saying he was glad it went viral because it initiated conversations about race within the company and among other CEOs. On economic policy, he stated in 2016 that a 2% growth rate was "unacceptable" and called for tax reform and the approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership to stimulate growth. He also noted that regulatory and tax policies had influenced AT&T's investment decisions, including its expansion into Mexico.