When it comes to broadband customers, AT&T Inc. executives said quality is better than quantity.

AT&T ended the third quarter with 6.9 million fiber connections in its consumer wireline segment, up from 5.7 million a year earlier. For the first time, the segment counted more fiber broadband connections than nonfiber broadband connections.

Broadband revenues grew 6.1% for the company during the quarter as more customers shifted to fiber. Fiber average revenue per user was $62.62 per month, versus $54.80 per month for nonfiber.

"I'd rather take 1 million new fiber customers a year than 1 million new fixed wireless customers a quarter," AT&T CEO John Stankey said. "The value equation of those 1 million fiber customers is a far superior value equation for the long haul for our shareholders."

While fiber-to-the-home deploys fiber cable directly to a consumer's home or business, fixed wireless connects a home or business via radio waves or spectrum. Fiber generally delivers faster speeds but is much more expensive to deploy.

Stankey's remarks could be seen as a direct jab at Verizon Communications Inc., which has made little secret of its ambitions toward fixed wireless.

Verizon's fixed wireless customer base remains relatively small at just 621,000 as of the end of the third quarter, but it is a growing business line. Of Verizon's 377,000 broadband net additions in the quarter, 342,000 were fixed wireless net additions.

More than 40 million households were covered by fixed wireless in the quarter, including over 30 million households covered by 5G Ultra Wideband.

* See AT&T's third-quarter financial highlights. * See Verizon's third-quarter financial highlights.

 

While fixed wireless is a priority for Verizon, the company is not stopping fiber deployments or service.

"We're very focused on doing broadband through fixed wireless access, but our Fios business continues to perform very strongly and add customers to that network," Verizon CFO Matthew Ellis said.

The company ended the third quarter with almost 7.0 million wireline broadband connections, up 1.7% from the same quarter last year.

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said fiber plays a critical role in supporting the company's wireless and fixed wireless offerings. "Right now, more than 48% of our cell sites are connected by Verizon-owned fiber. We're expecting to be about 50% by year-end, with the majority of our 5G sites already on our own fiber," Vestberg said. "This not only improves network performance but also improves our owners' economics."