The three national carriers opened 2026 with strong subscriber growth and aggressive infrastructure plays, each leaning into fiber, fixed wireless, and new revenue paths tied to AI and next‑gen connectivity. Verizon is leaning into fiber expansion, fixed wireless growth, and positioning itself as a core AI‑era connectivity provider, expecting multibillion‑dollar revenue opportunities from linking its fiber and 5G networks to hyperscalers. AT&T is doubling down on fiber scale, satellite‑to‑phone partnerships, and spectrum acquisitions to boost capacity and expand its bundled wireless‑home‑internet strategy. T-Mobile is pushing a targeted fiber strategy through joint ventures, expanding rural coverage via its U.S. Cellular integration, and staying confident in long‑term fixed‑wireless growth without needing new spectrum. Across all three, the industry is converging on a mix of fiber buildouts, fixed wireless momentum, and new revenue tied to next‑gen connectivity.
Verizon
- +55,000 postpaid phone net additions (Verizon’s first positive Q1 postpaid phone result since 2013)
- Forecast of postpaid phone net adds in upper half of 750K – 1M range
- +341,000 Broadband New Additions
- 214,000 fixed wireless
- 127,000 fiber
- Frontier Communications transaction closed on January 20, 2026
- Goal of 32M fiber passings by end of 2026
- $21.5B adjusted free cash flow forecasted in 2026
- $16.0B – $16.5B CAPEX in 2026
Quotable: re: Convergence and stickiness of fiber
“And I’d also point out that our attachment rate of wireless when a customer has broadband, I think it’s best in the industry at 55% right now. So expect that you’ll see improvement in our broadband numbers as we go through the year, and we’re looking for the optimal and most efficient way to deliver broadband to the home.”
Dan Schulman | CEO, Verizon
Quotable: re: Verizon and monetizing AI by not building AI products, but selling the connectivity
“We are in deep commercial discussions with hyperscalers, alternative cloud providers and large enterprises to integrate our fiber, both dark and lit, and 5G assets to support their AI infrastructure efforts. This includes data center connectivity, training and inference capabilities, and we believe this could lead to multibillion‑dollar revenues. We expect to share more specifics over the next 3 to 6 months. The world is moving toward edge computing and data connectivity, and we are well positioned in this AI infrastructure revolution.”
Dan Schulman | CEO, Verizon
AT&T
- +294,000 postpaid phone net additions
- +584,000 Broadband New Additions
- 292,000 fixed wireless
- 292,000 fiber
- Lumen fiber transaction closed on February 2, 2026 (adding 1.1M fiber customers, +4M fiber locations)
- Goal of 60M+ fiber passings by end of 2026
- Launch of AT&T One Connect on March 31, 2026 – first major US carrier subscription combining wireless and home internet
- $18.0B adjusted free cash flow forecast in 2026
- $23B – $24B CAPEX in 2026
Quotable: re: Satellite Connectivity
“We’re working with one closely right now to make sure that they get off the ground and they’re viable. That’s AST SpaceMobile. We’ve been putting most of our R&D and our work on bringing product out with what they will be matching to the market, but I fully expect that SpaceX will ultimately have a robust direct-to-device capability. I would expect that Amazon LEO will have a robust direct-to-device capability and who knows, maybe even a force shows up.”
John Stankey | CEO, AT&T
Quotable: re: Spectrum Purchase from EchoStar
“As you know, when we can buy spectrum, there’s economic value created that is capital efficiency. It avoids us from having to build growth and capacity in other ways that are more expensive than that has been since the start of time and that still plays into the factor. And then as you are seeing, it’s also allowed us to expand and increase our AIA, our internet Air penetration and distribution. And I’m very happy with where we stand on that right now. As I said earlier, it’s a fantastic tool for us to use, one, to get businesses that we haven’t had before.”
John Stankey | CEO, AT&T
T-Mobile
- +217,000 postpaid new account additions (yearly guidance raised to 950K-1.05M)
- +500,000 Broadband New Additions
- Two new fiber joint ventures with Oak Hill Capital and Wren House
- Wren House investment includes acquisition of i3 Broadband, a regional fiber internet service provider serving parts of Illinois, Missouri, and Rhode Island
- Additional acquisitions of GoNetSpeed and Greenlight Networks
- Target of 18M to 19M broadband customers by 2030, including 3M – 4M on fiber
- US Cellular integration is on track with migration largely completed during 2026 focusing on rural/smaller markets
- $18.1B – $18.7B adjusted free cash flow forecasted in 2026
- $10.0B CAPEX in 2026
Quotable: re: TMUS investment in fiber and the financial returns
“And on the new JVs that we have done, we are very confident of our double-digit IRRs. That is the criteria we will use going forward as well. There is no magic number we are chasing on homes passed, because I could put fiber on the street and claim multiple homes passed. We are looking for places where we can create true equity value, and that will drive whether we have appetite for cases that create true equity value and that tick the box for us in terms of being an opportunity that is monetarily sound. Yes. Are we going to chase a homes-passed number? Absolutely not.”
Srini Gopalan | CEO, T-Mobile US
Quotable: re: Fixed Wireless Capacity
“Then we subject that fallow capacity to saying, yes, we have that fallow capacity, but let us put a reasonable market share on how much we can get to in fixed wireless access. Then we commit to a number. That calculation we did for 2030, remember, assumes we buy no further spectrum, does not assume 6G, and does not assume any further spectral efficiency improvement. That is the basis on which we got to the 15 million and we are tracking strong to that, and this quarter was another demonstration of it. So we feel very good about it.”
Srini Gopalan | CEO, T-Mobile US
Quotable: re: TMUS (lack of) interest in cable
“Kannan, it just struck me that your reference to large deals potentially was you asking the question I get quite often, which is the cable story. I think I have said this at least a couple of times before: we are not going to go do scale for scale’s sake. Specifically, cable is not something we are interested in. We see our strength as attacking incumbents rather than becoming an incumbent. We see a huge opportunity to attack incumbents across fiber and FWA. That will be our key play.”
Srini Gopalan | CEO, T-Mobile US
