Dive Brief:
- AT&T is focused on growing its converged customer base — that is, customers who subscribe to both AT&T’s fiber and postpaid wireless services — AT&T CEO John Stankey said during the company’s Q3 2026 earnings call Wednesday.
- Converged customers represent higher total revenue per household and may prove to be more loyal over time because they subscribe to multiple services. “We have every reason to believe that a converged customer that's sitting on fiber is going to be a sticky and high lifetime value customer,” Stankey said.
- AT&T is courting those customers by “removing friction for consumers” and “constructing plans built around simplicity, transparent value and convergence by investing in digital experiences that allow customers to do business with us the way they want to,” Stankey said during the call.
Dive Brief:
AT&T is encouraging customers to subscribe to multiple services by tailoring its offerings to what they want and what they’re willing to spend. The carrier has also expanded its customer service guarantee to help retain those converged customers.
This approach appears to be slow going, but the carrier is making progress.
At the end of the third quarter, AT&T said that 42.8% of its advanced home internet customers also had an AT&T postpaid wireless account, according to an earnings release. This is up from 42.5% in Q2 2026 and 42% in Q1 2026.
AT&T introduced the “advanced home internet” umbrella category in its Q4 2025 earnings call to represent results from the company’s domestic 5G and fiber based wireless, internet and other advanced connectivity services.
Carl Lepper, senior director of technology, media, telecom and utilities practice at JD Power, told CX Dive that most wired and wireless carriers have embraced this convergence strategy. “It's a tough thing to do well in multiple industries for every customer,” he said.
One way AT&T is seeking to woo converged customers is through better customer service. During the earnings call, Stankey referred to AT&T’s America’s Best Guarantee, which he said offers “peace of mind” to customers.
The AT&T Guarantee was launched in January 2025 and expanded last week. The customer service program commits AT&T to either connecting a customer to an expert within five minutes or to receiving a callback.
Converged customers — those who’ve paired AT&T Fiber or Internet Air and wireless service — can work with one tech expert, instead of multiple. This can help alleviate common pain points such as being transferred between agents and having to repeat explanations of why they’ve called.
For carriers pursuing a bundled strategy, it’s important to recognize tenured customers. Lepper recommends a recognition program that gives them an incentive or reward for being a long-term customer.
“The CX goes up quite a bit and we see that the churn slows down,” Lepper said. “But these are expensive levers to pull. Carriers have to make a cost evaluation of how much money they are willing to invest into making the older, tenured group a little bit happier.”
