Not so long ago, T-Mobile (TMUS) came out with a clever new marketing gimmick, which it called Switching Made Easy. Switching Made Easy was designed to do just that, bring out a number of tools designed to make it easy for customers to see the difference between T-Mobile and its key competitors, and then switch. But communications giant AT&T (T) took issue with this, and fought back. Now, AT&T stock is down slightly in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
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The problem was that T-Mobile’s Switching Made Easy plan included an AI-assisted tool that allowed customers to log into their AT&T accounts, allow the tool to scan the account, and then, offer suggestions about which T-Mobile plan would best match the current plan. But T-Mobile never really bothered to confer with AT&T, or Verizon (VZ), about this plan. And the two major competitors began actively blocking T-Mobile’s switching robots from making the connection.
An AT&T rep came back with, “AT&T has taken actions to prevent T-Mobile from putting customers at risk through its irresponsible implementation of bots and AI to unlawfully harvest private customer data and competitors’ intellectual property. Our customers trust AT&T with their personal information, and we will continue to protect them from T-Mobile’s reckless business practices by giving them, not an unknown bot, control of their personal data.”
DEI DOA
Meanwhile, with AT&T looking to make some bandwidth expansions, it is polishing up its image for the Federal Communications Commission and toeing the line about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. More specifically, it is abandoning them. AT&T declared in a letter to the FCC that it is eliminating these operations, “…not just in name, but in substance.”
But certain elements of the FCC—specifically the only Democrat on the commission, Anna Gomez—warned AT&T about its move, saying, “AT&T’s reversal isn’t a sudden transformation of values, but a strategic financial play to curry favor with this FCC/Administration. Companies should remember that abandoning fairness and inclusion for short-term gain will be a stain to their reputation long into the future.”
Is AT&T a Buy or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Moderate Buy consensus rating on T stock based on 11 Buys and four Holds assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After an 8.46% rally in its share price over the past year, the average T price target of $31.02 per share implies 21.67% upside potential.
