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AT&T

AT&T can trace its foundations back to the invention of the telephone in 1876. The present company was established in 1984 following the divestiture of AT&T Corporation. It provides telecommunications and media services in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2019, it had 166 million mobile and 15 million fixed broadband subscribers in the United States; 19 million mobile subscribers in Mexico; and 13 million pay television subscribers in Latin America and the Caribbean. AT&T owns WarnerMedia, which has brands including Cinemax, CNN, HBO and the advertising company Xandr. AT&T also has a global internet backbone network, with 28 data centres and nodes in 80 countries.

Summary

AT&T performs well in the access and innovation measurement areas. The company leads in its approach to accessibility and is one of only four United States companies to have guidelines on ethical artificial intelligence. In the use measurement area, AT&T is one of the few digital companies showing a high level of commitment to child online protection, explicitly mentioning it in its human rights policy. It has scope to enhance support for digital skills training and to increase the amount of information it provides about its existing initiatives. Transparency is lacking in areas with international reporting guidelines, such as data breaches and the distribution of direct economic value. Further, unlike most American companies, AT&T does not report on the number of women in technical roles. To follow industry practice in corporate reporting, it could compile information in its issue briefs into a comprehensive sustainability report.

Ranking position: #22/100
Total score: 1.06/2

Measurement area	Score (0-2)	Rank (0-100)
Access	1.19 / 2	#12
Skills	0.56 / 2	#42
Use	1.22 / 2	#15
Innovation	1.28 / 2	#33

Access: AT&T has supported Girls Who Code, a non-profit initiative for women and girls, since 2013. The company hosts aspiring female coders as part of a seven-week programme teaching skills needed to pursue a technology career. AT&T uses leading practices in its approach to accessibility in the workplace and in its products. Its Universal Design statement commits to industry standards and guidelines in developing accessibility features for users with disabilities. The company also reports the number of employees with disabilities and describes the steps it takes towards creating an inclusive workplace for them. It also has an Advisory Panel on Access & Aging to discuss product accessibility issues.
Skills: The company has an extensive programme supporting school connectivity in Latin America. It provides classrooms across its nine markets of operation with satellite technology, educational content and audio-visual equipment. Around 80% of participating schools are in rural areas. The programme has reached more than 2 million students in 9,800 schools and trained more than 177,000 teachers.
Use: AT&T demonstrates high-level responsibility for cybersecurity and clearly describes how it monitors and responds to threats to the company’s operations. It follows best practice by reporting on government requests for personal information. AT&T approaches online safety for children at a group level, referencing online protection for children in its human rights policy.
Innovation: The company has several initiatives for open, ethical and sustainable innovation. It supports open source through various programmes and is a leader in making its climate data sets available to universities for research. The company also outlines its approach to artificial intelligence research, describing how it incorporates ethical considerations. AT&T Aspire Accelerator supports and mentors young start-ups.

Access: AT&T could disclose additional information about programmes that increase access to digital technologies and promote digital inclusivity for women and girls, including a third-party assessment of the impacts. The company should also disclose how the economic value it creates is distributed among its stakeholders.
Skills: AT&T could arrange a third-party assessment of its school connectivity programme to gauge its effects and potential for replication. Additionally, the company has an opportunity to support initiatives for developing digital literacy and digital skills that enhance livelihoods.
Use: The company could strengthen its commitment to information security by providing a copy of its international information security management certification and following industry best-practice reporting of data breaches. It could also improve its privacy policy by clearly stating that users can obtain a machine-readable copy of the data AT&T holds about them.
Innovation: While AT&T Labs has a rich research history, it does not disclose information about the number of women working in technical roles or the locations of its research and development facilities.

More about the company

Headquarters: Dallas, TX, USA
Ownership structure: Publicly listed
Fiscal year: Ends 31 December
Group revenue: US$181,193 million (FY2019)
Group employees: 246,000 (FY2019)
Website: http://www.att.com

AT&T

Leading practices

Access

Skills

Use

Innovation

Risks and opportunities

Access

Skills

Use

Innovation

More about the company