AT&T offers $5 credit to customers impacted by outage
AT&T (T) will offer a $5 credit to customers who were impacted by a widespread outage across the US last week. In a letter to AT&T employees, CEO John Stankey claimed the $5 credit is the cost of "essentially a full day of service."
Yahoo Finance Anchors Brad Smith and Seana Smith break down the latest development for AT&T and what it could mean for the company moving forward.
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Editor's note: This article was written by Nicholas Jacobino
Video Transcript
BRAD SMITH: All right, guys. And AT&T is looking to get back in the good graces of its customers offering a $5 credit to those impacted by last Thursday's outage which cut off connection for users for about seven hours across the United States. There you're taking a look at shares. They're down by about 1% here on the day, perhaps investors just pricing in what this potentially means for the balance sheet.
But, at the end of the day, I think for AT&T reviewing what took place, and now there are going to be more reviews both at a regulatory level. As you hear some of the senators, they sounded off even last week in the immediate wake of this as well. So more interesting perhaps to see what some of those findings reveal.
SEANA SMITH: Yeah, the $5 for outage, obviously, they're trying to cut down on the backlash that we saw all over social media that we saw really across the landscape last week following that outage. They were, though, relatively quick to act in terms of addressing this issue within seven to eight hours, I believe.
Now, for what it means to the investor, and why we're seeing it under just a bit of pressure here today, some of that having to do with the fact that it's not exactly immediately clear how much these credits are going to amount in terms of lost revenue. We had talked to a couple of guests last week here on the program who said that, hey, it doesn't mean too much in terms of the longer term 2024 results.
But in terms of the specific quarter here that is playing out right now, it could have a bit of an impact. So exactly how material that is going to be is critical here for investors. But again, you're seeing some pressure, though, across the board which is also important to point out. You've got AT&T off just about 1%, but Verizon actually laggard within the space off just over 2% today.
