AT&T’s Project VIP network investment plan continues to...

AT&T’s Project VIP network investment plan continues to make progress in its second year, the company said in a news release (http://bit.ly/SqXGSU) Tuesday. The 4G LTE network now covers nearly 290 million people, and Project VIP is expected to take fiber to more than 400,000 new business locations by the end of the second quarter, the company said. In wireless, AT&T expects to report in the second quarter that postpaid subscriber net adds exceeded 800,000, that about 3.2 million AT&T Next smartphones were sold, which would make up about 50 percent of total sales, and that about half of the company’s postpaid smartphone customers are on no-device-subsidy Mobile Share Value pricing plans. Despite the “self-congratulatory pomp and circumstance,” MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett wrote investors, “AT&T’s business trends are much weaker than they appear.” Despite a much faster-than-expected transition to equipment installment plan (EIP) accounting, “AT&T’s earnings aren’t rising,” Moffett wrote. “AT&T is simply spending the one-time accounting benefit of EIP as a fig leaf to mask an aggressive and dangerous re-pricing of their subscriber base.”