AT&T announces new ad-sponsored phone plan

AT&T GmbH (NYSE: T) plans to offer its customers new ways to cut their bills by up to $ 10 a month by offering cellular plans that are partially paid for through ads. In a recent interview, AT&T CEO John Stankey shared some insight into how advertising can play a critical role in lowering the cost of cell phone bills. Stankey said a segment of customers who were offered a choice will take advertising to save between $ 5 and $ 10 on their monthly cellular bill. Still, subscribers will still pay a huge percentage of their bill. According to Stankey, AT&T plans to roll out these subsidized plans in a year. While advertising on mobile phones is not as popular despite the efforts of Sprint and Virgin Mobile, AT&T believes that by targeting advertising more effectively, they can outperform their competitors. Most importantly, targeting means knowing more about a user, which suggests better tracking. The company will personalize ads for subscribers identified through various devices, which is a strategy that will help the operator sell ads for extra money. AT & T's engineers are already in the process of creating uniform subscriber identifications that will enable markets to identify users in different devices in order to target their advertisements. The identifications will provide more information about the customer, and the question for subscribers is whether they like targeted ads that generate $ 5 to $ 10 a month. Stankey also revealed that the company will also benefit from an ad-supported version of the HBO Max video streaming service starting next year. This will be a basis prior to the introduction of the promotional telephone plans. The company's advertising business, called Xandr, uses external data to personalize ads, but in the long run it could face legal scrutiny over privacy concerns. The CEO admitted he doesn't know if AT&T will continue to use external data to target advertisements.