AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) To Enhance Phillips 66’s Cellular Network As Interest For Its Gaming Business Grows

AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) partnered with Accenture plc (NYSE:CAN) for the development of Phillips 66 PSX’s private cellular network. Besides the industrial wireless connectivity solution, the partnership will lay ground for possible low latency 5G applications for Industrial IoT.

AT&T enhancing Phillips 66’s network capabilities

The cellular network will supplement business enterprise’s connectivity needs through plugging cellular gaps in the public network. Philips wants to leverage enhanced capabilities as part of its digital transformation efforts. AT&T has been Philips 66’s telecommunications provider acting as pillar for a seamless connectivity platform with enhanced network capabilities through a multi-access edge compute spectrum.

This has helped in enhancing mobile applications in daily activities like capacity tracking and oil distillation safety inspections. Going forward, AT&T is anticipating that it will gain competitive advantage through edge computing services that allow enterprises to route the specific application traffic to cloud or network or on-premises where it is effective. The multi-access Edge Compute solution gives flexibility for better management of data traffic.

Interest in AT&T’s gaming business growing

Several companies have shown interest in acquiring AT&T’s gaming business, Warner Bro. Interactive Entertainment. Some of the companies that have shown positive interest in the division include Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT); gaming companies like Activision Blizzard Inc. (NASDAQ:ATVI), Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO).

AT&T acquired the gaming busines in 2018 as part of $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner assets. The buyout inflated AT&T’s debt burden pushing it to look for ways of cutting operating costs through unloading os some assets to enhance its balance sheet. The gaming division owns some popular games such as Games Of thrones Conquest, Harry Potter: Wizard Unite, Mortal Kombat 11, and Hitman and Lego franchises. The gaming business is estimated to be worth around $4 billion.

Recently AT&T updated its first responder offer by expanding it to include physicians, nurses, and teachers. The program offers a 25% discount on its unlimited plans, which will extend to the whole family plan.