Telecom giant AT&T (NYSE: T), now free from its failed foray into the media business, has set its focus on two areas: 5G and fiber. The company already provides voice and internet services over its wire-line network to both consumers and businesses, but demand for those legacy offerings is in decline. The future of AT&T's wire line business is fiber.

AT&T's fiber network provides far faster internet speeds than its legacy telecom services, and it's been the growth engine for the wire-line business as the company expands its reach. On the consumer side, AT&T's fiber network had 6.9 million connections at the end of the third quarter, up 21.2% year over year. Despite significant declines in revenue from legacy services, fiber helped drive a small increase in total consumer wire-line revenue in the third quarter.

On the business side, AT&T's fiber network now serves 675,000 business buildings and 3 million business customer locations. Fiber growth is so far not enough to fully offset declining legacy services, with business wire-line revenue down 4.5% year over year in the third quarter.

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Source Fool.com