The Summit: AT&T Invites Customers Big and Small to Transform Their Businesses

Event Gives Customers Insight into AI, Connectivity, Intelligent Edge Approach, Security, Cloud Services and IoT

The Summit, AT&T’s premiere customer event, brings together some of the best-known names in business. Some 1,500 major customers will attend the inaugural, invitation-only event in Dallas.

“AT&T is in the business of business transformation. The Summit gives us an opportunity to share our vision for the future. We are creating opportunities for businesses to innovate with the latest technology,” said Thaddeus Arroyo, CEO of AT&T Business.

AT&T* will showcase a host of new solutions for companies big and small to help them transform their businesses.

Cloud Services

As more business customers rely on cloud services, we’re delivering solutions to better secure connections to the cloud.

We’re boosting connectivity and security to the cloud for customers who use Amazon Web Services (AWS). And we’re exploring options to develop solutions with AWS Greengrass on the AT&T FlexWare^SM platform, which will increase efficiency for business IoT devices. Read More.

We’re also giving customers highly secure access to Box using an integrated private cloud content management solution. This solution offers a highly secure, private connection for both wireless and wireline users. Read More.

Security

With data security breaches now appearing as everyday headlines, we’re providing consulting services and solutions to help companies assess their security needs.

Today we issued our latest Cybersecurity Insights report, “Mind the Gap: Cybersecurity’s Big Disconnect.” Despite an increase in the number and severity of cyberattacks today, the report shows that many organizations remain optimistic about their abilities to defend against such threats. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents say they have adequate in-house talent to address their cybersecurity needs in the year ahead. Yet, 80% admit to experiencing a negative impact from an attack in the previous 12 months. Additionally, at least half of all organizations surveyed admit they face skills gaps in three key areas: threat prevention (56%), threat detection (50%) and threat analysis (50%). Read More.

Internet of Things (IoT)

AT&T has been investing in IoT for over a decade and is one of the world’s leaders in IoT solutions. We have nearly 36 million connected devices on our network, including 16 million vehicles.  Our IoT solutions are transforming business operations across nearly every industry by providing near real-time insights on businesses’ connected assets. 

And we’re not just selling IoT solutions to our customers – we’re using them, too.

AT&T has one of the largest fleets in the U.S. with more than 80,000 vehicles. Our internal fleet management solution, which uses the same IoT platforms and solutions we offer our customers, enables highly efficient fleet operations for the company. Benefits include improved vehicle tracking, enhanced driver analytics and reporting, predictive maintenance, remote management functionality and increased cost savings. In fact, the solution is projected to save us more than $40 million over the next 5 years. 

We’ve also deployed our smart irrigation solution, which uses IoT controllers to track water flow and usage in near-real time in and around our offices. The system has weather sensors that help determine actual water needs at our campuses. This IoT solution is projected to save more than 40 million gallons of water annually, as well as reduce our water bill by 35%.  

And it doesn’t stop at fleet and irrigation. We’re also using IoT solutions to track and monitor our network assets such as power generators, cable reels, high value tools and test equipment. 

Expanding Network Coverage  

We’re expanding the network, making it closer to where our customers are. This year, we’re   more than doubling our international network access points to more than 230. When network links to the main network are shorter, we can serve customers more efficiently through a combination of our own facilities and a broader set of last mile providers. This expanded global coverage will further improve reliability, quality and cycle time for our customers. 

We also want businesses to take full advantage of our fiber highway that is – almost literally – right at their doorsteps. We’re the largest U.S.-based provider of fiber for business services with more than 1.5 million U.S. business customer locations. There are more than 350,000 U.S. business buildings lit with AT&T’s fiber network. And we’re adding thousands more each month. Having this much glass in the ground is a huge advantage for business customers as they continue to innovate and grow their companies.

Intelligent Edge Approach

As we continue to transform our network from hardware-based to software-centric, we’re helping businesses do the same through our broad suite of software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) solutions. We’re using SD-WAN to enable intelligence at the edge that will allow businesses to analyze, protect and refine their network. We’re making hybrid networking possible for more businesses, giving them connectivity options to fit their needs. Businesses can tailor their connections across sites to implement the right balance of security, performance and reliability required in a more cost-effective way. The SD-WAN suite includes an AT&T SD-WAN Network-based option available soon, an AT&T SD-WAN Over-the-Top option and an AT&T SD-WAN – Static option.

FirstNet

Nearly half of the country’s governors have moved to modernize communications for the fire, police, emergency medical services (EMS) and other public safety personnel who bravely protect and serve their communities. So far, 27 states and territories have announced their decision to opt in to FirstNet – America’s only communications platform purpose-built by public safety, for public safety.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

We want to to make artificial intelligence accessible to everyone. To that end, we’re collaborating with Tech Mahindra to build an open source artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Acumos, hosted by The Linux Foundation that makes it easy to build, share and deploy AI applications. The platform will provide a marketplace for accessing, using and enhancing those applications.

Acumos is an AI marketplace where applications can be chained to create complex and sophisticated AI services.

Take someone who wants to create an AI application for video analytics. The Acumos platform gives them a variety of applications to choose from, like location tracking and facial recognition. The simple platform interface lets you choose AI capabilities and stitch them together automatically so they function as a single application. In this case, the new service could identify where the video was shot based on background landmarks, and identify the speakers in it – design and deploy in a single interface and with minimal additional code development. Read more.

Microservices

The Acumos AI platform also makes it easy to build, share and deploy AI applications, built with microservices. Microservices are an architectural style in which enterprise apps are made up of independent services working together. In other words, these apps are divided into small “blocks” or microservices, with each “block” supporting a specific business function, such as streamlined workflows or mobile payments. 

Today, we’re launching our microservices supplier program. We believe this new approach will allow businesses to increase capacity and push out upgrades faster. IBM is joining us to collaborate on microservices design and development. Over the next few years, they will focus on creating microservices that will modernize applications and transform business processes, including sales, ordering, and enterprise data. Read more.

“Our commitment to business customers is unwavering,” said Arroyo. “We will continue to invest in creating highly secure, on-demand network platforms that will help transform businesses by connecting them to the power of everything that is connected around them.”