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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…

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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.”