AT&T, Verizon Make Differing Bets as Wireless Growth Stalls

Faced with the same saturated wireless market, the nation’s two biggest telecom companies have placed divergent bets on the future. With its $85 billion agreement to buy Time Warner , AT&T has turned to television while Verizon has looked to Silicon Valley, with its $4.4 billion purchase of AOL in 2015 and pending $4.8 billion acquisition of Yahoo. Both operators are trying to solve the same riddle—each with a different piece of the ill-fated 2001 merger of AOL-Time Warner. They both have millions of wireless subscribers who pay monthly fees to use their networks to share photos, watch videos and tap into social networks. But that wireless business alone lacks the means to drive growth now that the majority of Americans have a smartphone. At the same time, their two smaller rivals are chipping away at their subscriber base.