...NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) Oct. 24, 2014--Standard & Poor's Ratings Services said today that its ratings on AT&T Inc. (A-/Stable/A-2) are not affected by the company's lower 2014 revenue guidance, which underscores the challenges the company faces in an increasingly competitive and maturing U.S. wireless industry. AT&T lowered its 2014 revenue growth target to 3%-4% from 5%, partially due to fewer people signing up for equipment installment plans (EIP) than it previously anticipated, which is particularly important since handset revenue from EIP customers is booked at the point of sale and contributes to higher near-term revenue growth than under the subsidy model. As such, we believe this highlights the aforementioned challenges AT&T faces and that its prior revenue guidance of 5% was partially inflated by the near-term impact of customers migrating to EIP rather than industry and company-specific fundamentals. During the third quarter of 2014, total revenue increased 2.5% from the prior...
