AT&T moved to tackle customer pain points such as phone transfers and long customer wait times by refreshing its America’s Best Guarantee programme, in a bid to win subscribers from rivals Verizon and T-Mobile US.

The latest iteration of the guarantee initiative now offers a connection with a customer service expert in five minutes or less, whether they are buying a new device, seeking technical support, paying a bill or starting service. If the timeframe is not met, customers will be offered a callback time.

Should the operator fail to connect customers with an expert within that timeframe, not offer a scheduled callback or falls short of other support promises, eligible customers may receive a benefit such as a bill credit.

Subscribers who pair AT&T Fiber or AT&T Internet Air with a mobile service will now have one dedicated technical expert to help them from start to finish.

AT&T Consumer EVP and GM Jenifer Robertson stated customers expect straightforward, fast and transparent support. She added the changes were intended to reduce friction, build trust and hold the operator accountable when it falls short of its service standards.

The operator offered its AT&T Guarantee to fibre, dedicated internet and wireless business customers after it launched a year ago.

In March 2026, AT&T extended the programme to offer bill credits to small businesses using its Internet Air fixed wireless access (FWA) service in the event of network outages.

In Q2 2026, AT&T reported 432,000 post-paid phone net additions while Verizon and T-Mobile had 184,000 and 277,000, respectfully.

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Verizon and Ericsson claimed the first pre-standard 6G field call in the 7GHz range, moving their testing from the laboratory to a commercial network site.

The call was conducted at a Verizon commercial site in Concord, California, using an Ericsson 6G proof-of-concept kit. The companies tested upper mid-band frequencies outdoors and measured how the signals penetrated a building.

The test used a base station installed on a site shelter and user equipment housed in a 12-by-8-foot mobile enclosure capable of supporting stationary outdoor and indoor radio configurations.

Positioned away from the site shelter housing the base station, the mobile test unit features custom power backups, varied glass and wall material configurations. The setup allows engineers to measure how a pre-standard 6G stack operating over a 400MHz carrier handles line-of-sight and non-line-of-sight paths, foliage, physical obstacles, and building entry loss.

The companies verified an outdoor call and are also testing how 6G signals travel from open-air environments into buildings. The work measures coverage, throughput, latency, stability and feature performance in real-world conditions.

Verizon CTO and SVP of technology development Yago Tenorio stated Ericsson plays a key role in the operator’s 6G Innovation Forum and its efforts to turn 6G research into practical deployments. He added the outdoor trial would provide technical insights to help shape global standards and guide the design and deployment of future networks.

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OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar reportedly warned businesses using low-cost Chinese AI models could face cybersecurity risks and said Western alternatives offered greater protection.

Speaking to Bloomberg at the International AI Summit in Dublin, Friar urged companies considering Chinese models to assess the safety and security risks.

OpenAI and rival Anthropic face growing competition from open-weight AI models, particularly those developed in China. Users can download and run them on their own hardware, often at a lower cost than leading US alternatives, with comparable performance on some tasks.

Chinese releases accounted for the largest share of generative AI model downloads on hosting platform Hugging Face in August, reported the outlet.

OpenAI and Anthropic mainly offer closed models which cannot be downloaded or modified. Both companies have argued open alternatives pose greater risks.

Anthropic head of international Guillaume Princen voiced similar concerns about open-weight models at the event.

“I can’t talk for open models. But by definition, there’s more risk with them,” he said.

The comments follow several cases of advanced AI systems behaving unexpectedly during cybersecurity tests.

In July, OpenAI disclosed its models had breached systems operated by AI start-up Hugging Face during an authorised cybersecurity evaluation.

Anthropic has also disclosed examples of model misbehaviour, including a Claude model submitting a false tip related to a homicide investigation, Bloomberg reported.

Friar nevertheless cautioned US AI companies against slowing releases.

“I do think that we need to pace it but not slow it down so much that we get this imbalance on who has access to the tools that potentially, from a cyber perspective, create real mission-critical issues in the world,” she said.

Katti plans exit
Also yesterday, Sachin Katti, OpenAI’s infrastructure lead, stated on LinkedIn he plans to leave his position on 15 November but will continue to support the company as an advisor.

“After an incredible year at OpenAI, I’ve decided to move on to build something new,” he stated.

Prior to joining OpenAI in November 2025, he held various technology roles at Intel, including Chief Technology and AI Officer.

CNBC reported Uday Ruddarraju, who has been serving as OpenAI’s CTO of compute, will replace Katti and lead the company’s overall compute organisation.

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