Continued strong mobile phone and internet protocol television growth, partly offset by weakness in traditional fixed line consumer voice and business revenues, enabled AT&T, the US telecommunications group, to report solid first quarter results on Wednesday.

AT&T is the first of the major US carriers to report its results which were particularly eagerly awaited by investors looking for signs of the impact of the economic downturn, particularly in the wake of disappointing results from Deutsche Telekom’s T-Mobile USA unit announced on Tuesday.