AT&T Corporate Headquarters to move to Dallas.

AT&T Inc. announced that it will move its corporate headquarters from San Antonio to Dallas to gain better access to its customers and operations throughout the world, and to the key technology partners, suppliers, innovation and human resources needed as it continues to grow, domestically and internationally.

The move will begin in the coming weeks and is expected to be complete around yearend. It is expected to involve about 700 of the company’s nearly 6,000 San Antonio-based employees.

“We’re a growing global company with customers and operations around the world,” said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and CEO. “Being headquartered in Dallas will benefit our long-term growth prospects and human resources needs, and our ability to operate more efficiently, better serve customers and expand the business in the future.

“San Antonio is a great city with much to offer and it’s been good for AT&T as we’ve grown from primarily a five-state local phone company to the world’s largest telecom company,” Stephenson said. “San Antonio will continue to be a major operations and employment center for us.”

Following the move, AT&T will have about 1,700 more employees in San Antonio than before it relocated its corporate headquarters to the city from St. Louis in 1992. The company’s Telecom Operations group, which serves residential and regional business customers in 22 U.S. states, will remain in San Antonio.

Moving to Dallas puts AT&T’s corporate headquarters near many of its key technology suppliers and other telecom companies that have major operations in Dallas, such as Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Ericsson, Fujitsu, Huawei, Nokia, Nortel, RIM and Samsung.