Altice USA Inc (ATUS) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Altice USA Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Results. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Nick Brown. Thank you. Please go ahead.

您好，歡迎來到 Altice USA 第四季度和 2022 年全年業績。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，正在錄製此會議。現在我很高興向大家介紹主持人尼克·布朗。謝謝。請繼續。

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining. We're joined today by Altice USA's CEO, Dennis Mathew; and CFO, Mike Grau, who together will take you through the presentation and then be available for questions. As today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements, please read the disclaimer on Slide 2.

大家好。感謝您的加入。今天，Altice USA 的首席執行官 Dennis Mathew 加入了我們的行列；和首席財務官 Mike Grau，他們將一起帶您完成演示，然後回答問題。由於今天的演示文稿可能包含前瞻性陳述，請閱讀幻燈片 2 上的免責聲明。

Dennis, please go ahead.

丹尼斯，請繼續。

Thank you, Nick, and hello, everyone. I'm pleased to be here to discuss Altice USA's results for 2022, and share what we've been working on since I joined the company in October as well as give a preview of what's ahead in 2023. But before we get started, I want to take a moment to address the management changes we announced alongside our earnings this afternoon.

謝謝你，尼克，大家好。我很高興能在這裡討論 Altice USA 2022 年的業績，分享自我 10 月加入公司以來我們一直在做的事情，並預覽 2023 年的前景。但在我們開始之前，我想花點時間談談我們今天下午與收益一起宣布的管理層變動。

Core to driving our culture and delivering against our plans is ensuring that we have the right leadership structure and team who can sharpen focus on our customer-centric strategy and drive growth. To that end, we announced the addition of several talented senior executives who bring decades of industry experience to the organization. But first, Mike Grau, whom you all know and who is with us today, has made the decision to step down as CFO on March 1.

推動我們的文化和實現我們的計劃的核心是確保我們擁有正確的領導結構和團隊，他們可以更加專注於我們以客戶為中心的戰略並推動增長。為此，我們宣布增加了幾位才華橫溢的高級管理人員，他們為組織帶來了數十年的行業經驗。但首先，大家都知道的邁克·格勞 (Mike Grau) 已經決定在 3 月 1 日辭去首席財務官一職。

Mike has been with the company for over 20 years and at both Cablevision and Altice USA has been a steadfast and passionate leader. I'm incredibly thankful to him for his partnership over the last few months and appreciate that he will be staying on as an adviser until early July to help our new CFO, Mark Sirota, in his transition to the role. On behalf of the entire team at Altice USA, we thank him for his immense contributions and his leadership.

Mike 已經在公司工作了 20 多年，在 Cablevision 和 Altice USA 一直是一位堅定而充滿激情的領導者。我非常感謝他在過去幾個月的合作夥伴關係，並感謝他將繼續擔任顧問直到 7 月初，以幫助我們的新首席財務官 Mark Sirota 過渡到該職位。我們代表 Altice USA 的整個團隊，感謝他的巨大貢獻和領導能力。

On that note, I'm pleased to welcome Mark as CFO effective March 1. He most recently served as CFO of Comcast Business in the company's Central division, which spans more than 22 million passings, and he brings a tremendous amount of industry and financial experience to this role. I've known Mark for many years, and I'm confident that he will help drive discipline in the organization as we execute against our growth strategy and deliver value for shareholders.

就此而言，我很高興歡迎 Mark 自 3 月 1 日起擔任首席財務官。他最近擔任公司中央部門 Comcast Business 的首席財務官，該部門處理超過 2200 萬次，他帶來了大量的行業和金融對這個角色的體驗。我認識馬克很多年了，我相信他將在我們執行增長戰略並為股東創造價值時幫助推動組織紀律。

I'd also like to recognize and thank Matt Grover, who announced he's retiring from his role as Chief Revenue Officer, and we appreciate that he will also be serving as an adviser through June. In light of this, I'm pleased to welcome our new Chief Revenue Officer, David Williams, Chief Growth Officer, Leroy Williams; and Chief Customer Experience Officer, Shu Roy, to complement our very talented executive leadership team.

我還要感謝馬特·格羅弗 (Matt Grover)，他宣布從首席營收官的職位上退休，我們很高興他也將在 6 月之前擔任顧問。有鑑於此，我很高興地歡迎我們的新任首席營收官 David Williams、首席增長官 Leroy Williams；和首席客戶體驗官 Shu Roy，以補充我們非常有才華的執行領導團隊。

With a sharp operational and financial focus, deep technical and industry experience and proven leadership capabilities, the team is collectively focused on partnering to accelerate our growth strategy. Now let's get into our 2022 full year results summary on Slide 3.

憑藉敏銳的運營和財務重點、深厚的技術和行業經驗以及公認的領導能力，該團隊共同專注於合作以加速我們的增長戰略。現在讓我們進入幻燈片 3 上的 2022 年全年業績摘要。

To start, I want to thank all of our employees and share how incredibly proud I am of their accomplishments. From the acceleration of our fiber and new build construction, which now makes us one of the top fiber builders in the country to ramping up our sales distribution channels and improving our customer service metrics, all while continuing to find our footing in the wake of the pandemic.

首先，我要感謝我們所有的員工，並分享我為他們的成就感到無比自豪。從我們的光纖和新建築建設的加速，現在使我們成為該國頂級光纖製造商之一，到擴大我們的銷售分銷渠道和改善我們的客戶服務指標，同時繼續在大流行。

The early days of the pandemic certainly taught us the immense value of our optimum connectivity services. In 2022, we saw our business begin to normalize, but also be impacted by new conditions, competitors and behaviors that we are confident we are going to address as part of our 2023 strategy and which will again prove the strength and resiliency of our services. Of course, the secret sauce to what makes a connectivity company great has a few different ingredients from our talented people to the quality and value of our products and network to the service and support that we deliver.

大流行的初期無疑教會了我們最佳連接服務的巨大價值。 2022 年，我們的業務開始正常化，但也受到新情況、競爭對手和行為的影響，我們有信心將這些作為 2023 年戰略的一部分加以解決，這將再次證明我們服務的實力和彈性。當然，讓一家連接公司變得偉大的秘密武器有一些不同的成分，從我們的人才到我們產品和網絡的質量和價值，再到我們提供的服務和支持。

In the past year, we've invested in all of these areas, and we continue to do so in 2023. We are seeing signs of recovery, but the need to remain focused and disciplined in our strategy and capital allocation is critical. So let's run through a brief snapshot of our full year 2022 performance.

在過去的一年裡，我們在所有這些領域進行了投資，並將在 2023 年繼續這樣做。我們看到了復甦的跡象，但在我們的戰略和資本配置中保持專注和紀律至關重要。因此，讓我們簡要回顧一下我們 2022 年全年的表現。

Full year revenue declined 4.4% year-over-year, mainly driven by pressure in our residential and advertising businesses as well as the loss of AirStrand revenue in the prior year after the termination of our legacy Sprint contract. Excluding AirStrand revenue, the revenue decline would have been 3.2% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA declined 12.7% year-over-year with a margin of 40.1% or down 10.3%, excluding AirStrand revenue, reflecting both the revenue decline and the higher OpEx to drive future growth.

全年收入同比下降 4.4%，這主要是由於我們的住宅和廣告業務的壓力以及在我們的遺留 Sprint 合同終止後去年 AirStrand 收入的損失。不計入 AirStrand 收入，收入同比下降 3.2%。調整後的 EBITDA 同比下降 12.7%，利潤率為 40.1% 或下降 10.3%，不包括 AirStrand 收入，反映出收入下降和更高的運營支出推動未來增長。

Free cash flow remains solid even with our elevated fiber investment, as we generated $453 million of free cash flow in 2022. This would have been over $500 million without the impact from a legal settlement payments to T-Mobile of approximately $65 million in Q4 from our legacy Sprint-VoIP patent dispute. Residential broadband customer net losses totaled $103,000 for 2022, with a significant improvement in the quarterly trend in Q4 with broadband net losses of just $8,000.

即使我們增加了光纖投資，自由現金流仍然穩固，因為我們在 2022 年產生了 4.53 億美元的自由現金流。如果沒有從 2018 年第 4 季度向 T-Mobile 支付約 6500 萬美元的法律和解金的影響，這一數字將超過 5 億美元。我們遺留下來的 Sprint-VoIP 專利糾紛。 2022 年住宅寬帶客戶淨虧損總額為 103,000 美元，第四季度的季度趨勢明顯改善，寬帶淨虧損僅為 8,000 美元。

Like others in the industry, we continue to be impacted by relatively low market activity and increased competitive pressures, but we are very pleased to be able to say that we're starting to see the benefits from our investment initiatives which I'll expand on later in this presentation.

與業內其他公司一樣，我們繼續受到相對低迷的市場活動和不斷增加的競爭壓力的影響，但我們很高興能夠說，我們開始看到我們的投資計劃帶來的好處，我將對此進行詳述在本演示文稿的後面。

We ended the year with nearly 2.2 million Optimum fiber homes passed, adding just under 1 million new passings in the year. We also accelerated fiber broadband customer net additions, adding more than 100,000 net new fiber subscribers in the last year. Additionally, we continue to advance the pace of our new builds, adding 200,000 organically in the last 12 months, and we have meaningfully expanded our sales distribution channels, almost doubling headcount in our door-to-door sales team and increasing the number of Optimum-branded stores across the country by about 50% to strengthen our reach.

我們在這一年結束時通過了近 220 萬個 Optimum 光纖家庭，這一年新增了將近 100 萬個。光纖寬帶用戶淨增速度加快，去年淨增光纖用戶超過10萬戶。此外，我們繼續加快新建築的步伐，在過去 12 個月內有機地增加了 200,000 個，並且我們有意義地擴展了我們的銷售分銷渠道，我們上門銷售團隊的人數幾乎翻了一番，並增加了 Optimum 的數量- 在全國范圍內增加約 50% 的品牌店，以加強我們的影響力。

To close out the summary, I wanted to highlight that in December, we successfully extended approximately 50% of our term loans due in 2025 and 2026, out to 2028 as we continue to proactively manage our debt maturity schedule. Now let's turn to Slide 4 to review our strategy and the company's renewed mission.

在結束總結時，我想強調的是，在 12 月，我們成功地將 2025 年和 2026 年到期的約 50% 的定期貸款延長至 2028 年，因為我們繼續積極管理我們的債務到期時間表。現在讓我們轉到幻燈片 4 來回顧我們的戰略和公司的新使命。

It has been clear to me since my first day as CEO that we needed to redefine a clear mission and strategy for the company. One that will drive all our actions, and that mission is to make Optimum the connectivity provider of choice across all of our communities. We are starting with a strong foundation given our various increased investments over the last 12 to 18 months. Notably around our fiber network expansion, accelerated new build activity in our Western footprint, the Optimum rebrand and incremental investments in both customer care and in growing our distribution channel.

從我擔任首席執行官的第一天起，我就很清楚，我們需要為公司重新定義明確的使命和戰略。一個將推動我們所有行動的使命，其使命是使 Optimum 成為我們所有社區的首選連接提供商。鑑於我們在過去 12 至 18 個月中增加了各種投資，我們從堅實的基礎開始。特別是圍繞我們的光纖網絡擴展、加速我們西部足蹟的新建活動、Optimum 品牌重塑以及在客戶服務和發展我們的分銷渠道方面的增量投資。

With this renewed mission, my priority has been to cement a strategy that will set us on a path to return to sustainable customer revenue and cash flow growth. This strategy is centered around growing our broadband and mobile businesses by delivering best-in-class customer and employee experiences. We are rallying around 4 tenants. The first is customer experience.

有了這個新的使命，我的首要任務是鞏固一項戰略，使我們走上恢復可持續客戶收入和現金流增長的道路。該戰略的核心是通過提供一流的客戶和員工體驗來發展我們的寬帶和移動業務。我們正在召集 4 個租戶。首先是客戶體驗。

In a world of 24/7 connectivity, we know how much our customers rely on us, and it is the quality of the experience, paired with the value of that experience that matters most. So we're going back to basics with a heightened focus on elevating quality and end-to-end customer experience.

在全天候 24/7 連接的世界中，我們知道我們的客戶對我們的依賴程度，而最重要的是體驗的質量以及體驗的價值。因此，我們將回歸基礎，更加註重提升質量和端到端的客戶體驗。

We are putting programs in place to simplify how our customers interact with us and experience our services to make us a company that is easier to do business with, and we will measure this by advancing a culture that focuses on driving improved Net Promoter Scores across all channels. I want to emphasize that this does not necessarily require a higher level of investment.

我們正在製定計劃，以簡化客戶與我們互動和體驗我們服務的方式，使我們成為一家更容易與之開展業務的公司，我們將通過推進一種專注於提高所有企業淨推薦值的文化來衡量這一點渠道。我想強調的是，這並不一定需要更高的投入。

In many cases, this work centers around modifying antiquated processes and redirecting resources and energy into areas such as digital transformation, self-installation and improved customer tools. This will pull transactions and costs out of the system, having a direct correlation on field, care and overall customer experience improvements. We are particularly committed to these initiatives as they will lead to both cost and growth optimization.

在許多情況下，這項工作的核心是修改過時的流程，並將資源和精力重新分配到數字化轉型、自行安裝和改進客戶工具等領域。這將從系統中提取交易和成本，與現場、護理和整體客戶體驗改進直接相關。我們特別緻力於這些舉措，因為它們將導致成本和增長優化。

Second, we are accelerating our go-to-market strategy with a broadband first focus to grow broadband customer relationships. We are digging right now into evolving our bundle and speed tier strategies to instill more rigor around pricing, packaging, offers and marketing to drive profitability, long-term customer value and customer growth.

其次，我們正在加速以寬帶為重點的上市戰略，以發展寬帶客戶關係。我們現在正在深入研究發展我們的捆綁和速度層策略，以在定價、包裝、優惠和營銷方面灌輸更嚴格的內容，以推動盈利能力、長期客戶價值和客戶增長。

Mobile will take on a more meaningful role, and we are looking at our overall product road map as we formulate a new bundled offer to take advantage of our capabilities in this regard. Additionally, we're employing a more hyper local engagement strategy to give us greater visibility into the uniqueness of our distinct market and drive more relevant local level marketing.

移動將發揮更重要的作用，我們正在研究我們的整體產品路線圖，因為我們制定了新的捆綁產品以利用我們在這方面的能力。此外，我們正在採用更高度本地化的參與策略，讓我們更清楚地了解我們獨特市場的獨特性，並推動更相關的本地營銷。

While we now benefit from 1 national Optimum brand, we believe this new simplified and hyper-local approach to how we go to market will help to improve our competitive position and ensure that we are optimizing our sales channels more strategically to drive win back and accelerate penetration in new build areas most effectively.

雖然我們現在受益於 1 個國家 Optimum 品牌，但我們相信這種新的簡化和超本地化的市場營銷方式將有助於提高我們的競爭地位，並確保我們更有戰略性地優化我們的銷售渠道，以推動贏回並加速最有效地滲透到新建區域。

Next, our network. As you know, we've been investing in building and maintaining the fastest and most reliable broadband network, and I'm very proud of the progress to date. In fact, last month, Ookla released its 2022 Q4 speed test results, which ranked Optimum ahead of 2 of our largest competitors for broadband download speeds, demonstrating the results of our investments in strengthening network quality.

接下來，我們的網絡。如您所知，我們一直在投資建設和維護最快、最可靠的寬帶網絡，我為迄今為止取得的進展感到非常自豪。事實上，上個月，Ookla 發布了 2022 年第 4 季度的速度測試結果，在寬帶下載速度方面，Optimum 領先於我們兩個最大的競爭對手，展示了我們在加強網絡質量方面的投資成果。

In 2023, we'll continue to advance our fiber expansion strategically and to support my comment earlier on quality, we'll continue to invest in plants and network upgrades across our whole footprint to ensure every market we serve has reliable and quality broadband. We are taking a balanced approach here as we strategically deploy fiber and work with our growth, product, sales and marketing teams, to drive value from our fiber network so we can realize the benefits of our investments. I'll talk more about our fiber approach shortly.

到 2023 年，我們將繼續戰略性地推進我們的光纖擴張，並支持我之前關於質量的評論，我們將繼續投資於我們整個足蹟的工廠和網絡升級，以確保我們服務的每個市場都有可靠和優質的寬帶。我們在這裡採取平衡的方法，因為我們戰略性地部署光纖並與我們的增長、產品、銷售和營銷團隊合作，以推動光纖網絡的價值，以便我們能夠實現投資的收益。稍後我將詳細討論我們的光纖方法。

And finally, a moment on our people. Since joining the company, I've had the pleasure of traveling across the footprint and meeting with our teammates. And what I've observed is that our employees are passionate, driven and want nothing more than to deliver on our mission of becoming the connectivity provider of choice in all of our communities.

最後，花點時間談談我們的員工。自從加入公司以來，我有幸穿越足跡並與我們的隊友會面。我觀察到的是，我們的員工充滿熱情、積極進取，只想實現我們成為所有社區首選連接提供商的使命。

And I'm proud to have the opportunity to lead this team, and I'm working with my leaders, including the new leaders we announced today to ensure our employees are engaged and are supported to be the best and feel proud of the progress that we are making. In conclusion, I took this position because I believe in this company and have confidence that we can drive improved performance.

我很自豪有機會領導這個團隊，我正在與我的領導者合作，包括我們今天宣布的新領導者，以確保我們的員工參與並得到支持成為最好的，並為取得的進步感到自豪我們在做。總之，我之所以擔任這個職位，是因為我相信這家公司，並且相信我們能夠推動業績的提升。

While what I just laid out will not happen overnight, I believe that with a clear growth strategy and customer-centric mindset, our team is collectively focused on disciplined execution and operational excellence to maximize our investments and see a return to sustainable growth.

雖然我剛剛提出的計劃不會一蹴而就，但我相信，憑藉清晰的增長戰略和以客戶為中心的思維方式，我們的團隊將共同專注於紀律嚴明的執行和卓越運營，以最大限度地提高我們的投資並實現可持續增長。

With that, let's move on to look at our results in more detail starting on Slide 5. Total reported revenue for the full year declined 4.4% year-over-year on a headline basis or down 3.2%, excluding AirStrand revenue in the prior year. Total revenue declined 6% year-over-year for Q4 were down 4.4%, excluding AirStrand revenue. Residential revenue was down 4% for the full year driven by the lower subscriber base with a decline of 5% in Q4.

有了這個，讓我們繼續從幻燈片 5 開始更詳細地查看我們的結果。全年報告的總收入總體上同比下降 4.4% 或下降 3.2%，不包括上一年的 AirStrand 收入.第四季度總收入同比下降 6%，下降 4.4%，不包括 AirStrand 收入。受訂戶基數下降的推動，全年住宅收入下降了 4%，第四季度下降了 5%。

Business services revenue declined 7.1% year-over-year but was up 0.6%, excluding AirStrand revenue. For Q4, Business services revenue declined 9.3% and was down 0.4%, excluding AirStrand revenue. News and Advertising revenue was down 5.5% year-over-year in the full year and down 10.8% in Q4 as the pickup in political revenue wasn't sufficient to offset the impact from the market slowdown in ad spending into the end of the year, with quite a few campaign cancellations, given the macro environment.

商業服務收入同比下降 7.1%，但增長 0.6%，不包括 AirStrand 收入。第四季度，商業服務收入下降 9.3%，下降 0.4%，不包括 AirStrand 收入。新聞和廣告收入全年同比下降 5.5%，第四季度下降 10.8%，原因是政治收入的回升不足以抵消年底廣告支出市場放緩的影響，考慮到宏觀環境，取消了相當多的活動。

Excluding political, advertising revenue declined 10.5% year-over-year in the full year and was down 25% in Q4. Turning to Slide 6 on recent quarterly customer trends in our residential business. In Q4, we reported a net loss of 16,000 residential customer relationships and a broadband net loss of $8,000 supported by a return to growth in broadband customers in our West footprint.

剔除政治廣告收入全年同比下降 10.5%，第四季度下降 25%。轉到幻燈片 6，了解我們住宅業務最近的季度客戶趨勢。在第四季度，我們報告了 16,000 個住宅客戶關係的淨損失和 8,000 美元的寬帶淨損失，這得益於我們西部足蹟的寬帶客戶恢復增長。

This is a significant improvement compared to the past couple of quarters where we lost over 40,000 broadband customers in each of Q2 and Q3. While we tend to see an underlying improvement in Q4 sequentially, the additional improvement is driven by a number of factors. First, we've been seeing an increase in gross adds driven by the investment in growing our sales channels, including door-to-door and retail stores, as I mentioned at the onset; second, the rebrand has been a success. We've seen increased awareness and consideration of Optimum as well as improved brand perceptions across our customer surveys, with Optimum being perceived more positively than Suddenlink on key perceptual measures, including speed, service, reliability, quality and price; and third, our customer experience and care investments are beginning to make an impact.

與過去幾個季度相比，這是一個顯著的進步，我們在第二季度和第三季度分別失去了超過 40,000 名寬帶客戶。雖然我們傾向於看到第 4 季度的潛在改善，但額外的改善是由許多因素驅動的。首先，正如我在開始時提到的，我們一直看到增加銷售渠道的投資推動了總收入的增加，包括門到門和零售店；第二，品牌重塑取得成功。在我們的客戶調查中，我們發現 Optimum 的知名度和考慮度有所提高，品牌認知度也有所提高，在關鍵的感知指標（包括速度、服務、可靠性、質量和價格）方面，Optimum 比 Suddenlink 受到更積極的評價；第三，我們的客戶體驗和關懷投資開始產生影響。

For example, TNPS scores across all frontline teams in care, technical support, retail stores and sales all improved 5 to 20 points compared to 2021 as our teams got better at addressing customer needs at the first attempt. On the care side, the number of customers contacting us for technical troubleshooting decreased 14% year-over-year as customers experienced fewer technical issues related to our devices and network. And as we continue to drive improvements in IVR, proactive customer notifications, troubleshooting tools and self-service capabilities, customer repeat calls for care and technical support have declined by almost 10% year-over-year; and fourth, we continue to gain 40% plus penetration in the first year we roll out to new build areas.

例如，與 2021 年相比，所有前線團隊在護理、技術支持、零售店和銷售方面的 TNPS 得分都提高了 5 到 20 分，因為我們的團隊在第一次嘗試時更好地滿足了客戶需求。在護理方面，由於客戶遇到與我們的設備和網絡相關的技術問題較少，因此聯繫我們進行技術故障排除的客戶數量同比下降 14%。隨著我們繼續推動 IVR、主動客戶通知、故障排除工具和自助服務功能的改進，客戶重複呼叫護理和技術支持的次數同比下降了近 10%；第四，在我們推出新建築區域的第一年，我們繼續獲得 40% 以上的滲透率。

Lastly, our trends across the New York tristate area have also improved as we gained traction with our fiber investment, which is now more meaningfully helping our broadband net adds. It's also worth noting that we launched a partnership with the New York City Housing Authority to provide services to several housing units in the city, which brought in around 9,000 customers in the fourth quarter.

最後，隨著我們的光纖投資獲得牽引力，我們在紐約三州地區的趨勢也有所改善，這現在更有意義地幫助我們的寬帶網絡增加。還值得注意的是，我們與紐約市住房管理局建立了合作夥伴關係，為該市的多個住房單元提供服務，第四季度吸引了大約 9,000 名客戶。

While we're cautious about extrapolating from 1 quarter's performance, we're optimistic about what we're seeing at the moment. Slide 7 is an overview on our fiber and new build growth. We added just under 1 million new FTTH passings for the full year, including 251,000 in Q4, bringing our total fiber passings to 2.16 million at the end of the year. The majority of these fiber upgrades have been focused in the New York Tristate area, although we did complete our first few thousand fiber passing in the West footprint in Q4.

雖然我們對從 1 季度的表現進行推斷持謹慎態度，但我們對目前所看到的情況持樂觀態度。幻燈片 7 概述了我們的光纖和新建增長。我們全年增加了近 100 萬個新的 FTTH 通行證，其中第四季度為 251,000 個，使我們的光纖通行證總數在年底達到 216 萬個。大多數光纖升級都集中在紐約三州地區，儘管我們確實在第四季度完成了西部足跡中的前幾千條光纖。

As I said last quarter, I'm a big believer in fiber and the best broadband technology for the future. I've extensively reviewed our multiyear fiber strategy with the team over the last few months, and we'll continue to take a balanced and measured approach as we strategically deploy fiber and evolve the corresponding go-to-market strategy to drive value from this network so we can realize the benefits of our investments.

正如我上個季度所說，我堅信光纖和未來最好的寬帶技術。在過去的幾個月裡，我與團隊廣泛審查了我們的多年光纖戰略，我們將繼續採取平衡和衡量的方法，因為我們戰略性地部署光纖並發展相應的上市戰略以從中推動價值網絡，以便我們可以實現投資的收益。

And so to that end, in 2023, we will press ahead with the fiber build across the tristate area as we made great progress here, and it's a relatively low cost for us to upgrade. Across the Western footprint though, we're going to look to be more opportunistic about where we upgrade for fiber in the near term, focusing on areas that give us the best return on investment.

為此，到 2023 年，我們將在三州地區推進光纖建設，因為我們在這裡取得了很大進展，升級成本相對較低。不過，在整個西方足跡中，我們將在短期內對我們升級光纖的地方採取更多的機會主義態度，重點關注能給我們帶來最佳投資回報的領域。

As we've shown in Q4 broadband results, we have many different levers to improve performance across this part of our footprint without needing to immediately upgrade everywhere for FTTH. This includes all things I described earlier, including a more hyperlocal approach, taking advantage of our new brand and expanded sales distribution channels, completing our DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade across the rest of the footprint to enhance quality everywhere and continuing to edge out our network to drive new customer growth.

正如我們在第四季度寬帶結果中所示，我們有許多不同的槓桿來提高我們足蹟的這一部分的性能，而無需立即在所有地方升級 FTTH。這包括我之前描述的所有內容，包括更超本地化的方法、利用我們的新品牌和擴展的銷售分銷渠道、完成我們在其餘足蹟的 DOCSIS 3.1 升級以提高所有地方的質量並繼續超越我們的網絡以推動新客戶增長。

We are updating our overall FTTH passings target for full year 2023 to add at least another 900,000 fiber passings so that we end the year with more than 3 million. This is more than half of the Tristate network and nearly 1/3 of our entire Altice USA network. Thereafter, we'll review the pace of our fiber build annually as we want to make sure we're allocating capital in the most efficient way while continuing to drive a healthy level of free cash flow.

我們正在更新我們 2023 年全年的總體 FTTH 通過目標，以至少再增加 900,000 次光纖通過，以便我們在年底達到 300 萬以上。這是 Tristate 網絡的一半以上，也是我們整個 Altice USA 網絡的近 1/3。此後，我們將每年審查光纖建設的步伐，因為我們希望確保以最有效的方式分配資本，同時繼續推動健康的自由現金流水平。

On the customer front, we accelerated our fiber net additions again in the fourth quarter to add 36,000 fiber subscribers through a combination of gross ads and migrations of existing customers. Our fiber broadband customers continue to exhibit favorable churn trends, and we expect that this will become a more meaningful driver as we continue to market and deliver high-quality multi-gig data speeds.

在客戶方面，我們在第四季度再次加速了光纖淨增，通過總廣告和現有客戶遷移相結合，增加了 36,000 名光纖用戶。我們的光纖寬帶客戶繼續呈現出有利的流失趨勢，我們預計隨著我們繼續營銷和提供高質量的多千兆數據速度，這將成為一個更有意義的驅動力。

On the right side of the slide, you'll see we beat our full year target for new build passings, adding 200,000 as we've edged out our footprint. For 2023, new builds remain a significant driver of growth, and we plan to deliver at least another 150,000 passings as we balance the pace of rollout against the volume of fiber passings we want to achieve.

在幻燈片的右側，您會看到我們超過了全年新構建通過的目標，增加了 200,000，因為我們已經縮小了我們的足跡。到 2023 年，新建築仍然是增長的重要驅動力，我們計劃再提供至少 150,000 次通過，因為我們會平衡部署速度和我們想要實現的光纖通過量。

With that, I'll now hand it over to Mike to go over our Business Services segment and walk you through our financials in more detail.

有了這個，我現在將它交給邁克來檢查我們的商業服務部門，並更詳細地向您介紹我們的財務狀況。

Thank you, Dennis, and good afternoon, everybody. First, let me say it's been a pleasure serving as CFO for the last 3.5 years, leading the finance team at Altice USA. I'm very grateful for the partnership and friendship of the countless colleagues I've worked with for over more than 20 years here. It has also been great getting to know all of you. While this was a difficult personal decision to make, I have no doubt that you will be in great hands with Mark and the team.

謝謝丹尼斯，大家下午好。首先，讓我說，在過去的 3.5 年裡擔任首席財務官，領導 Altice USA 的財務團隊，我感到很高興。我非常感謝在這里共事了 20 多年的無數同事的伙伴關係和友誼。很高興認識你們所有人。雖然這是一個艱難的個人決定，但我相信你會在 Mark 和團隊的幫助下得到很好的幫助。

Getting back to our results and picking it up on Slide 8. Business Services revenue declined 7.1% year-over-year for the full year, although grew 0.6%, excluding AirStrand revenue. Within this, SMB and other revenue was down 9.3% year-over-year or grew 1%, excluding AirStrand revenue, and Lightpath revenue growth was essentially flat. Note that Lightpath growth in Q4 was impacted by the loss of onetime contract termination revenues from the prior year, but we still expect an acceleration of growth here given our recent network and sales force expansions across New York, Boston and Miami. We have seen some increased competition in the SMB market in the last few quarters, which is impacting both customer and ARPU growth.

回到我們的結果並在幻燈片 8 上找到它。商業服務收入全年同比下降 7.1%，但增長 0.6%，不包括 AirStrand 收入。其中，SMB 和其他收入同比下降 9.3% 或增長 1%，不包括 AirStrand 收入，Lightpath 收入增長基本持平。請注意，第四季度 Lightpath 的增長受到去年一次性合同終止收入損失的影響，但鑑於我們最近在紐約、波士頓和邁阿密的網絡和銷售隊伍擴張，我們仍然預計這裡的增長會加速。過去幾個季度，我們看到中小企業市場的競爭有所加劇，這影響了客戶和 ARPU 的增長。

However, we expect all of the initiatives and investments that Dennis mentioned in relation to the residential business will also positively impact our SMB trends. This includes our fiber upgrade, the rebrand, expanded sales distribution, customer care improvements and new bundle propositions. We're also focused on developing additional products and services, specifically designed for the SMB market.

但是，我們預計丹尼斯提到的與住宅業務相關的所有舉措和投資也將對我們的 SMB 趨勢產生積極影響。這包括我們的纖維升級、品牌重塑、擴大銷售分銷、改善客戶服務和新的捆綁銷售建議。我們還專注於開發專為 SMB 市場設計的附加產品和服務。

Slide 9 is an overview of our CapEx. Our cash CapEx was up approximately 55% year-over-year, mainly driven by increased investments in fiber upgrades and in new builds. Total CapEx for 2022 of $1.9 billion was about $100 million above our prior full year target. As we brought forward some capital investments in the end of last year to accelerate preconstruction on fiber and delivery of new build passings.

幻燈片 9 概述了我們的資本支出。我們的現金資本支出同比增長約 55%，這主要是受光纖升級和新建投資增加的推動。 2022 年的總資本支出為 19 億美元，比我們之前的全年目標高出約 1 億美元。由於我們在去年年底提出了一些資本投資，以加速光纖的預施工和新建築通道的交付。

Without fiber and new builds, capital intensity would have been about 10% of revenue. Recall, we previously indicated annual CapEx could go up towards $2 billion in 2023 and 2024 if we materially accelerated fiber passings across our Western footprint. However, we now expect CapEx could be up to $300 million lower than this level. As the fiber builds we're targeting for this year will include more MDUs in the East and more [RFR] conversions in the West at a lower cost per passing.

如果沒有光纖和新建，資本密集度將佔收入的 10% 左右。回想一下，我們之前曾表示，如果我們在西部足跡上大幅加快光纖傳輸速度，那麼 2023 年和 2024 年的年度資本支出可能會上升到 20 億美元。然而，我們現在預計資本支出可能比這一水平低 3 億美元。隨著我們今年的目標光纖建設將包括東部更多的 MDU 和西部更多的 [RFR] 轉換，每次通過的成本更低。

So we are guiding a range of between $1.7 billion and $1.8 billion of cash CapEx for 2023. Slide 10 shows a bridge of free cash flow for the full year. Free cash flow was $453 million, although, as Dennis mentioned, this would have been over $500 million without the impact from a legal settlement payment to T-Mobile of approximately $65 million in the fourth quarter.

因此，我們指導 2023 年的現金資本支出範圍在 17 億美元至 18 億美元之間。幻燈片 10 顯示了全年自由現金流的橋樑。自由現金流為 4.53 億美元，儘管正如丹尼斯所提到的，如果沒有第四季度向 T-Mobile 支付約 6500 萬美元的法律和解金的影響，自由現金流將超過 5 億美元。

The total amount of the settlement was $112.5 million, and we will pay the balance in the first half of 2024. This case states back to 2018 when Sprint filed a complaint alleging that we infringed their patents by providing VoIP services following similar litigation initiated by Sprint against numerous other broadband and telecoms providers where they've also received settlements.

和解總金額為 1.125 億美元，我們將在 2024 年上半年支付餘額。此案追溯到 2018 年，當時 Sprint 在 Sprint 發起類似訴訟後起訴我們提供 VoIP 服務侵犯了他們的專利針對許多其他寬帶和電信提供商，他們也收到了和解。

While the total amount of the settlement is less than half of what we previously disclosed might be at risk, we are looking to pursue indemnities from our equipment suppliers to recoup some of this amount. Free cash flow for the fourth quarter was negative $82 million due principally to higher CapEx spending in the quarter.

雖然和解總額不到我們之前披露的可能存在風險的一半，但我們希望向我們的設備供應商尋求賠償，以收回部分金額。第四季度的自由現金流為負 8200 萬美元，主要是由於本季度資本支出增加。

It's worth noting that excluding our fiber-to-the-home investment and the legal settlement, free cash flow would have been closer to $1.2 billion for the year. Our cash interest payments were $1.25 billion for the full year and $334 million in Q4, which reflects recent rate increases, although recall 76% of our debt is fixed. Our cash taxes were $254 million for the full year, which was broadly in line with the prior year, including $50 million in the fourth quarter.

值得注意的是，如果不包括我們的光纖到戶投資和法律和解，今年的自由現金流將接近 12 億美元。我們全年支付的現金利息為 12.5 億美元，第四季度支付的現金利息為 3.34 億美元，這反映了最近的利率上漲，儘管我們有 76% 的債務是固定的。我們全年的現金稅為 2.54 億美元，與上年基本持平，包括第四季度的 5000 萬美元。

Finally, Slide 11 is an update on our debt maturity profile following recent refinancing activities. In December, we successfully extended the maturity of approximately 50% of our term loan B1s and B3s from 2025, '26 to 2028 with an incremental Term Loan B6. The extended term loan has an interest rate of SOFR plus 4.5%, which is 225 basis points higher than the unextended loans.

最後，幻燈片 11 是我們最近再融資活動後債務到期情況的更新。 12 月，我們通過增量定期貸款 B6 成功地將大約 50% 的定期貸款 B1 和 B3 的期限從 2025 年、26 年延長到 2028 年。延長期限貸款的利率為 SOFR 加 4.5%，比未延長貸款高 225 個基點。

This transaction was leveraged neutral and extended our weighted average life of debt to 5.7 years as of the end of 2022 with a weighted average cost of debt of 5.7%. We continue to have a strong liquidity position at approximately $1.2 billion and expect free cash flow generation and undrawn revolver capacity to be able to address the unextended loan tranches at maturity.

截至 2022 年底，該交易的槓桿率中性，將我們的加權平均債務壽命延長至 5.7 年，加權平均債務成本為 5.7%。我們繼續擁有約 12 億美元的強大流動性頭寸，並預計自由現金流的產生和未提取的循環能力能夠在到期時解決未延長的貸款問題。

That said, we will continue to monitor the market over the next 12 to 18 months and potentially look to issue a new bond to free up additional revolver capacity and refinance the $750 million [to] 2024 maturity, as market conditions have been improving in the last few months. Separately, I wanted to mention that last month, we unwound the Comcast collar position, Altice inherited with the Cablevision acquisition.

也就是說，我們將在未來 12 到 18 個月內繼續監測市場，並可能考慮發行新債券以釋放額外的循環能力並為 7.5 億美元 [至] 2024 年到期的債券再融資，因為市場狀況一直在改善最近幾個月。另外，我想提一下，上個月，我們解除了 Comcast 領位，Altice 繼承了 Cablevision 的收購。

This will result in a gross debt reduction of about $1.7 billion as we delivered the Comcast stock we held underlying the collar as settlement for the collateralized debt obligations we had on our balance sheet. Although do remember, we have not historically included this in our reported net debt calculations given the offsetting value of the equity.

這將導致總債務減少約 17 億美元，因為我們交付了我們持有的 Comcast 股票，作為我們資產負債表上抵押債務義務的結算。儘管請記住，鑑於股權的抵消價值，我們歷來沒有將其納入我們報告的淨債務計算中。

We also monetized the related derivative positions, resulting in a net cash payment to us of over $50 million that you'll see reflected in our Q1 financials, and we'll get additional annual cash interest savings from this transaction of over $30 million. We're very happy with this result, especially having previously benefited from being able to monetize the increase in the value of the stock efficiently over many years.

我們還將相關衍生品頭寸貨幣化，導致向我們支付超過 5000 萬美元的淨現金，您將在我們的第一季度財務中看到這一點，並且我們將從這筆交易中獲得超過 3000 萬美元的額外年度現金利息節省。我們對這一結果感到非常滿意，尤其是之前受益於多年來能夠有效地將股票價值的增長貨幣化。

And with that, we will now take any questions.

有了這個，我們現在將回答任何問題。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

Our first question today is coming from Philip Cusick of JPMorgan.

我們今天的第一個問題來自摩根大通的 Philip Cusick。

Dennis, maybe you can just talk about the fiber plans and the network upgrade plan. It seems like you've gone from a sort of very aggressive fiber plan that Altice had before to a more traditional Comcast-like sort of network upgrade path. Can you talk about your philosophy on what cable needs to have to compete with fiber and with wireless over time? And how we should think about both the fiber plan over the next 5 years and the CapEx plan that has been outlined a year ago.

丹尼斯，也許你可以談談光纖計劃和網絡升級計劃。看起來您已經從 Altice 之前的一種非常激進的光纖計劃轉變為更傳統的類似 Comcast 的網絡升級路徑。您能否談談您的理念，即隨著時間的推移，電纜需要具備哪些條件才能與光纖和無線競爭？以及我們應該如何考慮未來 5 年的光纖計劃和一年前概述的資本支出計劃。

Nice to hear from you, Philip. As I look at Optimum East and Optimum West, I think we have very different competitive profiles. As you know, in Optimum East, we have Verizon, who is 70% overbuilt in our footprint. We have Frontier, who's also building fiber very mature full product set. And so I'm very bullish, as I've mentioned, that I do think fiber is the best technology. We're seeing benefits of fiber from a churn perspective, from an ARPU perspective. And so we're going to continue to drive fiber in the East.

很高興收到你的來信，菲利普。當我審視 Optimum East 和 Optimum West 時，我認為我們的競爭狀況非常不同。如您所知，在 Optimum East，我們有 Verizon，它在我們的足跡中超建了 70%。我們有 Frontier，它也在構建非常成熟的完整光纖產品集。所以我非常樂觀，正如我提到的，我確實認為光纖是最好的技術。我們從客戶流失的角度和 ARPU 的角度看到了光纖的好處。因此，我們將繼續在東部推動光纖發展。

And we're going to -- we're committed to driving 900,000 homes next year, 850,000 in the East. And so I feel really good about that strategy. We know that fiber from a operating perspective delivers an incredible experience from a speed as well as from a network management and maintenance perspective. And so I'm bullish there. But as I look at the Optimum West, it's a different profile. Optimum West is 25% overbuild. 50% of that is AT&T and the other 50% is fiber overbuilders in different pockets of the footprint.

我們將 - 我們致力於明年推動 900,000 戶家庭，其中 850,000 戶在東部。所以我對這個策略感覺很好。我們知道，從運營的角度來看，從速度以及網絡管理和維護的角度來看，光纖提供了令人難以置信的體驗。所以我在那裡看漲。但當我看 Optimum West 時，它是一個不同的形象。 Optimum West 超建 25%。其中 50% 是 AT&T，另外 50% 是在足跡不同位置的光纖過度建設者。

And so I think we have to take a different approach. And we've seen already in Q4 that we're able to leverage our portfolio of capabilities and be able to be competitive. And we've seen that the investments that we've made in our sales channels are starting to pay off. We doubled our door-to-door sales channel, and we see the benefits of that.

所以我認為我們必須採取不同的方法。我們已經在第四季度看到我們能夠利用我們的能力組合併具有競爭力。我們已經看到，我們在銷售渠道上所做的投資開始收到回報。我們將上門銷售渠道擴大了一倍，我們看到了這樣做的好處。

And I do think we have to operate a bit more hyperlocal, where we are pricing and packaging and really competing at the local level so that we can drive sustainable growth. The reality is that the cost profile is very different in the East versus West.

而且我確實認為我們必須更加本地化運營，我們在定價和包裝中真正在當地競爭，這樣我們才能推動可持續增長。事實上，東西方的成本概況非常不同。

East is dense. West is a bit -- is less dense, and so the cost profile is different. And so -- we think that we can continue to invest in DOCSIS in the West, depending on the footprint. We're going to invest in 3.1, for example. We have 200,000-plus homes that we're going to invest in.

東部密集。西部有點——密度較低，因此成本概況不同。因此——我們認為我們可以繼續在西方投資 DOCSIS，這取決於足跡。例如，我們將投資 3.1。我們要投資 200,000 多套房屋。

And we believe that those investments will allow us to be competitive and to drive growth. And so we're going to take a balanced approach in terms of our CapEx spend over the next few years, and we're going to really make investments in the West in fiber where we think there's an appropriate return.

我們相信這些投資將使我們具有競爭力並推動增長。因此，我們將在未來幾年的資本支出方面採取平衡的方法，我們將真正在西方投資我們認為有適當回報的光纖領域。

The next question is coming from Brett Feldman of Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的布雷特費爾德曼。

You mentioned, I believe, in your remarks that you're going to be looking to do more with your mobile offering. And I was hoping maybe you could just talk high level about the level of importance you see in being able to offer a converged service. In other words, do you anticipate that, that's going to be sort of the default product suite that your customers are going to want? Or do you think it's niche? And then whatever the answer to the question is, do you believe you have everything you need to be successful in the converged market, including the right MVNO partnership?

我相信，您在評論中提到，您將希望通過您的移動產品做更多事情。我希望你可以高層次地談談你認為能夠提供融合服務的重要性。換句話說，您是否預計，這將成為您的客戶想要的默認產品套件？或者你認為它是小眾的？然後無論問題的答案是什麼，您是否相信您擁有在融合市場取得成功所需的一切，包括正確的 MVNO 合作夥伴關係？

Thanks, Brett. I appreciate the question. I do believe that to be the connectivity provider of choice in the communities that we serve, that we have to have a very compelling broadband and mobile offering. And so we're actively working right now to looking at our pricing, packaging and offers with the goal of launching an evolution of our broadband and mobile offering later this year, which I'm very excited about.

謝謝，布雷特。我很欣賞這個問題。我確實相信，要成為我們所服務社區的首選連接提供商，我們必須擁有非常引人注目的寬帶和移動產品。因此，我們現在正在積極研究我們的定價、包裝和優惠，目標是在今年晚些時候推出我們的寬帶和移動產品的演變，我對此感到非常興奮。

I think that we have a lot to offer there. I really do think we have a great partner in T-Mo from an MVNO partnership perspective. We've made the investments in retail. We've grown our retail presence to 137 stores, and that retail facility is really -- these facilities are the best place to showcase mobile and to be able to drive mobile sales, particularly into our base as we have our existing customers visiting us and we have a chance to showcase our products.

我認為我們在那裡可以提供很多東西。從 MVNO 合作夥伴關係的角度來看，我確實認為我們在 T-Mo 有一個很好的合作夥伴。我們已經對零售業進行了投資。我們的零售業務已發展到 137 家商店，而零售設施確實是 - 這些設施是展示移動設備並能夠推動移動銷售的最佳場所，特別是在我們現有客戶訪問我們和我們有機會展示我們的產品。

And so, we are going to be focused on evolving our go-to-market strategy by building a value proposition that is centered around broadband and mobile. I'm very excited about our MVNO relationship with T-Mo. And I believe that our investments in retail will allow us to showcase mobile and be able to drive mobile effectively as we move forward.

因此，我們將專注於通過建立以寬帶和移動為中心的價值主張來發展我們的上市戰略。我對我們與 T-Mo 的 MVNO 關係感到非常興奮。而且我相信我們在零售方面的投資將使我們能夠展示移動並能夠在我們前進的過程中有效地推動移動。

The next question is coming from Ben Swinburne of Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Ben Swinburne。

Two questions. Dennis, given the improvement in customer metrics we're seeing in here in the fourth quarter. What's your expectation of getting back to overall customer growth in 2023? Is that realistic? At some point during the year. And maybe talk a little bit about your pricing philosophy given the competitive environment. And then I was wondering if we could get any help from you guys on your expectation for cash interest in '23, given the change in interest rates, that would be helpful as well.

兩個問題。丹尼斯，鑑於我們在第四季度看到的客戶指標有所改善。您對 2023 年恢復整體客戶增長的期望是什麼？那現實嗎？在一年中的某個時候。考慮到競爭環境，也許可以談談您的定價理念。然後我想知道我們是否可以從你們那裡得到任何關於你們對 23 年現金利息的預期的幫助，考慮到利率的變化，這也會有所幫助。

Thank you so much. I'll let Mike address the last question. But in terms of customer growth, I'm not -- we're not going to commit to when we're going to get to positive, but I'm very optimistic. I'm very optimistic given the trends that we've seen.

太感謝了。我會讓 Mike 解決最後一個問題。但就客戶增長而言，我不是——我們不會承諾何時會變得積極，但我非常樂觀。鑑於我們所看到的趨勢，我非常樂觀。

We're going to continue to lean into the investments that we've made in our sales channels, and we're seeing the fruits of that. We're also going to continue -- we've seen great receptivity in the West to our optimum branding. And so we're getting great customer reception to the new brand. We're also doing a better job in terms of churn. We have started to see improvements in the customer experience investments that we made. As I mentioned earlier, 5 to 20 points of improvement on NPS.

我們將繼續專注於我們在銷售渠道中所做的投資，並且我們正在看到其成果。我們還將繼續——我們已經看到西方對我們最佳品牌的接受度很高。因此，我們的新品牌受到了客戶的熱烈歡迎。我們在客戶流失方面也做得更好。我們已經開始看到我們所做的客戶體驗投資有所改善。正如我之前提到的，NPS 提高了 5 到 20 個點。

Our contact rate is down 14% year-over-year. Service visits rate has improved 10%. And so this is all culminating into better customer experience, which we think will improve churn. And as we evolve our pricing and packaging and go to -- broadband and mobile strategy, and I am revisiting all of our pricing. So as I look at the pricing approach, I think that there were pockets where we were doing gift with purchase, and we had some very aggressive offers.

我們的聯繫率同比下降了 14%。服務訪問率提高了 10%。因此，這一切最終都會帶來更好的客戶體驗，我們認為這將改善客戶流失率。隨著我們發展我們的定價和包裝並轉向 - 寬帶和移動戰略，我正在重新審視我們所有的定價。因此，當我審視定價方法時，我認為有些地方我們在購買時贈送禮物，而且我們有一些非常激進的報價。

And then there are other areas where we had intense competition where we may need to have revised offers and bundles with mobile and with broadband. And so I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all. I think we have to, as I mentioned, really look at our different areas and the competitive landscape and evolve pricing accordingly.

然後還有其他我們競爭激烈的領域，我們可能需要修改報價和與移動和寬帶的捆綁。所以我不認為它是一刀切的。正如我所提到的，我認為我們必須真正審視我們的不同領域和競爭格局，並相應地制定定價。

I do know that our rack rates are a bit confusing. Only 10% of our broadband customers actually pay our rack rates. And so I'm looking -- and presenting it this way makes it confusing. And so I am looking at is there a evolution of that as we move forward as well.

我知道我們的門市價有點混亂。只有 10% 的寬帶客戶實際支付了我們的門市價。所以我正在尋找 - 以這種方式呈現它會讓人感到困惑。因此，我正在研究在我們前進的過程中是否有這種演變。

On cash interest expense spend, you're right, we are somewhat subject to the rising rate environment. I would remind you that after swap contracts and different hedges, we are about 76% fixed on our debt towers. But still a decent amount of exposure to the rate environment. I think I would guide you to something in the neighborhood of about $1.5 billion of cash interest expense in 2023.

關於現金利息支出，你是對的，我們在某種程度上受到利率上升環境的影響。我想提醒你，在掉期合約和不同的對沖之後，我們大約有 76% 固定在我們的債務塔上。但仍然有相當多的利率環境敞口。我想我會引導您了解 2023 年大約 15 億美元的現金利息支出。

The next question is coming from Doug Mitchelson of Credit Suisse.

下一個問題來自瑞士信貸的 Doug Mitchelson。

I think the follow-on to Ben's question is with the commentary around pricing and customer growth is, one of your strategies is to return to sustainable cash flow growth. So when do the lines cross for returning to EBITDA growth? Is it relatively obvious that it's late in '23 or '24 beyond what I've heard in this call is still cycling through some investments, but there's some efficiencies coming and rethinking pricing, which could be a little bit lower, in some cases, I imagine to be more competitive. So what is it all add up to on the bottom line?

我認為 Ben 的問題的後續是關於定價和客戶增長的評論，你的策略之一是恢復可持續的現金流增長。那麼，何時交叉才能恢復 EBITDA 增長？相對明顯的是，在 23 年或 24 年晚些時候，我在這次電話會議中聽到的仍在循環進行一些投資，但效率正在提高並重新考慮定價，在某些情況下可能會低一些，我想更有競爭力。那麼這一切加起來到底是什麼呢？

And separately, Dennis, for the New York footprint, are you able to give us a sense of how much of the Northeast footprint -- excuse me, the East you expect to build out? So I get that you're over 50% now, and I get the 2023 guide, is there kind of an end state for the East that you're willing to share for a percentage cover with fiber?

另外，丹尼斯，對於紐約的足跡，你能告訴我們東北足蹟有多少——對不起，你希望建立東部嗎？所以我知道你現在已經超過 50%，我得到了 2023 年指南，你願意分享東方的最終狀態以獲得一定比例的纖維覆蓋嗎？

I'll let Mike jump in on the first, and then I'll address the fiber piece.

我先讓 Mike 插話，然後再談談光纖部分。

Doug. So in terms of return to EBITDA growth, we've with apologies, we've consciously avoided giving concrete financial guidance outside of the CapEx envelope. So I'm not going to give you a lot of clarity on that one. I do think your overall take on the call is right. We are cycling through some additional investments. but I do think we have mitigating factors. So I think what you'll see from us in '23 from an OpEx perspective, we will continue to invest in the customer experience.

道格。因此，就 EBITDA 增長的回報而言，我們深表歉意，我們有意識地避免在資本支出範圍之外提供具體的財務指導。所以我不會在這方面給你很多清晰度。我確實認為您對電話會議的總體看法是正確的。我們正在循環進行一些額外的投資。但我確實認為我們有緩解因素。因此，我認為從 OpEx 的角度來看，您將在 23 年從我們這裡看到，我們將繼續投資於客戶體驗。

I think the sales distribution channel investments are in the latter innings, but around digital transformation and what have you, I think we will check the growth in OpEx and probably bring it down a little bit overall. But we're going to steer clear of giving any firm guidance on when a return to EBITDA growth will take place. Certainly, you recognize that given the customer losses we had in '22, there will be pressure on revenue and EBITDA in '23 on a year-over-year basis.

我認為銷售分銷渠道投資是在後期，但圍繞數字化轉型以及你有什麼，我認為我們將檢查 OpEx 的增長，並可能將其整體降低一點。但我們將避免就 EBITDA 增長何時恢復提供任何明確的指導。當然，您認識到，鑑於我們在 22 年的客戶流失，23 年的收入和 EBITDA 將同比承受壓力。

Doug, I will say that from an OpEx and EBITDA perspective, we have -- we are looking at the business and digital transformation is one that we're excited about and leaning into. So we're going to be leaning into a couple of different areas. One is self-install. Today, we do about 40% in terms of HFC broadband only. Self-install, we see a path to growing that by 50-plus percent. That one gives customers choice in terms of options for install, but then also gives us a lower cost profile from a truck roll perspective.

道格，我會說，從運營支出和 EBITDA 的角度來看，我們 - 我們正在研究業務，數字化轉型是我們感到興奮和傾向於的一個。所以我們將傾向於幾個不同的領域。一種是自行安裝。今天，我們僅在 HFC 寬帶方面做了大約 40%。自行安裝，我們看到了將其增長 50% 以上的途徑。這為客戶提供了安裝選項方面的選擇，但從上門服務的角度來看，也為我們提供了更低的成本概況。

We're also going to be launching later this year a new cable box, stream box which will also facilitate video self-install, which we don't even -- which we don't offer today. Additionally, we want -- we're going to be launching a new mobile app that mobile app will allow customers to more effectively manage their accounts, do basic troubleshooting, chat with us, again, all with the goal of driving down transactions in the system. So that we can more efficiently run the business, but also deliver a great customer experience because that's what customers want to do.

我們還將在今年晚些時候推出一個新的有線電視機頂盒、流媒體機頂盒，它也將有助於視頻自安裝，我們甚至沒有——我們今天不提供。此外，我們希望 - 我們將推出一個新的移動應用程序，該移動應用程序將使客戶能夠更有效地管理他們的帳戶，進行基本的故障排除，再次與我們聊天，所有這些都是為了降低交易量系統。這樣我們就可以更有效地開展業務，同時提供出色的客戶體驗，因為這是客戶想要做的。

They want to be able to interact with us on the app. They want the choice to be able to do things like self-install. And so we're going to continue to drive and lean into that. From a fiber perspective in the East, as I mentioned, I think that fiber is the right technology in the East. We're going to deliver another 850,000 homes in the East this year, and we're going to continue to look at our CapEx intensity and drive our build-out in the East as we go forward.

他們希望能夠在應用程序上與我們互動。他們希望選擇能夠進行自我安裝等操作。因此，我們將繼續推動並傾向於這一點。從東方的光纖角度來看，正如我提到的，我認為光纖在東方是正確的技術。今年我們將在東部交付另外 850,000 套房屋，我們將繼續關注我們的資本支出強度，並在我們前進的過程中推動我們在東部的擴建。

The next question is coming from Michael Rollins of Citi.

下一個問題來自花旗銀行的邁克爾羅林斯。

In the past, Altice has described some efforts to optimize the asset portfolio. And Dennis, just curious for your thoughts on whether you believe all of the markets that you have belong together under this current Altice USA umbrella? And if there are opportunities to streamline or optimize your markets or some of the assets that you continue to own?

過去，Altice 描述了一些優化資產組合的努力。丹尼斯，只是想知道你是否相信你擁有的所有市場都屬於當前的 Altice USA 保護傘下的所有市場？如果有機會精簡或優化您的市場或您繼續擁有的某些資產？

Michael, I'm very excited about the West. I had a chance to visit Texas and spend some time with our friends in Plano and I'm continuing to learn about our West markets, and I continue to learn that we have tremendous opportunity. In our new build markets, we're seeing 40% penetration in year 1, and we have more new build to do. I'm seeing some great opportunity in terms of as we've now launched our door-to-door as we've scaled our door to door, we're seeing the returns there. And -- we're also seeing some really exciting opportunities with our retail channel as we look to drive mobile in the West.

邁克爾，我對西部感到非常興奮。我有機會訪問德克薩斯州並與我們在普萊諾的朋友共度時光，我將繼續了解我們的西部市場，我將繼續了解到我們擁有巨大的機會。在我們的新建市場中，我們在第一年看到了 40% 的滲透率，而且我們還有更多的新建工作要做。我看到了一些很好的機會，因為我們現在已經開始挨家挨戶，因為我們已經擴大了挨家挨戶的規模，我們看到了那裡的回報。而且——我們也看到了一些非常令人興奮的零售渠道機會，因為我們希望在西方推動移動。

And so right now, my focus is how do we continue to drive growth. We've just gotten to 2 months of modest data growth in the West. And so we want to continue to lean into that, and that's my focus right now. We believe that the customer experience investments that we're making will allow us to compete more effectively where we are being overbuilt there.

所以現在，我的重點是我們如何繼續推動增長。我們剛剛在西方實現了 2 個月的適度數據增長。因此，我們希望繼續依靠它，這是我現在的重點。我們相信，我們正在進行的客戶體驗投資將使我們能夠在過度建設的情況下更有效地競爭。

As I mentioned, we have 25% overbuilt in the West. And I believe that the investments that we're making in DOCSIS 3.1, the 200,000-plus homes will allow us to compete more effectively the investments that we're making in digital, the investments that we're making in quality are all going to allow us to continue to drive growth in the West in the long term as well.

正如我提到的，我們在西方有 25% 的超額建設。而且我相信我們在 DOCSIS 3.1 中所做的投資，200,000 多個家庭將使我們能夠更有效地競爭我們在數字方面所做的投資，我們在質量方面所做的投資都將讓我們也能繼續推動西方的長期增長。

The next question is coming from John Hodulik of UBS.

下一個問題來自瑞銀的 John Hodulik。

Sure. Two follow-ups. First of all, do you think that the changes to pricing will put further pressure on residential ARPU, obviously, that's been down a bit for the last several quarters. But do you think you can do that in a revenue-neutral way? And then number two, the New York City housing contract.

當然。兩次跟進。首先，您是否認為定價的變化會給住宅 ARPU 帶來進一步的壓力，顯然，過去幾個季度已經有所下降。但是你認為你能以收入中立的方式做到這一點嗎？然後是第二，紐約市住房合同。

Is that -- any more color you can provide on that? Is the 9,000 sort of a onetime thing? Or is there more growth there? And did that come at a lower ARPU than you traditionally see in the old Cablevision markets?

那是——你能提供更多的顏色嗎？ 9,000 是一次性的嗎？或者那裡有更多的增長？這是否比您在舊 Cablevision 市場上看到的 ARPU 更低？

Thank you, John. Appreciate the question. On pricing, we are, as I mentioned, looking at pricing, and we are very -- I want us to be very focused on customer lifetime value. And so -- as I look at some of our offerings in last year, I do believe that we need to be a bit more disciplined in terms of our gift with purchase, in terms of our save offers, in terms of our repackaging and upsell offers. And so I believe that there's opportunity there.

謝謝你，約翰。感謝這個問題。在定價方面，正如我提到的，我們正在研究定價，我們非常——我希望我們非常關注客戶的終身價值。因此——當我審視我們去年的一些產品時，我確實認為我們需要在購買禮物、保存優惠、重新包裝和追加銷售方面更加自律提供。所以我相信那裡有機會。

I think that the broadband and mobile value proposition will help us to drive gross adds from a subscriber perspective and that we have opportunity to sell into the base in ways that we have not done effectively yet as we look at CLV and we look at opportunities there. We want to drive mobile. We want to drive speed upgrades. We want to bring people over to fiber in the East, and we believe that we can do that profitably, and we can bring people into packages that bring the best of our products, but then also deliver great value.

我認為寬帶和移動價值主張將幫助我們從訂戶的角度推動總增加，並且我們有機會以我們尚未有效完成的方式向基地銷售，因為我們正在研究 CLV 並尋找那裡的機會.我們想推動移動。我們要推動速度升級。我們想把人們帶到東方的光纖，我們相信我們可以做到這一點，我們可以把人們帶到包裝中，帶來我們最好的產品，同時也帶來巨大的價值。

[niche] contributed 9,000 customers in Q4. There is more opportunity this year. There's more -- and we're excited about that. Nothing to announce today, but there are -- we're excited about that partnership, and we're going to continue to see growth from that in the first half of this year. Maybe I'll let Mike talk a little bit about the ARPU question that you had on niche .

[niche] 在第四季度貢獻了 9,000 個客戶。今年有更多的機會。還有更多 - 我們對此感到興奮。今天沒有什麼可宣布的，但有——我們對這種夥伴關係感到興奮，我們將在今年上半年繼續看到這種夥伴關係的增長。也許我會讓 Mike 談談您在 niche 上遇到的 ARPU 問題。

Yes, sure. So John, you're right. The ARPU did start to tail off in the back half of '22. I'm talking now about broadband ARPU. Certainly, customer ARPU has declined year-over-year, and that's a function of lower video penetration of the customer base, lower video attach rates and that's been a somewhat consistent trend for a couple of years. On the broadband ARPU, I think the pacing on the broadband ARPU growth in '22 is largely a function of the manner in which we applied promo roles over the course of '22. There was a lot more activity in that regard in the first half of the year and much less so in the second half of the year.

是的，當然。所以約翰，你是對的。 ARPU 確實在 22 年的後半段開始下降。我現在說的是寬帶 ARPU。當然，客戶 ARPU 逐年下降，這是由於客戶群的視頻滲透率較低，視頻附加率較低，而且這幾年一直是一個趨勢。在寬帶 ARPU 方面，我認為 22 年寬帶 ARPU 增長的步伐在很大程度上取決於我們在 22 年期間應用促銷角色的方式。今年上半年在這方面的活動多得多，而下半年則少得多。

And so you saw some sequential ARPU growth in the first and second quarter and then it started to tail off in the back half of the year, very similar to what you saw in 2021. And I think it's probably reasonable to expect a pretty similar trend in '23 as well as far as the quarterly pacing of ARPU growth. I think net-net, ARPU growth, we told you would be somewhat flattish in '22 at the beginning of the year, and we delivered on that. It probably came in maybe 1% full year growth, and I think '23 should look pretty similar in that regard.

因此，您看到第一季度和第二季度的 ARPU 連續增長，然後在今年下半年開始下降，這與您在 2021 年看到的情況非常相似。而且我認為，預計會出現非常相似的趨勢可能是合理的在 23 年以及 ARPU 增長的季度步伐。我認為淨淨，ARPU 增長，我們告訴過你在今年年初的 22 年會有些持平，我們實現了這一點。它可能實現了 1% 的全年增長率，我認為 23 年在這方面應該看起來非常相似。

The next question is coming from Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson SVB.

下一個問題來自 MoffettNathanson SVB 的 Craig Moffett。

Your peers have made very big commitments to wireless as kind of the centerpiece of their strategy. Your strategy is obviously, at this point, much more focused on fiber and the physical plant. But I wonder if you could just talk about whether you think that the wireless agreement that you have today is sufficient to get you to where you want to be with bundled service offerings and with your wireless strategy going forward?

您的同行已經對無線做出了巨大的承諾，將其作為其戰略的核心。在這一點上，您的策略顯然更側重於纖維和實體工廠。但我想知道您是否可以談談您是否認為您今天擁有的無線協議足以讓您通過捆綁服務產品和您的無線戰略前進到您想要的地方？

Thanks, Greg. I am excited about wireless being a key product in our portfolio. I'm excited about as I mentioned, being the connectivity provider of choice in the communities that we serve, so connectivity in the home and outside the home. And I believe that with our MVNO relationship, we can deliver incredible value with our broadband and mobile services combined.

謝謝，格雷格。我很高興無線成為我們產品組合中的關鍵產品。正如我所提到的，我很高興成為我們所服務社區的首選連接提供商，因此家庭和家庭外的連接。而且我相信，通過我們的 MVNO 關係，我們可以通過結合我們的寬帶和移動服務來提供令人難以置信的價值。

This is largely an untapped opportunity for us. And so this is going to be a focus as we move forward. We are actively working on new pricing packaging that brings broadband and mobile together with even more value. And I think that's going to be critical to helping us win in this space. We've made the investments in retail.

這在很大程度上是我們尚未開發的機會。因此，這將成為我們前進的重點。我們正積極致力於新的定價組合，將寬帶和移動結合在一起，帶來更多價值。我認為這對於幫助我們在這個領域取勝至關重要。我們已經對零售業進行了投資。

As I mentioned, we are at 137 retail stores, and we're going to continue to grow that a bit this year, and that will give us an opportunity to showcase mobile effectively. And so this is fairly untapped. And I think we do have the right MVNO relationship and partner, I think we have the right product set. We just have to bring it all together.

正如我提到的，我們有 137 家零售店，今年我們將繼續擴大這一數字，這將使我們有機會有效地展示移動設備。所以這是相當未開發的。而且我認為我們確實擁有合適的 MVNO 關係和合作夥伴，我認為我們擁有合適的產品集。我們只需要將它們整合在一起。

And I'm focused on with our new leadership team, how we can continue to lean into training, how we can lean into our commissions and incentives for our teammates. So I think there's some work that we need to do internally. And then externally, we have to tell the story with our pricing, with our packaging, with our marketing, and then also from a customer base management perspective, we have a huge opportunity there to reach into our base, make them aware and be able to have a more disciplined approach of presenting mobile to our existing customers.

我專注於我們新的領導團隊，我們如何繼續投入培訓，我們如何投入我們的佣金和激勵我們的隊友。所以我認為我們需要在內部做一些工作。然後在外部，我們必須通過我們的定價、我們的包裝、我們的營銷來講述這個故事，然後從客戶群管理的角度來看，我們有巨大的機會進入我們的基礎，讓他們意識到並能夠以更有紀律的方式向現有客戶展示移動設備。

The next question is coming from Jonathan Chaplin of New Street.

下一個問題來自新街的喬納森·卓別林。

Dennis, I'm wondering if you can give us a little bit more color on the pressure you're seeing in the business services market is particularly surprised by -- it looks like there's a little bit of mounting pressure on the -- on Lightpath revenues. I think you referenced some increased competition, and I'd love to get some more context on that. And then Mike, just a clarification for you. Did you say that the operating costs would come down in 2023 or that the growth in operating costs would come down in 2023?

丹尼斯，我想知道你是否可以給我們更多關於你在商業服務市場看到的壓力的顏色，這讓我們感到特別驚訝——看起來在 Lightpath 上有一點點越來越大的壓力收入。我認為你提到了一些日益激烈的競爭，我很想獲得更多關於它的背景信息。然後邁克，只是為你澄清一下。你是說2023年運營成本會下降還是2023年運營成本的增長會下降？

Thanks, Jonathan. On the B2B side, we are seeing pressure as we see increased fiber overbuilders in the West, as we see Verizon be very competitive in this space. As you know, from a B2B SMB perspective, we're highly penetrated in the East. And so we're very focused on churn management and making sure that we're doing all the right things, blocking and tackling to be able to mitigate churn in terms of quality of our network, quality of our products, service and value proposition.

謝謝，喬納森。在 B2B 方面，我們看到了壓力，因為我們看到西方越來越多的光纖過度建設者，因為我們看到 Verizon 在這個領域非常有競爭力。如您所知，從 B2B SMB 的角度來看，我們在東方的滲透率很高。因此，我們非常專注於客戶流失管理，並確保我們正在做所有正確的事情，阻止和解決問題，以便能夠在我們的網絡質量、產品質量、服務和價值主張方面減輕客戶流失。

And as I look at the West, we have opportunities to expand our product portfolio and to continue to compete, especially in those areas where we have fiber overbuilders to bring the full product portfolio to bear. We do have some gaps in our product set in the West that need to be addressed. And I believe when we address those gaps, particularly from a voice perspective, in some pockets, we have an opportunity to bring mobile to bear on the B2B side.

當我看西方時，我們有機會擴大我們的產品組合併繼續競爭，特別是在我們擁有光纖過度建設者以提供完整產品組合的那些地區。我們在西方的產品系列中確實存在一些需要解決的差距。而且我相信，當我們解決這些差距時，特別是從語音角度來看，在某些口袋中，我們有機會讓移動技術在 B2B 方面發揮作用。

I think this will allow us to compete more effectively and then there's future opportunity that we're looking at in terms of expanding the product portfolio even further from what we offer today. Today, we offer connectivity, but there's more solutions that we can bring to bear that would allow us to drive -- be more competitive, drive ARPU -- and so that's -- those are all things that we're actively focused on delivering and bringing to market.

我認為這將使我們能夠更有效地競爭，然後我們正在尋找未來的機會，進一步擴大我們今天提供的產品組合。今天，我們提供連接性，但我們可以提供更多解決方案，使我們能夠推動 - 更具競爭力，推動 ARPU - 因此 - 這些都是我們積極專注於交付和推向市場。

So Jonathan, just to add to what.

所以喬納森，只是想補充一下。

Yes, sorry, go ahead, Mike.

是的，對不起，繼續，邁克。

No, I was just going to add to what Dennis was saying to address your specific question on Lightpath. I mean I think our comments noted in part the revenue growth, the lack thereof in the fourth quarter was due to a onetime early termination liability that took place in the fourth quarter of '21, which was fairly material. In general, I would say the Lightpath management team has had certain challenges around residual churn that they've had to confront -- for the last first couple of years. I mean, certainly, a lot of that had to do with the T-Mo Sprint merger as they've pruned certain redundancies in their network and then different other customers, we're seeing some residual churn challenges.

不，我只是想補充 Dennis 所說的話，以解決您關於 Lightpath 的具體問題。我的意思是我認為我們的評論部分提到了收入增長，第四季度缺乏收入增長是由於 21 年第四季度發生的一次性提前終止責任，這是相當重要的。總的來說，我想說 Lightpath 管理團隊在他們不得不面對的剩餘流失方面遇到了一些挑戰——在過去的頭幾年裡。我的意思是，當然，其中很多與 T-Mo Sprint 合併有關，因為他們已經削減了網絡中的某些冗餘，然後是其他不同的客戶，我們看到了一些剩餘的客戶流失挑戰。

I will say net installs and Lightpath has started to go positive as of the last half of '22, the bookings, the actual new sales bookings in Lightpath were pretty strong in '22. They're actually quite strong. We had record quarters in both the first and second quarter, and we had a very strong fourth quarter as well.

我要說的是，截至 22 年下半年，淨安裝量和 Lightpath 開始呈正增長，Lightpath 的預訂量、實際新銷售預訂量在 22 年非常強勁。他們其實很強。我們在第一季度和第二季度都取得了創紀錄的成績，而且我們在第四季度的表現也非常強勁。

We've just started in the early innings of expanding into Miami and Boston. So pointing being, I think there are a return to revenue growth of Lightpath into the kind of low to mid-single digits that we were accustomed to seeing maybe, say, 10 years ago, I think that's very imminent and pretty encouraged by what we're seeing there. On operating costs, to clarify what I said earlier, what I said or what I should have said what I meant to say, we are going to temper the growth we've been seeing in OpEx, and I would expect it to flatten or even go down -- come down a little bit from the fourth quarter run rate.

我們剛剛開始向邁阿密和波士頓擴張。所以指出，我認為 Lightpath 的收入增長恢復到我們習慣看到的那種中低個位數，也許，比如說，10 年前，我認為這是非常迫在眉睫的，我們的做法非常鼓舞人心在那裡看到。關於運營成本，為了澄清我之前所說的，我所說的或我應該說的我想說的，我們將緩和我們在運營支出中看到的增長，我預計它會趨於平緩甚至下降——比第四季度的運行率下降一點。

Got it. And that Lightpath turn that you're saying is imminent, Mike, is that a 2023 return to growth at Lightpath?

知道了。邁克，你所說的 Lightpath 轉折迫在眉睫，Lightpath 是否會在 2023 年恢復增長？

I was speaking less specifically than that, we are trying to steer away from providing concrete guidance of that nature. I just -- I'm simply saying that we're very encouraged by some of the underlying metrics we're seeing at Lightpath, which tend to be a foreshadow of future revenue growth.

我說的不那麼具體，我們正在努力避免提供那種性質的具體指導。我只是 - 我只是說我們對我們在 Lightpath 看到的一些基本指標感到非常鼓舞，這些指標往往是未來收入增長的預兆。

The next question is coming from Greg Williams of Cowen and Company.

下一個問題來自 Cowen and Company 的 Greg Williams。

Just wanted to revisit the fiber-to-the-home discipline in your messaging. Is there a fear that fiber overbuilders can encroach on your territories in the West, you mentioned 25%, could that escalate now that you're taking more disciplined approach. Second question is just on media reports saying that you're exploring fiber-to-the-home JVs. We saw a JV with AT&T -- and is that something you are exploring because the messaging I'm hearing today suggests maybe the opposite as you're investing less in fiber-to-the-home and not more.

只是想在您的消息傳遞中重新審視光纖到戶規則。是否擔心光纖過度建設者會侵占您在西方的領土，您提到了 25%，現在您正在採取更有紀律的方法，這種情況是否會升級。第二個問題只是關於媒體報導說你正在探索光纖到戶合資企業。我們看到了與 AT&T 的合資企業——這是你正在探索的東西，因為我今天聽到的消息表明可能恰恰相反，因為你在光纖到戶方面的投資更少，而不是更多。

Greg, thank you for the question. On the second item, I don't want to address any speculation here. I'm really focused on the core business and driving long-term sustainable growth. And so to your question on the West, we do anticipate additional fiber overbuild to happen. And so that's where I'm saying we're going to have to be very thoughtful and surgical as to where we need fiber to be most competitive. I'm not saying that we need fiber in every one of those areas.

格雷格，謝謝你的提問。關於第二點，我不想在這裡討論任何猜測。我真正專注於核心業務並推動長期可持續增長。因此，對於您關於西方的問題，我們確實預計會發生額外的纖維過度建設。因此，這就是我要說的地方，我們必須非常周到和外科手術地確定我們需要光纖在哪些方面最具競爭力。我並不是說我們在每個領域都需要光纖。

We do have some untapped opportunity as we bring broadband together with mobile and deliver a very compelling value proposition. And as we make these upgrades to 3.1, we can deliver gig speeds, high-quality network, high-quality speeds combined with a very strong value proposition with broadband and mobile and that we can be competitive by acting a bit more hyper locally as we look at the competitive landscape and bring to bear some pricing, packaging and offers that would allow us to compete most effectively, especially with the fiber overbuilders given that we have a broader portfolio of products to bring to bear.

我們確實有一些未開發的機會，因為我們將寬帶與移動結合在一起並提供非常引人注目的價值主張。當我們將這些升級到 3.1 時，我們可以提供零工速度、高質量的網絡、高質量的速度以及非常強大的寬帶和移動價值主張，並且我們可以通過在本地採取更多的超本地行動來提高競爭力看看競爭格局，並製定一些定價、包裝和報價，使我們能夠最有效地競爭，尤其是與纖維過度建造者，因為我們有更廣泛的產品組合可供選擇。

But we will look at being thoughtful, being measured in terms of where we want to build fiber in the West, we are planning for a build-out of some homes this coming year, and we'll continue to look at that on a case-by-case basis as we move forward. As we look at density, as we look at the return on investment, we want to be measured in terms of how we make those investments and where.

但我們會考慮周到，根據我們希望在西方建設光纖的地方進行衡量，我們計劃在明年建造一些房屋，我們將繼續在一個案例中進行研究-在我們前進的過程中逐案進行。當我們查看密度時，當我們查看投資回報時，我們希望根據我們進行這些投資的方式和地點來衡量。

The next question is coming from Kutgun Maral of RBC Capital Markets.

下一個問題來自 RBC Capital Markets 的 Kutgun Maral。

I wanted to follow up on costs and maybe hone in on the programming cost outlook. Some of your peers have started to benefit from a fairly remarkable moderation in the growth of programming cost per video subscriber. Altice has historically, we've seen this growth to be in the mid- to high single-digit range. Is there a scope to have that get closer to low single digits or even maybe flattish in the coming years? Or is that just not as likely given how your video product is structured?

我想跟進成本並可能磨練編程成本前景。您的一些同行已經開始受益於每個視頻訂戶的節目成本增長相當顯著的放緩。從歷史上看，Altice 已經看到這種增長處於中高個位數範圍內。未來幾年是否有可能接近低個位數甚至持平？還是考慮到您的視頻產品的結構，這不太可能？

Thanks for the question. I'll address kind of at a broad level, and then I'll let Mike jump in on the programming piece. But we do -- we -- I am also looking at our video service and how that fits into the portfolio. We know that there continues to be a demand for legacy video, we know that there's the demand for streaming video and apps. And so I do believe that there's an opportunity to rightsize our go-to-market strategy with video in terms of pricing, packaging, bundling as appropriate.

謝謝你的問題。我將在一個廣泛的層面上解決問題，然後讓 Mike 跳入編程部分。但我們確實 - 我們 - 我也在研究我們的視頻服務以及它如何融入產品組合。我們知道對傳統視頻的需求仍然存在，我們知道對流媒體視頻和應用程序的需求。因此，我確實相信，有機會在定價、包裝和捆綁方面適當調整我們的視頻上市戰略。

And so -- that is something that we're also looking at in terms of how it fits into the portfolio and how we may want to leverage it as we go forward so that we can be most competitive, particularly in areas where -- we've got fiber overbuilders and other competition. We have this video product and an opportunity to bundle that in to be able to drive our go-to-market as we move forward.

因此——我們也在考慮它如何融入投資組合，以及我們在前進過程中可能希望如何利用它，以便我們能夠最具競爭力，特別是在——我們的領域有纖維過度建造者和其他競爭者。我們有這個視頻產品，並有機會將其捆綁在一起，以便能夠在我們前進的過程中推動我們進入市場。

So on the overall question in terms of the inflation rate we're seeing, you're right, we have historically been seeing numbers in the by mid- to high single digits. I think that's tempered. When we look at programming cost per sub per month and look at the inflation on that basis, so adjusting for volumes, we've had a couple of quarters of the last 6 quarters. We've got a couple at 5 or even sub-5%. So I think it's nudging downwards.

因此，關於通貨膨脹率的總體問題，你是對的，從歷史上看，我們一直看到中高個位數的數字。我認為這是脾氣暴躁。當我們查看每個訂閱者每月的編程成本並在此基礎上查看通貨膨脹時，因此根據數量進行調整，我們在過去 6 個季度中有幾個季度。我們有幾個是 5% 甚至低於 5%。所以我認為它正在向下推動。

Anecdotally, I will say, when we go into renewal negotiations, we often come out the other side with a result that is better than what we expected and probably couldn't have said that very often in the 10 years that proceeded, say, the last 2 years. So I do think there's a little bit of a shift in favor of the distributor in this regard. And we are seeing some tempering of the programming cost inflation we've seen historically. As far as whether that can evolve to be flattish in the near to medium future. I mean, that would be a great outcome for us, but I would hesitate to make that kind of commitment.

有趣的是，我要說的是，當我們進行續約談判時，我們經常會以比我們預期更好的結果出現在另一邊，而且在接下來的 10 年裡可能不會經常這麼說，比如說，過去 2 年。所以我確實認為在這方面有一些有利於分銷商的轉變。我們看到歷史上看到的編程成本膨脹有所緩和。至於這是否會在近期到中期的未來演變為持平。我的意思是，這對我們來說是一個很好的結果，但我會猶豫做出這樣的承諾。

Unfortunately, we have ran out of time for questions today. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for any additional or closing comments.

不幸的是，我們今天沒有時間提問了。我想將發言權交還給管理層以徵求任何補充意見或結束意見。

No, just. Thank you all for joining us, and have a good evening. Appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great day.

不只是。感謝大家加入我們，祝大家度過一個愉快的夜晚。欣賞它。謝謝。祝你有美好的一天。

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.

女士們，先生們，感謝你們的參與。今天的活動到此結束。您此時可以斷開線路，享受接下來的一天。