Cable One Inc (CABO) 2025 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Tiffany, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Cable One's third quarter 2025 earnings call. (Operator Instructions)

您好，感謝您的耐心等待。我叫蒂芬妮，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線生。此時此刻，我謹代表 Cable One 向大家歡迎參加 2025 年第三季財報電話會議。（操作說明）

I would now like to turn the call over to Jordan Morkert, Vice President of Investor Relations. Jordan. Please go ahead.

現在我將把電話交給投資者關係副總裁喬丹·莫克特。約旦。請繼續。

Good afternoon, and welcome to Cable One's third quarter 2025 earnings call. We're glad to have you join us as we review our results.

下午好，歡迎參加 Cable One 2025 年第三季財報電話會議。我們很高興您能和我們一起回顧研究結果。

Before we proceed, I would like to remind you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements relating to future events that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding future broadband revenue, customer growth, connects and churn rates, new product rollouts, anticipated cost savings and other benefits to be derived from our billing system migration and our other investments in growth enablement platforms, anticipated benefits from our mobile service pilot program, future cash flow, ARPU and capital expenditures, future levels of competition, potential uses for our cash flows, our ability and sources of capital to fund the retirement of our 0% convertible notes in 2026, the estimated MBI purchase price, MBI's future debt levels, our CEO succession process, the anticipated timing for closing of certain asset sales, and our future financial performance, capital allocation policy, leverage ratios and financing plans.

在繼續之前，我想提醒各位，今天的討論包含有關未來事件的前瞻性陳述，這些陳述涉及風險和不確定性，包括有關未來寬頻收入、客戶增長、連接數和流失率、新產品推出、預期成本節約以及從我們的計費系統遷移和對增長賦能平台的其他投資中獲得的其他收益、移動服務試點現金計劃的預期計費系統遷移和對增長賦能平台的其他投資中獲得的其他收益、移動服務試點現金計劃的預期收益、未來收益0% 可轉換債券提供資金的能力和資金來源、MBI 的預期收購價格、MBI 的未來債務水準、我們的 CEO 繼任流程、某些資產出售的預期完成時間以及我們未來的財務表現、資本配置政策、槓桿率和融資計劃的陳述。

You can find factors that could cause Cable One's actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements discussed during today's call and today's earnings release and in our SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K and our forthcoming third quarter 2025 quarterly report on Form 10-Q.

您可以找到一些因素，這些因素可能導致 Cable One 的實際業績與今天電話會議和今天的收益發布會上討論的前瞻性聲明以及我們在提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件（包括我們的 10-K 表格年度報告和即將發布的 2025 年第三季度 10-Q 表格季度報告）中討論的前瞻性聲明存在重大差異。

Cable One is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation, except as required by law, to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Cable One 沒有義務，且明確聲明不承擔任何義務，除非法律要求，否則無論由於新資訊、未來事件或其他原因，都要更新或修改其前瞻性聲明。

Additionally, today's remarks will include a discussion of certain financial measures that are not presented in conformity with US generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP. When we refer to free cash flow during today's call, we mean adjusted EBITDA less capital expenditures as defined in our earnings release. Reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release or on our website at ir.cableone.net.

此外，今天的演講還將討論一些不符合美國公認會計原則（GAAP）的財務指標。在今天的電話會議中，我們所謂的自由現金流是指調整後的 EBITDA 減去我們在獲利報告中定義的資本支出。本次電話會議中討論的非GAAP財務指標與最直接可比較的GAAP指標的調節表，可在我們的盈利報告中或我們的網站ir.cableone.net上找到。

Joining me on today's call is our President and CEO, Julie Laulis; and Todd Koetje, our CFO.

今天與我一起參加電話會議的還有我們的總裁兼執行長 Julie Laulis，以及我們的財務長 Todd Koetje。

With that, let me turn the call over to Julie.

那麼，我把電話交給茱莉吧。

Thank you, Jordan, and good afternoon, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for today's call. Our subscriber results in the third quarter were weaker than expected, reflecting higher churn from the combined impact of macroeconomic factors, competitive pressures, promotional roll-offs and billing migration activities. While overall customer losses were disappointing, we saw modest improvements in third quarter connects as compared to the prior year period, a trend that carried into October.

謝謝你，喬丹，大家下午好。感謝您參加今天的電話會議。第三季我們的用戶成長不如預期，反映出宏觀經濟因素、競爭壓力、促銷活動取消和計費遷移活動等因素的綜合影響導致用戶流失率上升。雖然整體客戶流失令人失望，但與去年同期相比，第三季連線數略有改善，這一趨勢延續到了 10 月。

ARPU performance along with disciplined execution allowed us to deliver financial results largely consistent with the second quarter. We anticipate ARPU to remain stable for the remainder of the year.

ARPU（每位用戶平均收入）表現以及嚴謹的執行力，使我們得以實現與第二季度基本一致的財務業績。我們預計今年剩餘時間內每用戶平均收入將保持穩定。

We believe our focus on simplified pricing, segmented marketing campaigns and value-enhancing product and service offerings is laying the groundwork for improved financial performance over time. However, we continue to navigate a challenging macro environment, which is why our focus remains on execution, retaining existing customers, retooling our go-to-market approaches, and working to position Cable One for durable long-term growth.

我們相信，我們專注於簡化定價、細分行銷活動以及提供增值產品和服務，正在為隨著時間的推移改善財務表現奠定基礎。然而，我們仍在應對充滿挑戰的宏觀環境，因此，我們的重點仍然是執行、留住現有客戶、調整市場策略，並努力使 Cable One 實現持久的長期成長。

I'll first review residential broadband customer trends. Residential data customers declined by 21,600 in the third quarter, driven by the factors I noted. As I mentioned, momentum and Connect have continued with year-over-year growth for the quarter and sequential gains each quarter of this year, and that momentum has carried into October. Positive signs that our initiatives are resonating even in a complex and competitive landscape.

我首先回顧一下住宅寬頻用戶趨勢。第三季住宅數據用戶減少了 21600 人，這主要是由於我提到的那些因素造成的。正如我之前提到的，Movity 和 Connect 在本季度繼續保持同比增長，並且今年每個季度都實現了環比增長，這種增長勢頭一直延續到 10 月份。積極的跡象表明，即使在複雜且競爭激烈的環境中，我們的舉措也產生了積極影響。

One major initiative enabled by our billing platform transformation is the launch of a new go-to-market pricing structure across our MSO footprint. By significantly simplifying our pricing Sparklight representatives can now more easily match products and price points to individual needs and are doing so faster, thereby improving overall customer experience.

我們的計費平台轉型帶來的一項重大舉措是，在我們的 MSO 業務範圍內推出新的市場定價結構。透過大幅簡化定價，Sparklight 的代表現在可以更輕鬆地將產品和價格點與個人需求相匹配，而且速度更快，從而改善整體客戶體驗。

At the same time, during the third quarter, we experienced increased churn. Given the economic and competitive pressures in the market, we believe some customers were particularly sensitive to promotional roll-offs and to touch points tied to our billing platform transformation. Similar to our systematic efforts to drive new connects, we are taking an equally aggressive approach to addressing churn.

同時，在第三季度，我們經歷了客戶流失率上升。鑑於市場上的經濟和競爭壓力，我們認為一些客戶對促銷活動的終止以及與我們的計費平台轉型相關的接觸點特別敏感。與我們為促進新連線而採取的系統性措施類似，我們正在採取同樣積極主動的方式來解決客戶流失問題。

We saw churn improve in October in line with October 2024 results following this period of significant customer impacting activity. As we continue aligning our products with customer needs, we are advancing our customer segmentation strategy.

我們看到，在經歷了這段對客戶影響巨大的時期後，10 月的客戶流失率有所改善，與 2024 年 10 月的結果一致。隨著我們不斷調整產品以適應客戶需求，我們正在推動客戶細分策略。

Our Lift product positioned as value by need resonates with cost-conscious customers, providing a sustainable path to reach incremental households and expand penetration. We are also seeing strong sell-in among our premium tiers, with about half of new customers choosing gig or faster speeds, including our expanding multi-gig offerings, up from roughly 40% sell-in last year.

我們的 Lift 產品定位為滿足客戶需求的價值，引起了注重成本的客戶共鳴，為逐步增加家庭用戶和擴大市場滲透率提供了一條可持續的途徑。我們也看到，我們的高級套餐銷售情況良好，約有一半的新客戶選擇了千兆或更快的速度，包括我們不斷擴大的多千兆套餐，高於去年的約 40% 的銷售率。

Average monthly usage is now around 775 gigabits per customer, underscoring sustained demand for high-capacity service while peak utilization remains below 20%. Through these and other initiatives, we are extending our reach across a diverse range of customer segments.

目前每位客戶的平均每月使用量約為 775 千兆比特，凸顯了對高容量服務的持續需求，而峰值利用率仍低於 20%。透過這些舉措以及其他舉措，我們正在擴大業務範圍，涵蓋更廣泛的客戶群。

Turning to ARPU. The increase this quarter was primarily driven by realizing a full quarter of the segmented pricing changes implemented during Q2 as well as a higher-than-usual level of promotional expiration. Looking ahead, we expect some of our retention initiatives will put downward pressure on ARPU, partially offset by the continued adoption of value-enhancing products and services, resulting in stable ARPU through the balance of the year.

接下來我們來看ARPU值。本季成長的主要原因是第二季實施的分段定價調整已全面落實，以及促銷活動到期數量高於往常。展望未來，我們預計我們的一些客戶留存措施將對 ARPU 造成下行壓力，但隨著加值產品和服務的持續普及，部分抵消了這種壓力，從而使 ARPU 在今年剩餘時間內保持穩定。

As part of our segmentation strategy, we have been expanding our value proposition beyond the core broadband service. A key example is Tech Assist our $10 per month support service that offers customers expert support for a wide range of Wi-Fi connected products from PCs and smart TVs to tablets, security cameras, thermostats and more. Tech Assist helps customers keep their technology running smoothly and strengthens our role as the trusted neighbor in their homes. While we initially view Tech Assist as a modest contributor in the near term, adoption has exceeded our expectations to date, and we are optimistic about the long-term opportunity it represents. We are building on the success of this initial launch with our recent introduction of two new Tech Assist products, one covering home entertainment and connected portable devices and another that adds device protection to the tech support assistance included in the original offering.

作為我們市場區隔策略的一部分，我們一直在將我們的價值主張擴展到核心寬頻服務之外。一個典型的例子是我們的 Tech Assist 服務，這項每月收費 10 美元的支援服務為客戶提供各種 Wi-Fi 連接產品的專家支持，從 PC 和智慧電視到平板電腦、安全攝影機、恆溫器等等。技術協助服務幫助客戶保持其技術設備的順暢運行，並加強我們作為客戶家中值得信賴的鄰居的角色。雖然我們最初認為 Tech Assist 在短期內貢獻有限，但迄今為止，其應用已超出我們的預期，我們對它所代表的長期機會持樂觀態度。鑑於此次首發的成功，我們最近推出了兩款新的技術輔助產品，一款涵蓋家庭娛樂和連網便攜設備，另一款在原有技術支援服務的基礎上增加了設備保護功能。

Turning to our mobile initiative. I'm especially proud of the speed at which our team has worked to bring this product to market. We announced our plans to pilot this product on our August earnings call, began associate testing in October and plan to launch unlimited plans starting at $25 per line in select markets later this month. We believe mobile will help reduce churn, deepen the adoption of our services and increase customer lifetime value.

接下來談談我們的行動端計劃。我尤其為我們團隊迅速將這款產品推向市場而感到自豪。我們在 8 月的財報電話會議上宣布了試行該產品的計劃，10 月開始進行員工測試，並計劃在本月稍後在部分市場推出每條線路 25 美元起的無限流量套餐。我們相信行動端將有助於降低客戶流失率，加深客戶對我們服務的接受度，並提高客戶終身價值。

As we launch, we'll continue to learn through targeted pilots and refine how mobile fits within our broader strategy with plans to share additional details on our go-to-market strategy once the pilot phase is complete.

在產品發布後，我們將繼續透過有針對性的試點計畫進行學習，並完善行動端如何融入我們更廣泛的策略。試點階段完成後，我們將分享更多關於市場推廣策略的細節。

Before closing, I want to briefly address our leadership transition. As we've previously shared, I will be retiring from Cable One, but will remain as a senior adviser through 2026 to support a seamless transition. The Board has retained a leading executive search firm and has made significant progress in the comprehensive search process for the next CEO of Cable One. The goal is to achieve a smooth transition and facilitate the continued execution of our long-term growth strategy.

在結束之前，我想簡要地談談我們的領導過渡情況。正如我們之前宣布的那樣，我將從 Cable One 退休，但會留任高級顧問至 2026 年，以支持平穩過渡。董事會已聘請一家頂尖的獵人頭公司，並在Cable One下一任執行長的全面遴選過程中取得了顯著進展。目標是實現平穩過渡，並促進公司長期成長策略的持續實施。

We remain focused on executing our strategy, and I am confident that our talented leadership team and dedicated associates will continue to move the company forward.

我們將繼續專注於執行我們的策略，我相信我們才華橫溢的領導團隊和敬業的員工將繼續推動公司向前發展。

To close, we're encouraged by the continued progress, stronger connect trends through the quarter and in October, year-over-year connect growth paired with another month of sequential churn improvement. We remain focused on executing initiatives that both strengthen connects and reduce churn, and we are looking forward to the results of our upcoming mobile pilot, which we believe could further enhance the customer experience and support growth over time.

最後，我們對持續取得的進展、本季更強勁的連接趨勢以及 10 月份的同比增長連接量以及連續第二個月的客戶流失率改善感到鼓舞。我們將繼續專注於執行能夠加強聯繫和減少客戶流失的舉措，並期待即將推出的行動試點專案的結果，我們相信這將進一步提升客戶體驗，並隨著時間的推移支持業務成長。

And now, Todd, who will provide a recap of our third quarter financial performance.

現在，請托德為大家總結一下我們第三季的財務表現。

Thanks, Julie. Starting with the top line. Total revenues for the third quarter of 2025 were $376 million compared to $393.6 million in the third quarter of 2024. Residential video continued to account for the majority of the year-over-year decline, down $8.7 million or 16.2% due to video subscriber churn. Residential data revenues decreased $2.8 million or 1.2% year-over-year, driven by a 5.1% decline in subscribers, partially offset by a 3.2% increase in ARPU.

謝謝你，朱莉。從第一行開始。2025 年第三季總營收為 3.76 億美元，而 2024 年第三季為 3.936 億美元。由於視訊用戶流失，住宅影片繼續成為年減的主要原因，下降了 870 萬美元，降幅達 16.2%。住宅數據收入年減 280 萬美元，降幅 1.2%，主要原因是用戶數下降 5.1%，但 ARPU 成長 3.2% 部分抵銷了這一降幅。

On a sequential quarterly basis, residential data revenues declined by 0.8%.

與上一季相比，住宅數據收入下降了0.8%。

Third quarter business data revenues grew 0.4% year-over-year. This growth was driven primarily by our fiber and carrier segments, offset by some continued subscriber and pricing softness in the SMB segment. The Fiber & Carrier segment benefited from strong sales momentum, higher connection volumes and our ability to capitalize on new market opportunities. Compared to the second quarter business data revenues increased 0.2% sequentially.

第三季商業數據營收年增0.4%。這一成長主要由我們的光纖和營運商業務推動，但中小企業業務用戶數量和價格持續疲軟抵消了這一增長。光纖和營運商業務部門受益於強勁的銷售勢頭、更高的連接量以及我們把握新市場機會的能力。與第二季相比，業務數據營收季增0.2%。

Operating expenses for the third quarter of 2025 were $96 million or 25.5% of revenues PAUSE compared to $104.6 million or 26.6% of revenues in the third quarter of last year, with the decrease driven largely by a reduction in programming costs.

2025 年第三季的營運費用為 9,600 萬美元，佔收入的 25.5%（暫停），而去年同期為 1.046 億美元，佔收入的 26.6%，下降的主要原因是節目製作成本的降低。

Selling, general and administrative expenses were $100.8 million for the third quarter of 2025 compared to $88.4 million in the prior year quarter. SG&A as a percentage of revenues was 26.8% for Q3 of 2025 compared to 22.5% for Q3 of 2024 with the increase driven largely by noncash stock-based compensation, other labor costs and investments in growth enablement platforms.

2025 年第三季的銷售、一般及行政費用為 1.008 億美元，而去年同期為 8,840 萬美元。2025 年第三季銷售、一般及行政費用佔營收的 26.8%，而 2024 年第三季為 22.5%，成長主要由非現金股票選擇權激勵、其他勞動成本及成長賦能平台的投資所驅動。

As discussed last quarter, the implementation of these platforms is expected to generate meaningful OpEx and SG&A savings over time as we realize greater automation and operating efficiency.

如同上個季度所討論的，隨著自動化程度的提高和營運效率的提升，這些平台的實施有望隨著時間的推移，帶來可觀的營運支出和銷售、管理及行政費用節省。

Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 of 2025 was $201.9 million, representing 53.7% of revenues compared to $213.6 million or 54.3% of revenues in Q3 of last year and $203.2 million or 53.3% of revenues in the second quarter of 2025. Capital expenditures totaled $71.8 million in the third quarter, a decrease of $5.2 million or 6.8% year-over-year. During the quarter, we invested $4 million of CapEx and new market expansion projects and $2.7 million in integration activities. We now expect full year CapEx to come in at the high $200 million range versus our previously articulated $300 million area estimate.

2025 年第三季調整後 EBITDA 為 2.019 億美元，佔營收的 53.7%，而去年第三季為 2.136 億美元，佔營收的 54.3%，2025 年第二季為 2.032 億美元，佔營收的 53.3%。第三季資本支出總額為 7,180 萬美元，年減 520 萬美元，降幅為 6.8%。本季度，我們投資了 400 萬美元用於資本支出和新市場拓展項目，並投資了 270 萬美元用於整合活動。我們現在預計全年資本支出將達到 2 億美元以上，而我們先前給出的估計約為 3 億美元。

Adjusted EBITDA less capital expenditures or free cash flow, was $130.1 million in the third quarter of 2025, equating to a conversion ratio of 64.4% of adjusted EBITDA. In the third quarter of 2024, free cash flow was $136.6 million and 64% of adjusted EBITDA.

2025 年第三季調整後 EBITDA 減去資本支出或自由現金流為 1.301 億美元，相當於調整後 EBITDA 的 64.4% 的轉換率。2024 年第三季度，自由現金流為 1.366 億美元，佔調整後 EBITDA 的 64%。

Our business generates a significant level of cash flow and we continue to assess the optimal use of those funds in order to maximize long-term shareholder value with our current primary focus on disciplined debt repayment.

我們的業務產生了大量的現金流，我們將繼續評估這些資金的最佳用途，以最大限度地提高股東的長期價值，目前我們的主要重點是嚴格償還債務。

Supplemental to our operating cash flows. During the third quarter, we monetized our equity investments in Ziply and Metronet. These divestitures generated $124 million of combined pretax proceeds and resulted in the recognition of $67 million of gains on the initial invested amounts. Utilizing our operating cash flows and investment proceeds, we paid down nearly $200 million of debt during the third quarter.

補充我們的經營現金流。第三季度，我們實現了對 Ziply 和 Metronet 的股權投資變現。這些資產剝離產生了 1.24 億美元的稅前收益，並確認了 6,700 萬美元的初始投資收益。利用經營現金流和投資收益，我們在第三季償還了近 2 億美元的債務。

On top of the approximately $5 million of scheduled term loan amortization payments, we voluntarily paid down $173 million of revolver borrowings and opportunistically retired over $20 million of our senior notes at a favorable discount.

除了約 500 萬美元的定期貸款攤銷付款外，我們還自願償還了 1.73 億美元的循環貸款，並抓住機會以優惠折扣贖回了超過 2000 萬美元的高級票據。

Through September 30, we now retired over $313 million of our outstanding debt in 2025.

截至 9 月 30 日，我們已償還了 2025 年超過 3.13 億美元的未償債務。

Additionally, after the quarter closed, we repaid an additional $25 million of outstanding borrowings under our committed $1.25 billion revolver.

此外，本季結束後，我們根據承諾的 12.5 億美元循環信貸額度，償還了額外的 2,500 萬美元未償還借款。

As of September 30, we had approximately $167 million of cash and equivalents on hand, and our total debt balance was approximately $3.3 billion consisting of approximately $1.7 billion in term loans, $920 million in convertible notes, $613 million in unsecured notes, $55 million of revolver borrowings and $3 million of finance lease liabilities.

截至 9 月 30 日，我們手頭上約有 1.67 億美元的現金及等價物，總債務餘額約為 33 億美元，其中包括約 17 億美元的定期貸款、9.2 億美元的可轉換票據、6.13 億美元的無擔保票據、5,500 萬美元的循環借款和 300 萬美元的融資負債。

We ended the quarter with approximately $1.2 billion of the $1.25 billion committed liquidity available under our revolving credit facility. Our net leverage ratio on a last quarter annualized basis was 3.9x. Over $2.7 billion of our $3.3 billion of debt contained fixed or swap fixed base interest rates that are substantially below current market rates. Although we expect to be able to retire our convertible notes with churn in March 2026 without needing additional external financing we continue to monitor the capital markets for attractive opportunities.

本季末，我們循環信貸額度下12.5億美元承諾流動資金中，約有12億美元可用。我們上季的淨槓桿率以年化計算為3.9倍。在我們33億美元的債務中，超過27億美元包含固定利率或互換固定利率，這些利率遠低於當前市場利率。儘管我們預計能夠在 2026 年 3 月無需額外外部融資即可償還我們的可轉換債券，但我們仍將繼續關注資本市場，尋找有吸引力的機會。

Assuming the MBI put option is exercised and using an October 1, 2026 closing date, we now estimate that the MBI purchase price would be approximately $475 million to $495 million. We continue to estimate that the amount of MBI's total net indebtedness at closing will be between $845 million and $895 million.

假設 MBI 的看跌期權被行使，並以 2026 年 10 月 1 日為交割日，我們現在估計 MBI 的購買價格約為 4.75 億美元至 4.95 億美元。我們仍然估計，MBI 在交易完成時的總淨債務金額將在 8.45 億美元至 8.95 億美元之間。

And one final note, subsequent to quarter end, we entered into an agreement to sell certain fiber-to-the-tower contract rights to a third-party for approximately $42 million. Concurrently, our Clearwave fiber joint venture agreed to sell a meaningful share of their assets to the same third party. These transactions are expected to close by the end of first quarter of 2026.

最後補充一點，季度末之後，我們與第三方達成協議，以約 4200 萬美元的價格出售某些光纖到塔的合約權利。同時，我們的 Clearwave 光纖合資同意將其相當一部分資產出售給同一第三方。預計這些交易將於 2026 年第一季末完成。

With that, we're ready to take your questions.

那麼，我們就可以回答你們的問題了。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作說明）

Craig Moffett, MoffettNathanson.

克雷格·莫菲特，莫菲特納森森。

Hi, thank you. Todd, thank you for the update on the balance sheet and the debt you've paid off. Can you just update a little bit more about where you would like to target your leverage and how low you think you might take it? And then a more kind of general strategic question, which is -- just what might a more dramatic approach to try to address the -- particularly the broadband ARPU issue in my mind, but the broadband net add problem in general I'm sure you talk internally about sort of what are some potentially more dramatic approaches to try to right the ship, if you will. What might those look like?

您好，謝謝。托德，謝謝你提供的資產負債表最新情況以及你已償還的債務資訊。能否再詳細說明您希望將槓桿率設定在什麼水平，以及您認為槓桿率可以降到多低？然後是一個更一般性的策略問題，那就是——究竟有什麼更激進的方法來嘗試解決——特別是寬頻ARPU問題，在我看來，但總的來說，寬頻淨增問題，我相信你們內部也會討論一些可能更激進的方法來扭轉局面。它們會是什麼樣子呢？

Craig, thanks for the question. I'll kick that one off on the balance sheet, inquiry. Specific to leverage as we articulated in our prepared remarks, we've already paid off over $300 million in debt this year, and that will continue to be one of our primary capital allocation priorities. The business generates a meaningful amount of free cash flow, leverage, free cash flow we benefited from some of the congressional tax payments -- tax legislation recently passed as you've seen this quarter, where that was a really miniscule amount of cash taxes. So we'll get the benefit of that going forward as we've discussed in the past.

克雷格，謝謝你的提問。我先從資產負債表著手，進行一番探究。就槓桿而言，正如我們在準備好的演講稿中所述，我們今年已經償還了超過 3 億美元的債務，這將繼續是我們主要的資本配置優先事項之一。該業務產生了可觀的自由現金流，槓桿作用，自由現金流，我們受益於國會的一些稅收付款——正如您在本季度所看到的，最近通過的稅收立法，其中現金稅款數額非常小。所以，正如我們過去討論過的那樣，我們將從中受益。

We do have to continue to focus on deleveraging. We've operated this business in the past between kind of 2.5x and 4.5x. But that being said, you have to be conscious of what the cost of capital environment looks like when we were willing to take it up to higher levels. It was for strategic transactions. It was in a much lower cost of capital environment. It was in a much less competitive environment, to be honest with you. And so we think about all those things when you think about targeting or philosophical approach to balance sheet management which I would say is much more in the high 2%, low 3x overall leverage ratio that we're going to continue to focus on driving towards with disciplined debt repayment.

我們確實需要繼續專注於去槓桿化。我們過去一直以大約 2.5 倍到 4.5 倍的倍數經營這項業務。但話雖如此，你必須意識到，當我們願意將倍數提高到更高水平時，資本成本環境是什麼樣的。這是為了進行戰略交易。當時的資本成本環境要低得多。坦白說，當時的競爭環境遠沒有現在這麼激烈。因此，在考慮資產負債表管理的目標或理念時，我們會考慮所有這些因素。我認為，我們將繼續專注於將整體槓桿率控制在 2% 到 3 倍之間，並透過有紀律的債務償還來實現這一目標。

And I'll hop in on the second one that you feel free to join as well. I mean I don't think we'll specifically outline details of what we would be doing to grow our customer base, given the competitive environment and understanding who listens to calls. But what I can say is that work has been done and progress is absolutely being made now that we can move past some of these very large platform installations and migrations. Those are behind us. And I think that it might actually be instructive to understand what happened in the third quarter and what things have looked like since the third quarter.

如果你也想參加第二個活動，我也會參加。我的意思是，考慮到競爭環境以及對電話聽眾的了解，我認為我們不會具體詳細說明我們將採取哪些措施來擴大客戶群。但我可以肯定的是，我們已經完成了一些工作，並且取得了顯著進展，現在我們可以著手進行一些非常大型的平台安裝和遷移工作了。那些都已成為過去。我認為，了解第三季發生的事情以及第三季以來的情況可能會很有啟發意義。

There's no doubt that the third quarter customer loss was disappointing. But thankfully, October seems to be different in some significant ways. But first, let's go to the third quarter. In the third quarter, Connect showed modest improvement over the last third quarter. And actually, August, September and October all outperformed last year's connect. So that's half of the net add equation, right?

毫無疑問，第三季的客戶流失情況令人失望。但值得慶幸的是，十月似乎在某些重要方面有所不同。但首先，讓我們進入第三節。第三季度，Connect 的業績較上年第三季略有改善。事實上，8 月、9 月和 10 月的業績都超過了去年同期。所以這就是淨增加方程式的一半，對吧？

And that is why we made the comment that we feel like our initiatives seem to be resonating to bring more customers in the door. However, in the third quarter, disconnects were elevated. And we had a confluence of activities in a compressed time frame from the overall macroeconomic environment, competitive pressures continuing, of course, higher-than-ordinary promotional roll-offs, so they're going to higher rates and a billing migration that touched three quarters, three-fourth of all of our customers.

正因如此，我們才表示，我們感覺我們的舉措似乎正在產生共鳴，吸引更多顧客進店。然而，第三季斷線情況增加。在整體宏觀經濟環境、持續的競爭壓力（當然還有高於平常的促銷活動）的影響下，我們在短時間內面臨一系列問題，導致價格上漲和計費方式變更，影響了我們四分之三的客戶。

Our churn did spike with all of that happening at the same time. And regarding the billing migration, I mean, we are super pleased with the increased capabilities and the efficiencies of this platform, and we can even talk about how we've used it already. It's Agility much better than our previous one. We have been able to isolate that this was also a factor in our increased churn. So in a world where there are multiple choices for broadband, a touch in the form of a new name on the bill that they've never seen before.

同時，所有這些事情發生後，我們的客戶流失率確實飆升了。至於計費系統遷移，我們對這個平台的功能和效率提升感到非常滿意，我們甚至可以談談我們是如何使用它的。它的敏捷性比我們之前的版本好得多。我們已經確定，這也是導致我們客戶流失率上升的一個因素。因此，在寬頻選擇眾多的世界裡，帳單上出現​​一個他們從未見過的新名稱，這本身就是一種觸動。

A new build date, a bill date gets moved. Normalized rates as acquisitions come into Sparklight. All of those things with the billing migration give customers an opportunity to review who their provider is. Now the good news is we believe that any heightened churn associated with the billing migration is now behind us because churn has continued to improve in October. We saw connect at higher levels than last year, same period October and Connect grew sequentially month-over-month in October as well.

新的施工日期，帳單日期也會隨之更改。隨著收購項目進入 Sparklight，費率將趨於正常化。所有這些與帳單遷移相關的事項都讓客戶有機會重新審視他們的服務提供者是誰。現在的好消息是，我們相信與計費系統遷移相關的任何客戶流失率上升的情況都已經過去，因為 10 月的客戶流失率持續改善。我們看到，10 月的連線量比去年同期更高，而且 10 月的連線量也較上季成長。

So that was the third quarter. Going into October, again, October Connect continue to be higher month-over-month and year-over-year and disconnects in October fell back to pre-third quarter levels. So that's not enough. I mean, that's fairly good news, we think, but that's not enough. We're continuing to drive initiatives to bring connect levels higher lots of work in the segmentation area, multi-gig launches, 2 and 6 gig web sales, a lot of work being done on our online platform now that we have a centralized billing platform. That's the same for all the companies.

第三季就到此結束了。進入 10 月，10 月的 Connect 連線數繼續環比和同比升高，而 10 月的斷線數回落至第三季之前的水平。這還不夠。我的意思是，我們認為這算是個好消息，但這還不夠。我們正在繼續推進各項舉措，以提高連接水平，在細分領域做了很多工作，推出了多千兆套餐，推出了 2 千兆和 6 千兆網絡銷售，現在我們有了集中式計費平台，因此我們正在在線平台上做了很多工作。所有公司的情況都一樣。

And we're also working on loyalty and retention that side of the business as well. A lot of work going on with high LTV love, if you will, segmentation and targeted save offers as well as uses of AI and our turn models. So hopefully, that gives a little more flavor, a little bit of PAUSE story behind the numbers of the third quarter and what we see going into the fourth quarter.

我們也在努力提升顧客忠誠度和留存率。我們正在進行大量工作，旨在提高客戶終身價值 (LTV)，進行客戶細分和有針對性的優惠活動，並利用人工智慧和我們的轉換模型。所以，希望這能讓大家對第三季的數據以及我們對第四季的展望有更深入的了解，了解一些 PAUSE 背後的故事。

That's very helpful and encouraging to hear, Julie. Thank you.

聽到這些真是太有幫助、太令人鼓舞了，朱莉。謝謝。

Greg Williams with TD Cowen.

格雷格威廉斯與TD Cowen。

Great. Just maybe Julie dovetailing off the last topic. Any way to quantify between the competition and the promo roll-offs and the billing migration friction. Is there one more to blame than the other? Or is it just sort of a equal perfect storm of events here because some of them are onetime in nature, it will go away, but things like competition will remain, if not get worse.

偉大的。或許朱莉在呼應上一個話題。有沒有辦法量化競爭、促銷活動終止和計費系統遷移摩擦之間的關係？究竟誰的責任比較大？或者說，這只是各種事件疊加造成的完美風暴，因為其中一些事件是一次性的，會消失，但像競爭這樣的問題會一直存在，甚至可能惡化。

Second question is just on the broadband strength. You gave great color on the fourth quarter with puts and takes. As we think ahead in 2026, obviously, not asking for guidance today, but just generally in 2016, if you can help us with sort of puts and takes or price hikes on the table? Are there more promo roll-offs? And maybe as an all said, are you attacking more value segments? Any color would help.

第二個問題是關於寬頻訊號強度的。你在第四節的投籃和接球方面表現出色，為比賽增添了許多色彩。展望 2026 年，顯然我們今天不是在尋求指導，而是在展望 2016 年，您能否幫助我們分析目前有哪些看跌期權、看漲期權或價格上漲的可能性？還有其他促銷活動嗎？總而言之，你們是不是在瞄準更多價值區隔市場？任何顏色都可以。

Okay. I'll try to tackle that one. There's a lot there, Greg. It was -- when I said a confluence of a lot of activities in a compressed time, all of those things affected third quarter churn, which was unusual for us, right? We have had historic lows, and this was definitely a spike. Part of it, the billing migration touching 750,000 people with different things on their bills was part of it. But when you go through a billing migration, for those of you who've done it, you have to put a freeze on your current customers as you move everything over.

好的。我會嘗試解決這個問題。那裡有很多東西，格雷格。我說的是，很多活動在短時間內匯聚在一起，所有這些因素都影響了第三季的客戶流失率，這對我們來說很不尋常，對吧？我們曾經歷過歷史低點，而這絕對是一次飆升。其中一部分是帳單遷移，它影響 75 萬用戶的帳單，帳單內容也隨之改變。但是，對於已經進行過計費系統遷移的用戶來說，在遷移所有內容時，必須凍結現有客戶的服務。

And what that means is that there's a section of customers that don't get their bill and they don't go through their normal cycle for a period of time. Those get delayed for about two weeks and some a little bit longer, 3 weeks. What that means is customers have larger bills by the time they actually have to pay, which does cause a spike in nonpay. So it really was a confluence of a lot of things.

這意味著有一部分客戶在一段時間內收不到帳單，也無法經歷正常的帳單週期。這些通常會延遲兩週左右，有些甚至會延遲更長時間，例如三週。這意味著客戶實際付款時帳單金額會更大，這會導致欠款激增。所以這真的是很多因素共同作用的結果。

And we have torn apart the pieces and parts and no one piece bigger than the other. On the competition side, do we get disconnects because of competition. Of course, we do. But by and large, our problem related to competition has been primarily related to cell phone Internet and not getting connects. And that is an area that we've made a lot of inroads on. So all of the things that I mentioned were part of the reason for our increased churn, which we've now seen come back down to pre-migration levels.

我們已經把各個部分拆解開來，沒有哪一部分比其他部分更大。在競爭方面，我們會因為競爭而出現脫節嗎？當然，我們有。但總的來說，我們與競爭相關的問題主要與手機網路連線不良有關。而這正是我們已經取得很大進展的領域。因此，我提到的所有因素都是導致我們客戶流失率上升的部分原因，而現在我們已經看到客戶流失率回落到遷移前的水平。

In terms of 2026, CABO has not had a cadence of annual rate adjustments for our high-speed data customers. We do do that for video customers due to programmer increases. So we do not have a planned rate adjustment for our HSD service for HSD customers at this time. But we do continue to explore other avenues to increase revenue. For example, we are currently exploring our AutoPay Plus program and seeing how it aligns with others in the broadband telecom space as an example. I hope that answers your question.

就 2026 年而言，CABO 尚未制定針對高速資料客戶的年度費率調整計畫。由於程式設計師收費增加，我們確實會為視訊客戶提供這項服務。因此，目前我們沒有針對高速柴油用戶調整高速柴油服務費率的方案。但我們會繼續探索其他增加收入的途徑。例如，我們目前正在探索我們的 AutoPay Plus 計劃，並看看它如何與寬頻電信領域的其他計劃相契合。希望我的回答能解答你的疑問。

Yes. And Greg, just one thing to jump in on that I think would be helpful for the audience and for you, hopefully, as Julie was talking about that nonpay cycle, we have and we're obviously talking quite a bit about October because when you go through a migration like that, there's quite a bit of noise and it was the confluence of events. But the non-pays in October, as we've seen from an attrition rate are approximately half of what we saw in those spikes in August and September.

是的。格雷格，我想補充一點，我認為這對觀眾和你都有幫助，希望如此。正如朱莉剛才提到的非工資週期，我們顯然也經常談到十月份，因為當你經歷這樣的遷移時，會有很多幹擾，這是各種事件匯聚的結果。但從人員流失率來看，10 月的未支付工資人數大約只有 8 月和 9 月高峰期的一半。

And so that is something that I would say is also maybe like you said, an anomaly that's behind us and not something that would be recurring. The competitive intensity it is recurring. We have to be on our toes, reach price and the packaging of continuous state of rivalry how we think about every single day going to market is what we've done to build the team that we have now, why we made the critical investments in those platforms and now really starting to see the agility of executing on those playbooks as we've talked before.

所以，我想說，這可能就像你所說，是一個已經過去的異常現象，不會再發生。這種競爭強度反覆出現。我們必須時刻保持警惕，在價格和包裝方面保持持續的競爭狀態，我們每天思考如何進入市場，這就是我們組建現在團隊的方式，也是我們為什麼在這些平台上進行關鍵投資的原因，現在我們真正開始看到執行這些策略的敏捷性，正如我們之前所討論的那樣。

Sebastiano Petti with JPMorgan.

摩根大通的塞巴斯蒂亞諾·佩蒂。

Hi, thank you for taking the question, And I guess just kind of following up on the theme of questions thus far this evening, but related to broadband competition, I think your larger cable peers have kind of called out low end kind of pressure. And I don't know if that is just FWA as AT&T may be Internet AirScale, but -- can you maybe perhaps comment from a competitive standpoint as you kind of think about your subscriber base, the churn that you saw on a nonpay basis, but maybe voluntary churn, is there any low-end pressure there, to speak of.

您好，感謝您回答這個問題。我想就今晚目前為止的問題主題繼續探討一下，關於寬頻競爭，我認為你們規模較大的有線電視同行已經指出低端市場存在壓力。我不知道這是否只是 FWA，因為 AT&T 可能是互聯網 AirScale，但是——您能否從競爭的角度談談您的用戶群，您看到的非付費流失，或者說自願流失，是否存在任何低端壓力？

And then I think, Phil, I think you did talk about the Lift products in your prepared remarks, but where are we with the FlexConnect rollout? Is that still in the early stages as you guys think about the improvements in connect volumes in the fourth quarter and beyond as you look to stabilize things? And then lastly, I guess, Todd, I mean, following up on the leverage kind of question or balance sheet. Are you still confident in remaining below 4x net leverage as you kind of bring MBI in over the next 12 months?

然後我想，菲爾，我想你在準備好的演講稿中確實談到了 Lift 產品，但是 FlexConnect 的推廣進展如何呢？你們目前是否還處於早期階段，正在考慮如何提高第四季及以後的連結量，以期穩定局面？最後，我想，托德，我的意思是，關於槓桿率或資產負債表的問題，還有後續問題。在接下來的 12 個月裡，隨著 MBI 的逐步引入，您是否仍然有信心將淨槓桿率保持在 4 倍以下？

Great. I'll go ahead and start. Low-end pressure I would say, yes, as it relates to cell phone Internet increased marketing, there affecting connect. However, again, August, September, October, all higher connect months. We seem to have found some go-to-market strategies that are resonating with our customers. And listen, the onus is on us, to provide services at levels and price points that customers want and Lift and Flex go directly to that lift accounted for a modest but growing share of our gross adds this quarter, and the product is allowing us to reach that value by need customer segment.

偉大的。我先開始了。低階壓力我認為是的，因為它與手機網路行銷的增加有關，這影響了連接。然而，8 月、9 月、10 月都是連接量較高的月份。我們似乎找到了一些能引起客戶共鳴的市場推廣策略。聽著，我們有責任提供客戶想要的水平和價格的服務，而 Lift 和 Flex 直接滿足了這項需求。本季度，Lift 在我們新增客戶中所佔的比例雖不大，但正在成長，該產品使我們能夠根據客戶群的需求實現這一價值。

And we have been tracking them and the retention of these customers, tracks meaningfully better than our overall base. It, of course, requires customers to demonstrate financial need in order to qualify for that service, which naturally limits broad cannibalization and helps preserve the integrity of our core broadband tiers.

我們一直在追蹤這些客戶，而這些客戶的留存率明顯高於我們整體客戶群的留存率。當然，這要求客戶證明其經濟困難才能獲得該服務，這自然限制了廣泛的蠶食，並有助於維護我們核心寬頻層的完整性。

We expect Lift to be net accretive supporting incremental growth and strong retention amongst these price-sensitive segments, the slow in that you referred to. Flex is a product that can help the value by choice versus value by need customer, someone who can't qualify for Lift PAUSE -- but once something in that same price range, which you could imagine, would be the same sort of people who might be interested in cellphone Internet, but with more reliability and unlimited data, higher speeds, et cetera, et cetera, in many cases.

我們預計 Lift 將帶來淨收益，支持這些價格敏感型細分市場的增量成長和強勁的客戶留存，正如您所提到的成長放緩。Flex 是一款能夠幫助那些注重選擇價值而非需求價值的客戶的產品，他們無法獲得 Lift PAUSE 的服務——但曾經有過價格相近的產品，你可以想像，這類客戶可能對手機互聯網感興趣，但 Flex 在很多情況下都具有更高的可靠性、無限流量、更高的速度等等優勢。

Flex relaunched late in Q3 and only one channel in our sales center, and it's expanding to multiple channels all channels in the fourth quarter. So we will be able to report out on it on our next call. The good news is our connects are trending nicely even without the benefit of Flex in Q3. So there's the silver lining.

Flex 在第三季末重新推出，當時在我們銷售中心只有一個管道，第四季將擴展到多個管道。所以我們可以在下次電話會議上報告此事。好消息是，即使第三季沒有 Flex 的助力，我們的連線數也呈現良好的成長趨勢。所以，這還是有可取之處的。

And Sebastian, on the leverage and the balance sheet question, we're going to continue to tackle that numerator, as I already talked about in terms of the debt repayments, whether that be through our organic cash flow or monetization of strategic investments as we were able to benefit from this quarter with Ziply and Metronet. Of course, we're focused on driving the improvement in the denominator over time as well in that ratio. But inevitably, when you do have a customer attrition rate like we had this quarter, it has financial implications. And as we look at that, we can address an offset to that with additional cost savings initiatives, which we're leaning into, and we've talked about in the past, and we'll continue to be very focused on, especially as we get through these platform migrations where you gain a lot of those efficiencies from the new platforms.

塞巴斯蒂安，關於槓桿率和資產負債表的問題，我們將繼續解決分子的問題，正如我之前在債務償還方面所談到的那樣，無論是透過我們的內生現金流還是戰略投資的貨幣化，就像我們本季度從 Ziply 和 Metronet 的收購中受益一樣。當然，我們也致力於隨著時間的推移，提高該比率中分母的改善程度。但不可避免的是，當客戶流失率像我們本季這樣高時，就會產生財務影響。考慮到這一點，我們可以透過額外的成本節約措施來抵消這種影響，我們正在大力推進這些措施，我們過去也討論過這些措施，我們將繼續非常關注這些措施，尤其是在我們完成這些平台遷移的過程中，因為您可以從新平台獲得很多效率提升。

But I would anticipate that we're still in and around that 4x area in conjunction with the MBI transaction in late 24 -- late '26.

但我預計，隨著 2024 年末至 2026 年末的 MBI 交易，我們仍將處於 4 倍左右的水平。

Got it. And then anyone to maybe quantify the proceeds from the tower fiber to the tower sales for yourselves and clearly.

知道了。然後，或許有人可以自己量化從塔式光纖到塔式銷售的收益，並清楚說明這一點。

So $42 million is the agreement, no proceeds yet. We just entered into the agreement on a direct basis, and that is effectively some contracts that we still owned that were in the Clearwave fiber market.

所以協議金額為 4200 萬美元，但尚未開始支付。我們直接簽訂了協議，實際上，這包括我們之前在 Clearwave 光纖市場擁有的一些合約。

The agreement that Clearwave Fiber, our joint venture entered into with the same third-party is for all of the network assets in that specific region, and that is an undisclosed amount. But effectively, our direct proceeds will ultimately be in that $42 million area.

Clearwave Fiber（我們的合資企業）與同一第三方簽訂的協議涉及該特定區域的所有網路資產，具體金額未公開。但實際上，我們的直接收益最終將在 4,200 萬美元左右。

Thank you both.

謝謝你們兩位。

Steven Cahall with Wells Fargo.

Steven Cahall，來自富國銀行。

Thanks. Maybe first, just wanted to ask about move activity in this context of a lot of competition for subscribers. I think historically, when activity picked up, it was a tailwind I know it's been muted the last few years. But if we do see lower rates and more activity, given all the products that are out there, do you see that as a headwind or a tailwind to your Connect activity?

謝謝。首先，我想問在用戶競爭如此激烈的背景下，遷移活動的情況如何。我認為從歷史角度來看，當經濟活動回升時，就會形成順風；但我知道近幾年這種順風已經減弱了。但是，如果我們看到利率下降、市場活動增加，考慮到市面上所有的產品，您認為這對您的 Connect 業務來說是阻礙還是助力？

And then relatedly, as we kind of get to churn from here, do you think it's similar to where it was in the first half of the year? Or is it still a little bit of headwind and then last one, Todd, just wondering if SG&A slows in Q4, if it remains at levels where it was in Q3?

那麼，接下來，隨著情況逐漸好轉，你認為它與今年上半年的情況類似嗎？或者說，是否仍存在一些不利因素？最後一個問題，Todd，我只是想知道第四季銷售、管理及行政費用是否會放緩，是否會保持在第三季的水平？

To move activity is still low. And so this is a game of jump balls. So it's, again, incumbent upon us to win any opportunity to have folks look at Sparkle. It's interesting, one of our go-to-market strategies is to have a very particular claim for each market place that is verified by a third party. So it's not just us talking about ourselves. So it might be a a claim on speed, for example, from Ookla, maybe open source. But one of the claims that several of our markets use is customers who come to Sparklight, stay with Sparklight. And that is based on Kagan, the Media Research Group of S&P Global Market Intelligence, who declared Sparklight number one in customer loyalty among major U.S. broadband providers in their Q1 2025 media census survey and that was due to our lower churn. So it's -- whenever there is a chance for Connect in town, it's incumbent upon us to get that win I mean I think, again, with Connect trending up, we're finding some things that work. I think your second question was about churn in the fourth quarter. Am I right?

搬家活動仍然很低。所以，這是一場跳球遊戲。所以，我們再次有責任抓住一切機會，讓人們關注 Sparkle。很有意思，我們的行銷策略之一是針對每個市場提出一個非常具體的聲明，並由第三方進行驗證。所以，這不僅僅是我們在談論我們自己。例如，這可能是 Ookla（可能是開源軟體）對速度的某種說法。但我們一些市場使用的一個主張是：選擇 Sparklight 的客戶會一直待在 Sparklight。這是基於標普全球市場情報媒體研究集團 Kagan 的調查結果，該集團在其 2025 年第一季度媒體普查中宣布 Sparklight 在美國主要寬頻供應商中客戶忠誠度排名第一，這歸功於我們較低的客戶流失率。所以，只要有機會讓 Connect 出現在賽場上，我們就有責任拿下這場比賽。我的意思是，我認為，隨著 Connect 的發展勢頭越來越好，我們也找到了一些行之有效的方法。我認為你的第二個問題是關於第四季的客戶流失率。我說的對嗎？

That's right. Yes.

這是正確的。是的。

Okay. Yes. As Todd said, October was half of what August and September were in terms of nonpay, right? And overall churn is back to pre-migration levels. So we would consider us back to normal.

好的。是的。正如托德所說，10 月份的非工資收入只有 8 月和 9 月的一半，對吧？整體客戶流失率已恢復到遷移前的水準。所以我們認為一切都恢復正常了。

Yes. I would say, Stephen, that we definitely feel like there's still an opportunity for us to improve on that. To your question around like pre even some of the migration levels. And we recall, we started this migration in Q4 of '24, and it was a phased approach. So it's been an important and critical process that the team did well on in navigating, but it's also been putting us in a little bit of a hand strong situation relative to not only the Connect side of the equation, but a lot of the new retention initiatives that we have.

是的。史蒂芬，我想說，我們絕對認為我們在這方面還有改進的空間。關於你提出的類似遷移前的一些層級的問題。我們記得，我們​​是在 2024 年第四季開始這項遷移的，而且這是一個分階段進行的方法。因此，這是一個重要且關鍵的過程，團隊在應對過程中做得很好，但這同時也讓我們在 Connect 方面以及我們許多新的客戶留存計劃方面都處於一種略微強勢的境地。

So we're going to really focus on that execution of retaining customers driving into that loyalty factor that Julie just alluded to, retooling a lot of the go-to-market strategies to even capture more of those moves. I don't think we or maybe even the industry did great on those in the past, but we all know that there are additional alternatives and there's different tactics to drive that awareness from a branding perspective and from a connect perspective and then just really reignite the growth mindset in terms of how we bring that element of winning strategies to bear each and every day with our associates and in our communities.

因此，我們將真正專注於如何留住客戶，從而提高朱莉剛才提到的忠誠度，並重新調整許多市場推廣策略，以抓住更多機會。我認為我們，甚至整個行業，過去在這方面做得併不好，但我們都知道還有其他選擇，也有不同的策略可以從品牌建設和聯繫的角度來提高這種意識，然後真正重新激發成長型思維，讓我們每天都能與同事和社區一起運用這些制勝策略。

You asked about SG&A, I think, as well, it is heightened this quarter. I talked about it in the prepared remarks, a little bit of the noncash stock comp that I talked about last quarter, that will still be in Q4 of '25 here. But when you're going through these migrations, you have incremental labor expense, both internal labor as well as contract labor. And then, of course, we talked about last quarter, we will start to see the benefits, some of these cost savings coming into the financials in both OpEx and SG&A at the tail end of this year, but really more on the run rate basis for 2026.

你問到了銷售、一般及行政費用，我認為，本季這部分費用也有所增加。我在準備好的演講稿中談到了這一點，還有我上個季度談到的非現金股票補償，這部分內容仍將在 2025 年第四季繼續進行。但是，在進行這些遷移時，會產生額外的勞動成本，包括內部勞動成本和合約勞動成本。當然，正如我們上個季度討論的那樣，我們將開始看到這些成本節約帶來的好處，其中一些將在今年年底體現在營運支出和銷售、一般及行政費用中，但實際上，這些節約更多體現在 2026 年的運行率上。

So I would anticipate that you see that come back in line.

所以我預計這種情況會恢復正常。

Related to retention as well. I mean, we talked about some of the things that like we were somewhat pleased at how things are proceeding since the billing migration but that we will be leaning into even more to drive even more connects and really working on the retention side as well, even as churn comes down.

也與客戶留存率有關。我的意思是，我們討論了一些事情，例如我們對計費系統遷移以來的進展感到有些滿意，但我們將更加努力地推動更多的連接，並在客戶留存方面真正下功夫，即使客戶流失率下降。

So working on retention overall, but also a lot of tests going on. We talked about promo roll-off. And when someone goes from a promotional to a full price or higher rate, that certainly can elevate churn in the short run, but we have done deep analysis on these cohorts and how they roll off in their first month and subsequent months, and it proves that the overall retention of these customers as we track them versus the control of the business as usual customers is a good ROI. Obviously, that's because of increasing ARPU. Well, we are working on tests for retention for our promo roll-offs because those promo activity will continue at those elevated levels through the end of the year. And so we are doing test against those segments to see what we can do to help keep more longer. So working retention on all sides of the business.

所以，我們正在努力提高整體留存率，同時也進行大量的測試。我們討論了促銷活動終止的問題。當客戶從促銷價轉為全價或更高價格時，短期內肯定會增加客戶流失率，但我們已經對這些群體進行了深入分析，了解他們在第一個月和隨後的幾個月中的變化情況，結果表明，我們跟踪的這些客戶的整體留存率與正常業務客戶的留存率相比，投資回報率很高。顯然，這是因為每位用戶平均收入（ARPU）不斷提高。我們正在進行促銷活動結束後用戶留存率的測試，因為這些促銷活動將以較高的水平持續到年底。因此，我們正在針對這些使用者群體進行測試，看看我們能做些什麼來幫助用戶留存更長時間。因此，企業各環節都需要努力提高顧客留存率。

Brandon Nispel, KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Brandon Nispel，KeyBanc Capital Markets。

Great. Thanks for taking the questions. Two quick, I think, on the competitive environment. One, could you just update us on where you think you are from a fiber overlap standpoint within your footprint? And then two, you talked about fixed wireless sort of being the main competitive factor. AT&T has talked about rolling out AT&T Air more broadly, really starting this month. How are you thinking about the competitive impact of that product starting to roll out more broadly going forward?

偉大的。謝謝您回答問題。我想就競爭環境簡單談兩點。第一，能否請您簡單介紹一下您認為在您所在區域的光纖重疊情況？其次，你提到固定無線網路是主要的競爭因素。AT&T 曾表示將更廣泛地推出 AT&T Air 服務，實際上將從本月開始。您認為該產品未來更廣泛推廣後會對市場競爭產生怎樣的影響？

Brandon, it's Todd. The fiber overlap that we talked about last quarter being in kind of that low to mid-50s is pretty consistent this quarter. As you do recall, and we've talked about before, one of the most ambitious kind of movement in that was AT&T's upgrade PAUSE from DSL to fiber. And we did see that slow a little bit undoubtedly because of where they're putting more emphasis in some of the markets that are smaller, more rural where we do have a considerable model overlap with them on the AT&T Air product. So kind of answering both of your questions, one is fiber overlap, pretty consistent. You'll see it in select areas, but from the primary drivers of it being lack upgrades, that hasn't accelerated in any way.

布蘭登，我是托德。我們上個季度討論的纖維重疊率在 50% 到 50% 左右，這個季度的情況也相當穩定。你可能還記得，我們​​之前也討論過，其中最雄心勃勃的舉措之一是 AT&T 將 DSL 升級到光纖的 PAUSE 專案。我們確實看到這種成長速度有所放緩，這無疑是因為他們更加重視一些規模較小、較為偏遠的市場，而我們在 AT&T Air 產品方面與他們有相當大的模式重疊。所以，我算是回答了你們的兩個問題，一個是纖維重疊，相當一致。在某些地區你會看到這種情況，但由於缺乏升級等主要原因，這種情況並沒有加速發展。

And then the FWA, we've got meaningful overlap in our markets from what we see from ground truth as well as third-party research with T-Mo. We have basically nearly all of our markets that have it from 1 of the 3 providers and AT&T was, I would call it, the lagger in launching that. But as here in the last, really, 3 to 4 quarters has been the most aggressive of rolling it out in areas where they are still copper only, and we would anticipate that, that will continue.

然後是 FWA，根據我們從實地調查以及與 T-Mo 的第三方研究中所看到的，我們的市場存在著有意義的重疊。我們幾乎所有市場都從這三家供應商中的一家獲得了這項服務，而 AT&T 在推出這項服務方面可以說是落後的。但正如過去三到四個季度以來，在仍然只有銅纜的地區，推廣新電纜的力度最大，我們預計這種情況還會繼續下去。

Yes. And I mean I think that's where Flex finally getting out has a good chance. So it will be interesting to see how it performs. And don't forget, we're launching mobile in November, which is amazing given that we just sign the deal in August. But at any rate, we're going to be able to market to our customers just like they market to theirs. So it's going to be a more level playing field.

是的。我的意思是，我認為 Flex 最終獲得自由的機會很大。所以，看看它的表現如何，將會很有趣。別忘了，我們將在 11 月推出行動版，考慮到我們 8 月才剛剛簽署協議，這真是太棒了。但無論如何，我們將能夠像他們向他們的客戶做行銷一樣，向我們的客戶做行銷。這樣一來，競爭環境就會更公平。

Got it. Thanks for taking questions.

知道了。謝謝回答問題。

Thanks, Brandon.

謝謝你，布蘭登。

Sam McHugh, BNP Pariba.

Sam McHugh，法國巴黎銀行。

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Two questions, I guess. One is a follow-up on gross add and churn. You're talking about gross ads being up. I think I heard you say churn was down year-over-year in October. So maybe you could clarify. So I guess with that in mind, could we see broadband losses actually stabilize in the fourth quarter? Like how confident are we in that momentum continuing? And the second one on the sale proceeds, kind of multipart, Todd, the $123 million you booked, that's a pretax number. That was the question one.

嘿，各位下午好。我想問兩個問題。一是針對新增用戶和流失用戶的後續調查。你說的是那些噁心的廣告。我好像聽您說過，10月的客戶流失率比去年同期下降了。所以，或許您可以解釋一下。所以我想，考慮到這一點，我們能否看到寬頻損耗在第四季真正趨於穩定？我們對這種勢頭能否持續下去有多大信心？第二個問題是關於銷售收益的，這部分涉及多個面向。托德，你提到的 1.23 億美元是稅前數字。這是第一個問題。

And then on the fiber proceeds, the same question, is that -- and is that only your direct sales? Like could there be some pass-through from Clearwave as well? And I guess lastly, like how much do you think you have left to divest now? Are we looking at similar amounts to left?

那麼關於纖維收益，同樣的問題，那就是──那隻是你的直接銷售額嗎？會不會也有來自 Clearwave 的訊號傳遞過來？最後，我想問，你覺得現在還有多少資產可以剝離？我們看到的數量和左邊的數量差不多嗎？

I'll start with the churn question. October, yes, down year-over-year. That is correct. You mentioned something about gross connects, Sam, but I'm sorry, I did not catch it. Go ahead.

我先從客戶流失率的問題說起。10月份，是的，年減。沒錯。山姆，你剛才提到了「gross connects」這個詞，但很抱歉，我沒聽清楚。前進。

Just saying that you're talking about, they were up in October again and through, I think, August, September too. So if we flow that through for the rest of the quarter, if gross adds are up and churn is down and that would suggest a pretty decent improvement in Q4.

就像你說的，他們10月又出現了，我想8月、9月也出現了。因此，如果我們把這種情況延續到本季剩餘時間，如果新增用戶數上升，流失率下降，那麼這表明第四季會有相當不錯的改善。

You said it, not me.

是你說的，不是我說的。

Yes. I would maybe one anecdotal thing, Sam, just to add is the month of October, it's a month, right? But both from a connect improvement year-over-year and a disconnect improvement year-over-year. That's the first month that's happened in 17 months PAUSE -- so it's definitely a good indicator in our mind, but definitely something that we have to continue to execute upon.

是的。山姆，我可能要補充一點軼事，十月是一個月份，對吧？但無論是連接情況或斷開連接情況，都比前一年有所改善。這是 17 個月以來第一次出現這種情況——所以這對我們來說絕對是一個很好的跡象，但這絕對是我們必須繼續執行的事情。

And I think then moving into the other question on the sale proceeds. Yes, those are pretax but as I'd previously articulated, we've got some pretty good tax or kind of tax insulation there relative to some of the other previous losses that we had taken on strategic investments. And so a very meaningful amount of that flows through in terms of what we paid off in debt for this quarter. And then with the announced agreement with the fiber-to-the-tower contracts

接下來，我想討論一下關於銷售收益的另一個問題。是的，這些都是稅前收益，但正如我之前所闡述的，相對於我們之前在戰略投資上遭受的一些其他損失，我們在這方面獲得了相當不錯的稅收優惠或某種程度的稅收隔離。因此，其中相當一部分資金體現在我們本季償還的債務上。然後，隨著光纖到塔協定的宣布，

Again, that's not a sale of fiber. That's just a contract. The actual infrastructure was owned by Clearway Fiber that will also have a pretty high tax efficient flow-through as it relates to proceeds to be allocated under our capital allocation philosophy right now. What's left is very speculative. I would say that we've talked about what the path has been and a disciplined focus on monetizing these strategic investments and using those proceeds to pay down debt, starting even in 2023, we do expect to continue to see interest and likely ongoing consolidation just from a broader sector perspective.

再次強調，這不是纖維的銷售。那隻是一份合約。實際的基礎設施由 Clearway Fiber 擁有，根據我們目前的資本配置理念，其收益分配也將具有相當高的稅收效率。剩下的都只是推測。我想說，我們已經討論過發展路徑，並有條不紊地專注於將這些策略投資變現，並將所得款項用於償還債務。即使從 2023 年開始，我們預計仍會繼續看到各方對此的興趣，並且從更廣泛的行業角度來看，可能會出現持續的整合。

But beyond that, from a policy perspective, we don't speculate on M&A.

但除此之外，從政策角度來看，我們不會對併購進行推測。

Frank Louthan, Raymond James.

弗蘭克·盧森，雷蒙德·詹姆斯。

Hey guys, good evening. This is Rob on for Frank. So you kind of you kind of touched on this a bit earlier, but what are some of the products you're having particular success with. Are there any offerings you're seeing an especially strong take rate for? And then switching gears slightly, how would you assess the trajectory of your video declines right now relative to your internal expectations? And what can we sort of expect for the pace of those declines going forward?

各位，晚上好。這裡是羅布替弗蘭克報道。你之前也稍微提到過這一點，那麼你們有哪些產品取得了特別大的成功呢？有沒有哪些產品的銷售轉換率特別高？接下來稍微換個話題，您如何評估目前影片播放量下降的趨勢與您的內部預期相比如何？那麼，未來這些下降的速度又會如何改變呢？

When I think about what we see resonating. I think it is not one thing. It is a lot of things put together to tell you the truth. We talked about our go-to-market strategy that Tony and team have been working on and using third-party and AI data to deeply segment customers and bring to them the things that they most want and need seems to be those sorts of messages in an environment where we are seeing as trusted neighbors to our customers in terms of how we deliver service, again, seems to be resonating.

當我思考我們所看到的引起共鳴的事物。我認為這並非單一因素造成的。說實話，這是很多因素綜合的結果。我們討論了托尼和他的團隊一直在努力製定的市場進入策略，利用第三方和人工智慧數據對客戶進行深度細分，並為他們提供他們最想要和需要的東西。在這樣的環境中，我們把自己視為客戶值得信賴的鄰居，在提供服務方面，這些資訊似乎再次引起了共鳴。

What else can I tell you about what's working? Well, wallet share, our prices for HSD, our ARPU is driven by people are high LTV based, and then we sell in multi-gig, whether that's 2, even up to 6 gig symmetrical in some cases. But also, we've had just tremendous success with products that customers get to choose for themselves. In other words, they see a need and they pick and choose whether they want it or not.

關於哪些方面行之有效，我還能告訴你些什麼呢？嗯，錢包份額、我們的高速數據價格、我們的每用戶平均收入 (ARPU) 都取決於用戶生命週期價值 (LTV)，然後我們以多 GB 的套餐銷售，無論是 2 GB，還是在某些情況下高達 6 GB 的對稱套餐。但同時，我們也取得了巨大的成功，那就是讓顧客自己選擇產品。換句話說，他們看到需求，然後自行選擇是否需要。

So Secure plus part of securing their WiFi environment in their home, very important to a lot of customers. Our tech assist program service really is doing so well. That's $10 a month that we're launching a $15 a month and a $25 a month service that is similar to those that cover certain different devices and services but very much similar to that original tech assist. So we've been successful in wallet share. And it's not just wallet share for us. It's helping customers with the need that they have. They get very frustrated with having a doorbell connect to WiFi or thermostats, for example, or -- and then the newer products will be handling things like home electronics like TVs and laptops and headphones and gaming systems, things like that. So things that actually help make their life easier. That gives a bit of flavor.

So Secure 是保護客戶家中 WiFi 環境的一部分，這對許多客戶來說非常重要。我們的技術支援專案服務真的非常成功。我們即將推出每月收費 10 美元的服務，以及每月收費 15 美元和 25 美元的服務，這些服務類似於涵蓋某些不同設備和服務的服務，但與最初的技術協助服務非常相似。所以我們在市場佔有率方面取得了成功。對我們來說，這不僅僅是關於市場份額。它幫助客戶滿足了他們的需求。例如，他們對門鈴連接到 WiFi 或恆溫器感到非常沮喪，或者——然後，較新的產品將處理電視、筆記型電腦、耳機和遊戲系統等家用電子產品。所以，一些真正能讓他們的生活更輕鬆的事情。這樣會增添一些風味。

Yes, Rob, I'll just jump in there as well. You heard Julie talk about euro, but our adoptions continue to see really good increasing momentum there. we actually had our strongest quarterly sell-in to date with that product. And we also look at that as what are multi-device options for that, really, all of it about solving problems in home given we have such a high reliability standard to the home, we were also now in an -- in a position to benefit from the opportunity of really having a much better insight inside the home with that partnership.

是的，羅布，我也要加入討論。你聽茱莉說過歐元的情況，但我們在歐元區的市場成長動能依然強勁。事實上，我們迄今為止，該產品的季度銷售額創下了歷史新高。我們也一直在考慮多設備方案，實際上，所有這些都是為了解決家庭問題，因為我們對家庭的可靠性標準非常高，我們現在也處於一個有利的位置，可以透過這種合作關係更好地了解家庭內部情況。

And then the multi-gig sell that Julie was alluding to, that was also meaningfully higher than any other category as it relates to growth for this quarter. So you see those driving good support for the stability of our ARPU. And I say stability, as I've said numerous times, even though you saw it move up a little bit this quarter. But I would anchor investors and our analysts to some of the previous comments that we've made in Q2 around stability being plus or minus $1 because it's going to move from time to time and quarter-to-quarter. But about $1 plus or minus off of that 81-ish Q2 reported ARPU.

還有朱莉提到的多場演出銷售，就本季的成長而言，也明顯高於其他任何類別。所以你可以看到，這些因素對我們每個用戶平均收入的穩定性起到了很好的支持作用。正如我多次所說，我認為整體上是穩定的，儘管本季它略有上升。但我希望投資者和我們的分析師們能夠記住我們在第二季度發表的一些評論，即價格穩定在正負 1 美元以內，因為價格會不時地、每季地波動。但比第二季公佈的 ARPU 值（約 81 美元）低了約 1 美元。

And then on the video side, sorry, you asked that. Yes, we're continuing our strategy around converting the video customers to IP, those that want to remain a video customer of ours. Obviously, the number of video customers that we have left is quite small and getting smaller and has been a philosophical approach from over 10 years ago that, that wasn't really going to be what was driving the power of the bundle as much as that was the data product. And so they even mentioned to it, that's a product we're going to focus on keeping profitable through passing on price increases. That isn't the greatest experience for customers so that attrition rate has continued to be pretty consistent.

至於影片方面，抱歉，是你問的。是的，我們正在繼續推進將視訊客戶轉化為 IP 客戶的策略，這些客戶希望繼續成為我們的視訊客戶。顯然，我們剩下的視訊客戶數量很少，而且還在減少。十多年前我們就採取了一種理念，那就是真正推動捆綁包發展的不是視頻，而是數據產品。因此他們甚至提到，我們將透過提高價格來維持該產品的獲利能力。這對客戶來說體驗並不好，因此客戶流失率一直相當穩定。

I wouldn't expect that to be much different and we're going to be very focused on getting that IP conversion complete, which then allows us to reallocate that QAM spectrum to the data upload the data upload capacity and capabilities.

我預計情況不會有太大不同，我們將非常專注於完成 IP 轉換，這樣我們就可以把 QAM 頻譜重新分配給資料上傳，從而提高資料上傳容量和能力。

We have reached our allotted time for the question-and-answer portion of today's call. I will now turn the call back over to Julie Laulis for closing remarks.

今天電話會議的問答環節時間已到。現在我將把電話轉回給朱莉·勞利斯，請她作總結發言。

Thank you, Tiffany. Before wrapping up, I want to thank our associates for navigating a tremendous amount of change in driving meaningful progress over the past year. As our major platform initiatives become fully embedded into our daily operations, we're leveraging these tools to serve our customers with greater efficiency and effectiveness than ever. Thanks again for your time and interest in Cable One.

謝謝你，蒂芙尼。在結束演講之前，我要感謝我們的同事們，感謝他們在過去一年中克服了巨大的變化，並取得了有意義的進展。隨著我們的主要平台計劃完全融入日常營運中，我們正在利用這些工具以比以往任何時候都更高的效率和效果為客戶提供服務。再次感謝您抽出時間並對 Cable One 感興趣。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

女士們、先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝各位的參與。您現在可以斷開連線了。