Cogent Communications Holdings Inc (CCOI) 2024 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the Cogent Communications Holdings First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and it will be available for replay at www.cogentco.com. A transcript of this conference call will be posted on Cogent's website when it becomes available. Cogent's summary of financial and operational results attached to its press release can be downloaded from the Cogent's website.

早安，歡迎參加 Cogent Communications Holdings 2024 年第一季財報電話會議。謹此提醒，本次電話會議正在錄製中，可在 www.cogentco.com 上重播。本次電話會議的記錄一旦發布將發佈在 Cogent 的網站上。 Cogent 新聞稿所附的財務和營運績效摘要可從 Cogent 網站下載。

I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Dave Schaeffer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cogent Communications Holdings. You may begin.

我現在想將電話轉給 Cogent Communications Holdings 董事長兼執行長 Dave Schaeffer 先生。你可以開始了。

Thank you, and good morning to everyone. Welcome to our first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. I'm Dave Schaeffer, Cogent's Chief Executive Officer, and with me on this morning's call is Tad Weed, our Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝大家，祝大家早安。歡迎參加我們的 2024 年第一季財報電話會議。我是 Cogent 執行長 Dave Schaeffer，參加今天早上電話會議的還有我們的財務長 Ted Weed。

Hopefully, you've had a chance to review our earnings press release. Our press release includes a number of historical metrics we present in a consistent manner each and every quarter. On May 2 of this year, we closed the issuance of our $206 million IPv4 securitization notes at 7.9%. These notes mature in five years but may be extended for up to a 30-year term. This securitization was the first ever of the securitization of IPv4 lease revenue.

希望您有機會閱讀我們的收益新聞稿。我們的新聞稿包括我們每季以一致的方式呈現的許多歷史指標。今年 5 月 2 日，我們以 7.9% 的利率完成了 2.06 億美元 IPv4 證券化票據的發行。這些票據的期限為五年，但期限最多可延長 30 年。此次證券化是 IPv4 租賃收入的首次證券化。

Cogent is the owner of approximately 38.8 million IPv4 addresses. We acquired 28.8 million of these addresses when we purchased PSINet and various other acquisitions early in our history. We acquired an additional 9.9 million IPv4 addresses in May of 2023 with the acquisition of the Sprint network assets from T-Mobile.

Cogent 擁有約 3,880 萬個 IPv4 位址。當我們購買 PSINet 以及我們早期的各種其他收購時，我們獲得了其中 2880 萬個地址。 2023 年 5 月，透過從 T-Mobile 收購 Sprint 網路資產，我們又獲得了 990 萬個 IPv4 位址。

We are leasing approximately 12.2 million of these IPv4 addresses out for a monthly revenue run rate of approximately $3.4 million a month. We have securitized $3.1 million of that monthly leased revenue, and this represents revenue from 11.1 million lease addresses. We also included 1.4 million unleased addresses in the pool of the securitization. The IPv4 Internet addresses are a finite resource. The price of these addresses has substantially increased over the past several years.

我們正在出租約 1,220 萬個 IPv4 位址，每月收入約 340 萬美元。我們已將每月租賃收入中的 310 萬美元證券化，這代表來自 1,110 萬個租賃地址的收入。我們也將 140 萬個未出租地址納入證券化池。 IPv4 網際網路位址是有限的資源。這些地址的價格在過去幾年中大幅上漲。

Now for an overview of our results. Our combined Cogent business had a very good quarter. Our total revenues were $266.2 million in the quarter. This did represent a $5.9 million sequential decline. Our on-net revenues increased by 0.4% to 138.6 million.

現在概述我們的結果。我們合併後的 Cogent 業務季度業績非常好。本季我們的總收入為 2.662 億美元。這確實代表了 590 萬美元的連續下降。我們的線上收入成長了 0.4%，達到 1.386 億美元。

Our revenue under the commercial services agreement with T-Mobile declined sequentially by $5.8 million. Our non-core revenues declined by $1.2 million. Our wavelength service revenues increased sequentially by 7% to $3.3 million. All of the decline in our revenues was attributable to the decline in commercial services agreements and non-core services, as was expected.

我們與 T-Mobile 簽訂的商業服務協議帶來的收入連續下降了 580 萬美元。我們的非核心收入下降了 120 萬美元。我們的波長服務收入較上季成長 7%，達到 330 萬美元。正如預期的那樣，我們收入的所有下降均歸因於商業服務協議和非核心服務的下降。

Our EBITDA as adjusted for the quarter was $115 million, an increase of $4.5 million sequentially or approximately 4.1%. Our EBITDA as adjusted margin for the quarter was 43.2%. This is up 260 basis points from the 40.6% we reported last quarter. We received three payments from T-Mobile for a total of $87.5 million in the quarter.

本季調整後的 EBITDA 為 1.15 億美元，比上一季增加 450 萬美元，增幅約 4.1%。本季調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率為 43.2%。這比我們上季報告的 40.6% 上升了 260 個基點。本季我們從 T-Mobile 收到了三筆付款，總計 8,750 萬美元。

Our Sprint costs are reported separately and were $9 million in the quarter compared to $17 million last quarter. These costs include approximately $4.3 million of severance reimbursement in the quarter as compared to $16.2 million in severance reimbursements in the previous quarter.

我們的 Sprint 成本單獨報告，本季為 900 萬美元，而上季為 1700 萬美元。這些成本包括本季約 430 萬美元的遣散費報銷，而上一季的遣散費報銷為 1,620 萬美元。

Despite the seasonally increased costs associated with SG&A in our first quarter, our SG&A did decrease by 6.4% from $74.9 million last quarter to $70.1 million this quarter. These SG&A numbers are net of that severance reimbursement that I mentioned earlier. Our SG&A as a percentage of revenues decreased to 26.3% for the quarter, down from 27.5% last quarter.

儘管第一季與 SG&A 相關的成本季節性增加，但我們的 SG&A 確實從上季度的 7,490 萬美元下降到本季的 7,010 萬美元，下降了 6.4%。這些 SG&A 數字不包括我之前提到的遣散費報銷。本季我們的 SG&A 佔營收的百分比從上季的 27.5% 下降至 26.3%。

Our cost of goods sold decreased by 3.2% from the previous quarter. Traffic on our network increased by 1% sequentially and was up 20% year over year.

我們的銷售成本比上一季下降了 3.2%。我們的網路流量較上季成長 1%，較去年同期成長 20%。

Our gross debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA as adjusted and our net debt ratios both significantly improved in the quarter. Our gross debt to trailing last 12 months EBITDA as adjusted was 3.57 in the quarter, and our net debt ratio was 3.17, substantially below the range we have set historically as a target.

我們的總債務與過去 12 個月 EBITDA 的調整後和淨債務比率在本季度均顯著改善。本季度，我們的總負債與過去 12 個月 EBITDA 調整後的比率為 3.57，淨負債比率為 3.17，大大低於我們歷史上設定的目標範圍。

We are in the process of realizing cost savings and synergies over the next three years. We will continue to receive the impact of these savings and achieve an aggregate of $220 million in savings. We anticipate additional SG&A and other cost savings and revenue synergies as well over the next several years. Our recent progress in achieving these cost savings are very encouraging, and we intend to surpass our initial targeted savings goals.

我們正在努力在未來三年內實現成本節約和協同效應。我們將繼續受益於這些節省的影響，並實現總計 2.2 億美元的節省。我們預計未來幾年還將實現額外的銷售管理費用以及其他成本節約和收入綜效。我們最近在實現這些成本節約方面取得的進展非常令人鼓舞，我們打算超越最初的節省目標。

Our sales force performed well in the quarter. Our rep productivity in Q4 of 2023 was 3.3 installed orders per rep per month. This improved sequentially to four units installed per rep per month in the first quarter of 2024. Our sales rep productivity results do also include the impact of enterprise sales reps that joined us from the acquired Sprint business. These new enterprise sales reps are continuing to receive training of Cogent sales processes and methods and have not yet fully reached their maximum level of productivity.

我們的銷售人員在本季表現良好。 2023 年第四季度，我們的代表生產力為每位代表每月 3.3 個安裝訂單。 2024 年第一季度，這一數字連續改善至每位銷售代表每月安裝 4 台。這些新的企業銷售代表正在繼續接受 Cogent 銷售流程和方法的培訓，但尚未完全達到最高生產力水準。

Now for our total headcount. In connection with the Sprint acquisition, we hired 942 total employees. At quarter end, 718 of these employees remained with Cogent. During the quarter, our total sales rep count increased by 20 or a 3% net sequential increase in our sales force.

現在我們的總人數。在收購 Sprint 期間，我們總共僱用了 942 名員工。截至季末，其中 718 名員工仍留在 Cogent。本季度，我們的銷售代表總數增加了 20 名，即銷售隊伍較上季淨成長 3%。

Now for our new wavelength and optical transport service business. In connection with the acquisition of Sprint, we have expanded our offerings to utilize the Sprint network to sell wavelength services or optical transport services across that network. We are selling these services to existing customers to acquired customers and to new customers. These customers require dedicated optical connectivity without the capital cost and ongoing expenses associated with owning and operating their own transport network.

現在介紹我們的新波長和光傳輸服務業務。透過收購 Sprint，我們擴大了我們的產品範圍，利用 Sprint 網路在該網路上銷售波長服務或光傳輸服務。我們向現有客戶、新客戶和新客戶銷售這些服務。這些客戶需要專用的光纖連接，而無需承擔與擁有和運營自己的傳輸網路相關的資本成本和持續費用。

We have connectivity and wavelength sales capabilities today in 419 locations. However, these locations do require longer than acceptable sales provisioning cycles. We have sold wavelengths to date in a total of 104 locations. By the end of this year, we will be able to offer wavelength services in over 800 locations across North America with much more rapid provisioning cycles. Our wavelength revenue in the quarter increased sequentially by 7% to $3.3 million for the quarter.

目前，我們在 419 個地點擁有連結和波長銷售能力。然而，這些地點確實需要比可接受的銷售供應週期更長的時間。迄今為止，我們已在總共 104 個地點銷售了波長。到今年年底，我們將能夠以更快的配置週期在北美 800 多個地點提供波長服務。我們本季的波長營收季增 7%，達到 330 萬美元。

Our Sprint acquisition materially expanded our network footprint. To date, we have reconfigured 25 of the acquired Sprint facilities into Cogent data centers and added these data centers to our inventory of 1,586 third-party carrier-neutral data centers and 78 Cogent data centers, which today contain an operational 159 megawatts of power. We are in the process of converting an additional 23 of these facilities to Cogent data centers and optimizing our data center portfolio footprint. In a market where we have a former Sprint data facility that we converted to a data center and a legacy lease Cogent data center, we decommissioned one leased data center in the quarter.

我們對 Sprint 的收購極大地擴大了我們的網路覆蓋範圍。迄今為止，我們已將收購的Sprint 設施中的25 個重新配置為Cogent 資料中心，並將這些資料中心添加到我們的1,586 個第三方營運商中立資料中心和78 個Cogent 資料中心的庫存中，這些資料中心目前擁有159 兆瓦的運作電力。我們正在將另外 23 個設施轉變為 Cogent 資料中心，並優化我們的資料中心組合佔地面積。在我們擁有一個前 Sprint 資料設施（現已改造為資料中心）和一個遺留租賃 Cogent 資料中心的市場中，我們在本季度停用了一個租賃資料中心。

Now for a comment on our dividend and buyback strategy. Our first quarter dividend was $45.8 million and was accrued at quarter end and paid on April 9, due to our expanding the period for our sales call. Our Board of Directors, which reflected on the strong cash flow generating capability investment opportunities, including the additional opportunities afforded us by the integration of the Sprint assets decided to increase our quarterly dividend by yet another $0.01 a share, raising our quarterly dividend from $0.965 a share to $0.975 per share per quarter. This increase represents the 47th consecutive sequential increase in our regular quarterly dividend and a 4.3% annual growth rate in dividends.

現在評論一下我們的股利和回購策略。由於我們延長了銷售拜訪的期限，我們第一季的股息為 4580 萬美元，在季度末應計並於 4 月 9 日支付。我們的董事會考慮到強大的現金流產生能力投資機會，包括整合 Sprint 資產為我們提供的額外機會，決定將我們的季度股息再增加每股 0.01 美元，將季度股息從每股 0.965 美元上調。每股0.975 美元。這一成長代表我們的定期季度股息連續第 47 次連續成長，股息年增率為 4.3%。

Now for a couple of comments on our long-term goals. Now that Cogent is fully integrated and combined with the former Sprint network, we are anticipating long-term average revenue growth rate of between 5% and 7% and EBITDA as adjusted margin expansion of approximately 100 basis points annually. Our revenue and EBITDA as adjusted guidance targets are intended to be multiyear targets and are not intended to be used as quarterly or specific annual guidance.

現在就我們的長期目標發表一些評論。現在，Cogent 已與前 Sprint 網路完全整合並合併，我們預計長期平均營收成長率將在 5% 至 7% 之間，EBITDA 調整後的利潤率每年將成長約 100 個基點。我們的收入和 EBITDA 作為調整後的指導目標旨在作為多年目標，而不是用作季度或具體的年度指導。

Our EBITDA as adjusted and leverage ratios are impacted by the $700 million IP Transit subsidy agreement that we received with T-Mobile in conjunction with the acquisition. Beginning in June of 2024, these payments monthly will be reduced from $29.2 million a month to $8.3 million a month and then will continue for an additional 42 months. This reduction will impact our future EBITDA as adjusted or leverage ratios beginning in the second quarter of 2024, which are always measured on a trailing 12-month basis. We will also be looking to monetize other assets that were acquired in the acquisition. This will include excess data center space and power, additional monetization of our IPv4 address unleased inventory and dark fiber over the next several years.

我們調整後的 EBITDA 和槓桿率受到我們在收購時與 T-Mobile 收到的 7 億美元 IP Transit 補貼協議的影響。從 2024 年 6 月開始，這些每月付款將從每月 2,920 萬美元減少到每月 830 萬美元，然後再持續 42 個月。此次減少將影響我們從 2024 年第二季開始調整後的未來 EBITDA 或槓桿率，這些比率始終以過去 12 個月為基礎進行衡量。我們還將尋求將購買中獲得的其他資產貨幣化。這將包括多餘的資料中心空間和電力、我們的 IPv4 位址未租用庫存的額外貨幣化以及未來幾年的暗光纖。

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Tad to read safe harbor language and give some additional operational performance metrics for the quarter. Following these remarks, we will open the floor for questions and answers. Tad?

現在我想將電話轉給 Tad，讓他閱讀安全港語言並提供本季的一些額外營運績效指標。在這些發言之後，我們將開始提問和回答。泰德？

Thank you, Dave, and good morning to everyone.

謝謝你，戴夫，祝大家早安。

This earnings conference call includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based upon our current intent, belief and expectations. These forward-looking statements and all other statements that may be made on this call that are not historical facts are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for more information on the factors that could cause actual results to differ. Cogent undertakes no obligation to update or revise our forward-looking statements. If we use non-GAAP financial measures during this call, you will find these reconciled to the corresponding GAAP measurement in our earnings releases that are posted on our website at cogentco.com.

本次收益電話會議包含前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述是基於我們目前的意圖、信念和期望。這些前瞻性陳述以及本次電話會議中可能做出的所有其他非歷史事實的陳述均受到許多風險和不確定性的影響，實際結果可能存在重大差異。請參閱我們向 SEC 提交的文件，以了解有關可能導致實際結果不同的因素的更多資​​訊。 Cogent 不承擔更新或修改我們的前瞻性聲明的義務。如果我們在本次電話會議中使用非 GAAP 財務指標，您會發現這些指標與我們網站 cogentco.com 上發布的收益發布中相應的 GAAP 指標一致。

We analyze our revenues based upon network connection type, which is on-net, off-net, wavelength and non-core, and we analyze our revenues based on customer type. We classify all of our customers into three types, net-centric, corporate, and enterprise customers.

我們根據網路連線類型（網內、網外、波長和非核心）分析我們的收入，並根據客戶類型分析我們的收入。我們將所有客戶分為三類：以網路為中心的客戶、公司客戶和企業客戶。

Our corporate business continues to be influenced by real estate activity in central business districts. We continue to remain cautious in our outlook for our corporate revenues given the uncertain economic environment and other challenges from the lingering effects of the pandemic. Our corporate business represented 46.9% of our revenues for the quarter, and it decreased sequentially by 1.4% to $124.9 million due to the grooming of low-margin off-net connections and the elimination of non-core products. We had 51,821 corporate customer connections on our network at quarter end.

我們的企業業務持續受到中央商務區房地產活動的影響。鑑於經濟環境的不確定性以及疫情持續影響帶來的其他挑戰，我們對企業收入的前景持續保持謹慎。我們的企業業務佔本季營收的 46.9%，由於低利潤網外連線的清理和非核心產品的淘汰，該業務比上一季下降 1.4%，至 1.249 億美元。截至季末，我們的網路上有 51,821 個企業客戶連線。

And for the quarter, the sequential impact of USF on our corporate revenues was not significant. Our net-centric business continues to benefit from continued growth in video traffic, streaming and wavelength sales. Our net-centric business represented 34.6% of our revenues for the quarter, and it declined sequentially by 1.3% to $92 million, and the decline was primarily due to the $5.4 million reduction in the commercial services agreement provided at T-Mobile that Dave mentioned earlier. We had 61,599 net-centric customer connections on our network at quarter end.

就本季而言，USF 對我們公司營收的連續影響並不顯著。我們以網路為中心的業務繼續受益於視訊流量、串流媒體和波長銷售的持續成長。我們以網路為中心的業務佔本季收入的 34.6%，環比下降 1.3%，至 9,200 萬美元，下降的主要原因是 Dave 提到的 T-Mobile 提供的商業服務協議減少了 540 萬美元早些時候。截至季末，我們的網路上有 61,599 個以網路為中心的客戶連線。

Our enterprise business represented 18.5% of our revenues this quarter and was $49.3 million. We had 19,463 enterprise customer connections at the end of the quarter, and our enterprise revenue decreased sequentially by 5.7%, primarily due to the elimination of non-core products and the grooming of low-margin off-net services.

我們的企業業務佔本季營收的 18.5%，達 4,930 萬美元。截至本季末，我們擁有 19,463 個企業客戶連接，我們的企業收入環比下降 5.7%，主要是由於非核心產品的淘汰和低利潤網外服務的培育。

On revenue by network connection type. Our on-net revenue was $138.6 million for the quarter, a sequential increase of 0.4%. Our on-net customer connections were 87,574 at quarter end. We serve our on-net customers in our 3,321 total on-net multi-tenant office and carrier-neutral data center buildings. We continue to succeed in selling larger 100 gigabit connections and 400 gigabit connections in carrier-neutral data centers and selling 10 gigabit connections and selected multi-tenant office buildings. Selling these larger connections has the impact of increasing our year-over-year on-net ARPU.

按網路連線類型劃分的收入。本季我們的線上營收為 1.386 億美元，季增 0.4%。截至季末，我們的線上客戶連線數為 87,574。我們在 3,321 座網路多租戶辦公室和營運商中立資料中心大樓中為網路客戶提供服務。我們繼續成功地在營運商中立的資料中心銷售更大的 100 GB 連接和 400 GB 連接，並銷售 10 GB 連接和選定的多租戶辦公大樓。出售這些更大的連接可以提高我們的線上 ARPU 值。

Our off-net revenue was $118.2 million for the quarter, a sequential decrease of 4.4%. The sequential decline in our off-net revenue was partially impacted by our migration of certain off-net customers to on-net and the grooming of low-margin off-net contract. Our off-net customer connections were 34,579 at the end of the quarter.

本季我們的網外營收為 1.182 億美元，季減 4.4%。我們的網外收入環比下降部分受到我們將某些網外客戶遷移到網上以及低利潤網外合約的培育的影響。截至本季末，我們的網外客戶連線數為 34,579。

Our wavelength revenue was $3.3 million for the quarter, which was a sequential increase of 7%, and that was 693 wavelength customer connections. Our non-core revenue was $6 million for the quarter, a sequential increase of $1.2 million or 16.8% due to our decision to end of life these non-core products. Non-core customer connections were 10,037 at quarter end, a decline of 16.2%.

本季我們的波長營收為 330 萬美元，季增 7%，有 693 個波長客戶連線。由於我們決定終止這些非核心產品的生命週期，本季我們的非核心收入為 600 萬美元，比上一季增加了 120 萬美元，即 16.8%。截至季末，非核心客戶連線數為 10,037 人，下降 16.2%。

Some comments on pricing. Our average price per megabit for our installed base decreased sequentially by 5.8% to $0.26, but increased year-over-year by 5.9%. Our average price per megabit for our new customer contracts for the quarter was $0.11, a sequential increase of 5.1%.

關於定價的一些評論。我們的安裝基數每兆位元平均價格較上季下降 5.8% 至 0.26 美元，但年增 5.9%。本季新客戶合約的每兆位元平均價格為 0.11 美元，季增 5.1%。

On ARPU, our on-net ARPU increased sequentially and off-net and wavelength ARPUs slightly decreased. However, our year-over-year on-net and off-net ARPUs increased primarily from the impact of the Sprint business. Our on-net ARPU increased sequentially by 0.8% from 521 to 525. And year over year, our on-net ARPU increase was 12.6%, last year it was 467. Our off-net ARPU decreased sequentially by 1.3% from 1,120 to 1,106. And year-over-year, it was an increase of 21.5% last year, it was 910.

在ARPU方面，我們的網內ARPU環比成長，網外和波長ARPU小幅下降。然而，我們的網內和網外 ARPU 年成長主要得益於 Sprint 業務的影響。我們的網內ARPU 季增0.8%，從521 增至525。 1,106 。與去年同期相比，成長了21.5%，為910個。

Our wavelength ARPU was 1,638. Our sequential quarterly churn rate for our on-net and off-net connections of the combined business increased. Our on-net unit churn monthly rate was 1.4% compared to 1.2% last quarter, primarily due to the reduction in the T-Mobile CSA revenue and the associated connections. Our off-net unit monthly churn rate was 2.1% compared to 1.3% last quarter, again from grooming low-margin off-net contracts and the T-Mobile commercial services contract changes.

我們的波長 ARPU 是 1,638。合併後的業務的網內和網外連線的連續季度流失率增加。我們的網內單位每月流失率為 1.4%，而上季為 1.2%，這主要是由於 T-Mobile CSA 收入和相關連接的減少。我們的網外單位月流失率為 2.1%，而上季為 1.3%，這同樣是由於低利潤網外合約的培育和 T-Mobile 商業服務合約的變化。

On EBITDA and EBITDA margin. We reconcile our EBITDA to our cash flow from operations in each of our quarterly earnings press releases. We incurred $9 million of Sprint non-capital acquisition costs this quarter compared to $17 million last quarter. Included in the $9 million of Sprint acquisition costs for the quarter are $4.3 million of severance costs. Included in the $17 million of Sprint acquisition costs last quarter were $16.2 million of severance costs.

關於 EBITDA 和 EBITDA 利潤率。我們在每份季度收益新聞稿中將 EBITDA 與營運現金流進行核對。本季我們產生了 900 萬美元的 Sprint 非資本收購成本，而上季為 1,700 萬美元。本季 Sprint 900 萬美元的收購成本中包括 430 萬美元的遣散費。上季 Sprint 1,700 萬美元的收購成本中包括 1,620 萬美元的遣散費。

These severance costs are paid by us but are fully reimbursed by T-Mobile. We will incur some additional severance costs in Q2 ‘24, but none thereafter. Under US GAAP, these severance costs need to be reported as a receivable at the closing date. These severance costs are classified as post-acquisition cost and as a component of the bargain purchase gain. On EBITDA as adjusted and margin.

這些遣散費由我們支付，但由 T-Mobile 全額報銷。我們將在 2024 年第二季產生一些額外的遣散費，但此後不再產生。根據美國公認會計準則，這些遣散費需要在截止日期作為應收帳款報告。這些遣散費被歸類為收購後成本，並作為討價還價購買收益的一部分。調整後的 EBITDA 和利潤率。

Our EBITDA as adjusted includes adjustments again for the Sprint acquisition cost and cash payments received under our $700 million IP Transit services agreement with T-Mobile. We billed and collected $87.5 million under the IP Transit services agreement this quarter and last quarter. All amounts billed under the IP Transit services agreement have been paid to us on time.

調整後的 EBITDA 包括 Sprint 收購成本的再次調整以及根據我們與 T-Mobile 簽訂的 7 億美元 IP Transit 服務協議收到的現金付款。本季度和上季度，我們根據 IP Transit 服務協議收取了 8,750 萬美元的費用。根據 IP Transit 服務協議收取的所有費用均已按時支付給我們。

Our EBITDA as adjusted for Sprint acquisition costs and payments under the IP Transit agreement was at $115 million for the quarter. That was a 43.2% EBITDA as adjusted margin. That was a sequential increase of $4.5 million in EBITDA and a 260-basis-point margin increase over last quarter.

根據 Sprint 收購成本和 IP Transit 協議付款進行調整後，本季的 EBITDA 為 1.15 億美元。調整後利潤率為 43.2% EBITDA。與上季相比，EBITDA 環比增加了 450 萬美元，利潤率增加了 260 個基點。

Our first quarter has traditionally been a quarter when we experienced a decline in EBITDA margin due to cost-of-living salary increases, which again we have this year, the resetting of payroll taxes in the United States and our audit fees. That did not occur this quarter.

傳統上，我們第一季的 EBITDA 利潤率因生活成本工資上漲而下降，今年又出現了這種情況，美國工資稅和審計費用的重置。本季這種情況並未發生。

Our foreign currency impact. Our revenue earned outside of the United States is reported in US dollars and was about 17% of our revenues this quarter, consistent with prior quarters. About 11% of our revenues for this quarter were based in Europe and 6% related to Canada, Mexico, Oceanic, South America and Africa operations.

我們的外匯影響。我們在美國境外賺取的收入以美元報告，約佔本季營收的 17%，與前幾季一致。本季我們約 11% 的收入來自歐洲，6% 與加拿大、墨西哥、大洋洲、南美洲和非洲業務相關。

Our average euro to dollar rate so far this quarter is $1.07 and the Canadian rate of $0.73. Should these average foreign exchange rates remain at current levels for the remainder of this quarter, we estimate that the FX conversion impact on sequential quarterly revenues would be negative $0.4 million, and the impact year-over-year would be a negative $0.5 million.

本季到目前為止，我們的平均歐元兌美元匯率為 1.07 美元，加拿大匯率為 0.73 美元。如果這些平均外匯匯率在本季度剩餘時間內保持在當前水平，我們估計外匯兌換對連續季度收入的影響將為負 40 萬美元，同比影響將為負 50 萬美元。

We believe that our revenue and customer base is not highly concentrated. Our top 25 customers represented about 18% of our revenues for the quarter. Our quarterly capital expenditures were $40.9 million this quarter, down 6.3% from last quarter. We are continuing our network integration of the former Sprint network and legacy Cogent network into one unified network and converting former Sprint switch sites into Cogent data centers.

我們認為我們的收入和客戶群並不高度集中。我們的前 25 位客戶約占我們本季營收的 18%。本季我們的季度資本支出為 4,090 萬美元，比上季下降 6.3%。我們正在繼續將前 Sprint 網路和舊 Cogent 網路整合為一個統一網絡，並將前 Sprint 交換器站點轉變為 Cogent 資料中心。

Our finance lease IRU obligations are for long-term dark fiber leases and typically have an initial term of 15 to 20 years or longer and often include multiple renewal options after the initial term. Our IRU finance lease obligations were $517.5 million at quarter end. This is inclusive of an uneconomic finance lease that we acquired from Sprint. We have a very diverse set of IRU suppliers, and we have IRU contracts with 328 different dark fiber suppliers across the world.

我們的融資租賃 IRU 義務適用於長期暗光纖租賃，初始期限通常為 15 至 20 年或更長，並且通常包括初始期限後的多個續約選項。截至季末，我們的 IRU 融資租賃義務為 5.175 億美元。這包括我們從 Sprint 獲得的不經濟的融資租賃。我們擁有非常多元化的 IRU 供應商，並與全球 328 家不同的暗光纖供應商簽訂了 IRU 合約。

At quarter end, our cash and cash equivalents and restricted cash totaled $163.3 million. Our $44.8 million of restricted cash is directly tied to the estimated fair value of our interest rate swap agreement. Our operating cash flow results are materially impacted by the timing and amount of our payments under our TSA agreement with T-Mobile for transition services and the presentation of the payments of our $700 million IP Transit agreement.

截至季末，我們的現金和現金等價物以及限制性現金總計 1.633 億美元。我們的 4,480 萬美元限制性現金與我們的利率掉期協議的估計公允價值直接相關。我們的營運現金流結果受到我們與 T-Mobile 就過渡服務簽訂的 TSA 協議下的付款時間和金額以及我們 7 億美元的 IP Transit 協議的付款方式的重大影響。

Payments under the IP Transit agreement under US GAAP are considered cash receipts from investing activities and not classified as operating expense. Our operating cash flow was a positive $19.2 million for the quarter compared to a negative $48.7 million in the fourth quarter of last year. Payments under the IP Transit agreement again are reported as investing activities and were both $87.5 million this quarter and last quarter.

根據美國公認會計原則，IP Transit 協議下的付款被視為投資活動的現金收入，不歸類為營運費用。本季我們的營運現金流為正 1,920 萬美元，去年第四季為負 4,870 萬美元。 IP Transit 協議下的付款再次被報告為投資活動，本季和上季均為 8,750 萬美元。

Debt and debt ratios. Our total gross debt at par, including our finance lease IRU obligations, was $1.5 billion at quarter end, and our net debt was $1.3 billion. Our total gross debt to last 12 months EBITDA as adjusted and our net debt ratio both significantly improved this quarter.

債務和債務比率。截至季末，我們的以面額計算的總債務（包括融資租賃 IRU 義務）為 15 億美元，淨債務為 13 億美元。我們過去 12 個月調整後的 EBITDA 總負債和淨負債比率在本季均顯著改善。

Our total gross debt to last 12 months EBITDA as adjusted ratio was 3.57 at quarter end and our net debt ratio was 3.17. This compares to gross debt of the last 12 months EBITDA ratio of 4.07 last quarter end and a net ratio of 3.75. Our consolidated leverage ratio, as calculated under our note indentures was 3.51 and our secured leverage ratio was 2.33.

截至季末，我們的總負債與過去 12 個月 EBITDA 的調整後比率為 3.57，淨負債比率為 3.17。相較之下，上季末過去 12 個月的總負債 EBITDA 比率為 4.07，淨比率為 3.75。根據票據契約計算，我們的綜合槓桿率為 3.51，擔保槓桿率為 2.33。

Some comments on our swap agreement. We are party to an interest rate swap agreement that modifies our fixed interest rate obligation associated with our $500 million 2026 notes to a variable interest rate obligation based upon the secured overnight financing rate for the remaining term of our 2026 notes.

對我們互換協議的一些評論。我們是利率互換協議的締約方，該協議將我們與 5 億美元 2026 年票據相關的固定利率義務修改為基於 2026 年票據剩餘期限的擔保隔夜融資利率的可變利率義務。

We record the estimated fair value of the swap agreement at each reporting period, and we incur corresponding non-cash gains and losses due to changes in market interest rates. The fair value of our swap agreement increased by $6.2 million from last quarter to a liability of $44.8 million. We are required to maintain a restricted balance with the counterparty equal to the liability. As of today, the value of our swap agreement is $35.5 million.

我們在每個報告期間記錄掉期協議的估計公允價值，並因市場利率變動而產生相應的非現金損益。我們掉期協議的公允價值比上季增加了 620 萬美元，負債達到 4,480 萬美元。我們需要與交易對手保持相當於負債的限制性餘額。截至今天，我們的掉期協議價值為 3550 萬美元。

Lastly, some comments on bad debt and days sales outstanding. Our days sales outstanding, or DSO, was significantly impacted at year-end by the conversion of all former Sprint customers to our billing system in November of 2023. Our DSO for worldwide accounts receivable significantly improved from year-end and is converting to historical norms. Our DSO was 27 days at the end of the quarter versus 37 days at the end of last quarter to a 10-day improvement.

最後，關於壞帳和應收帳款週轉天數的一些評論。由於所有前Sprint 客戶於2023 年11 月轉換為我們的計費系統，我們的應收帳款週轉天數(DSO) 在年底受到了重大影響。並正在轉換為歷史標準。本季末我們的 DSO 為 27 天，而上季末為 37 天，提高了 10 天。

Our bad debt expense was $2.6 million and 1% of our revenues for the quarter, and that's in line with historical performance. Again, I want to thank and recognize our worldwide billing and collection team members for a fantastic job in serving our Cogent customers.

我們的壞帳費用為 260 萬美元，佔本季收入的 1%，這與歷史業績相符。我要再次感謝並認可我們的全球計費和收款團隊成員在為 Cogent 客戶提供出色服務方面所做的出色工作。

And with that, I will turn the call back over to Dave.

然後，我會將電話轉回給戴夫。

Thanks, Tad. Now for a few highlights on the strength of our network, our customer base and sales force. Our net-centric business continued to experience significant traffic growth in our business from streaming and other customers.

謝謝，泰德。現在重點介紹我們的人脈、客戶群和銷售團隊的實力。我們以網路為中心的業務繼續經歷來自串流媒體和其他客戶的業務流量的顯著增長。

We are a direct beneficiary of the continued migration of video to over the top. At quarter's end, we were on-net in 1,586 third-party carrier-neutral data centers and 78 of Cogent's owned data centers for a total of 1,664 data centers.

我們是視訊不斷向高端遷移的直接受益者。截至本季末，我們已在 1,586 個第三方營運商中立資料中心和 78 個 Cogent 自有資料中心連網，總計 1,664 個資料中心。

This is more data centers connected by a network than any other carrier as measured by third-party research. The breadth of this coverage enables us to serve our net-centric customers and a larger number of locations and helping them reduce latency on their network. We continue to expand our footprint and anticipate adding approximately a 100 carrier-neutral data centers to our network per year over the next several years, above and beyond the additional 23 data centers that Tad mentioned earlier, that we are adding due to the conversion of the Sprint switch sites into data centers.

根據第三方研究的測量，透過網路連接的資料中心比其他任何營運商都多。覆蓋範圍之廣使我們能夠為以網路為中心的客戶和更多地點提供服務，並幫助他們減少網路延遲。我們將繼續擴大我們的覆蓋範圍，並預計在未來幾年內每年在我們的網路中添加大約100 個運營商中立的數據中心，這超出了Tad 之前提到的額外23 個數據中心，我們由於轉換而新增了這些資料中心。

We are continuing to experience extended provisioning cycles for wavelengths, but we now can offer wavelength services in 419 locations. By year end, we will have over 800 carrier-neutral locations connected to our network throughout North America with substantially reduced provisioning cycles that will mirror the provisioning times that we are able to achieve with our transit services.

我們繼續經歷延長的波長配置週期，但我們現在可以在 419 個地點提供波長服務。到年底，我們將在整個北美地區有超過 800 個運營商中立位置連接到我們的網絡，並大幅縮短配置週期，這將反映我們透過運輸服務能夠實現的配置時間。

At quarter's end, we were directly connected to 8,098 networks. This collection of ISPs, telephone companies, cable companies, global operators and other carriers allow us to reach the vast majority of the world's broadband and mobile phone users. Cogent remains the most interconnected network in the world.

截至季末，我們直接連接到 8,098 個網路。 ISP、電話公司、有線電視公司、全球營運商和其他營運商的集合使我們能夠覆蓋全球絕大多數寬頻和行動電話用戶。 Cogent 仍然是世界上互聯程度最高的網路。

Our corporate customers are aggressively integrating new applications that become part of their working world, such as video conferencing. These usages will require higher speed connections both inside and outside of their promises. Our enterprise customers continue to groom their networks and are focused on our core connectivity products of DIA and virtual private network services, including both VPLS and MPLS managed network services.

我們的企業客戶正在積極整合新的應用程序，這些應用程式已成為他們工作世界的一部分，例如視訊會議。這些用途將需要在其承諾的內部和外部提供更高速度的連接。我們的企業客戶持續完善他們的網絡，並專注於我們的 DIA 核心連接產品和虛擬專用網路服務，包括 VPLS 和 MPLS 託管網路服務。

Now for a highlight on our sales force. We remain focused on growing our sales force and increasing the productivity of those sales reps. We continue to expand and modify our training programs, and we routinely manage out underperforming sales reps. Our sales rep turnover in the quarter was 5.5% per month, which was down from a peak of 8.7% per month at the peak of the pandemic and is in line with our historical averages, which have been at 5.6% of the sales force, leaving the company each month.

現在重點介紹一下我們的銷售團隊。我們仍然專注於發展我們的銷售團隊並提高這些銷售代表的生產力。我們不斷擴大和修改我們的培訓計劃，並定期淘汰表現不佳的銷售代表。本季我們的銷售代表流動率為每月 5.5%，低於疫情高峰期每月 8.7% 的峰值，與我們的歷史平均水平（佔銷售人員的 5.6%）一致。

We continue to train new reps as well as provide supplemental training for the reps that joined us from the Sprint business. Our sales rep productivity increased sequentially 23% to four installed units per rep per month. At quarter's end, we had a sales force of 284 sales professionals globally focused on the net-centric market, 379 sales reps focused on the corporate market and 14 sales reps focused on our enterprise market segment.

我們繼續培訓新代表，並為從 Sprint 業務加入我們的代表提供補充培訓。我們的銷售代表的工作效率連續提高了 23%，達到每位銷售代表每月安裝的 4 台設備。截至季末，我們在全球擁有 284 名銷售專業人員，專注於以網路為中心的市場，379 名銷售代表專注於企業市場，14 名銷售代表專注於我們的企業細分市場。

In summary, we remain very optimistic about our unique position to be able to serve the connectivity needs of small, medium and large businesses in major cities across North America in the central business districts. We have 1,861 on-net multi-tenant office buildings connected to our network with over 1 billion square feet of office space.

總之，我們對我們能夠滿足北美主要城市中央商務區的中小企業和大型企業的連接需求的獨特地位仍然非常樂觀。我們有 1,861 棟網內多租戶辦公大樓連接到我們的網絡，辦公空間超過 10 億平方英尺。

We remain excited and optimistic about our enterprise customer base and the ability to provide connectivity services to those companies globally and our opportunity to repurpose assets acquired from Sprint. The repurposing of the network to sell wavelength or optical transport services is progressing well. And the conversion of former Sprint switch sites and to data centers is also progressing, increasing Cogent's data center footprint and available power.

我們對我們的企業客戶群、為全球這些公司提供連接服務的能力以及重新利用從 Sprint 收購的資產的機會感到興奮和樂觀。網路的重新利用以銷售波長或光傳輸服務進展順利。前 Sprint 交換器站點和資料中心的轉換也在進行中，從而增加了 Cogent 的資料中心佔地面積和可用電力。

We have a significant backlog and funnel of over 2,400 wavelength opportunities. However, due to these longer provisioning cycles, we are uncertain if all of these orders will remain with us through our ability to provision them. We will be able to reduce that provisioning cycle as we complete our network optimization and mirror the provisioning windows that we are able to achieve in our IP business.

我們有大量的積壓訂單和超過 2,400 個波長機會的漏斗。然而，由於供應週期較長，我們不確定所有這些訂單是否都會透過我們的供應能力保留在我們手中。當我們完成網路最佳化並鏡像我們能夠在 IP 業務中實現的配置視窗時，我們將能夠縮短配置週期。

Key indicators show that office activity is improving. Workplace re-entry and leasing activity remained substantially below pre-pandemic levels. However, many tenants are returning to offices and leasing activity for commercial offices has begun to improve in many areas. We are working diligently to continue to reduce costs and integrate Sprint assets. We are optimistic about the cash flow capabilities of this combined business.

主要指標顯示辦公活動正在改善。工作場所的重新進入和租賃活動仍大大低於大流行前的水平。然而，許多租戶正在返回辦公室，許多地區的商業辦公室租賃活動已開始改善。我們正在努力繼續降低成本並整合 Sprint 資產。我們對合併後業務的現金流能力持樂觀態度。

Over the next three years, we anticipate continuing to achieve annual cost savings and exceeding our initial $220 million of annual cost synergies that were projected at the signing of our transaction with T-Mobile. We look forward to monetizing many underutilized assets, whether it be excess data center space, our IPv4 addresses or the substantial inventory of dark fiber that we have in our network.

在接下來的三年裡，我們預計將繼續實現年度成本節約，並超過我們與 T-Mobile 簽署交易時預計的最初 2.2 億美元的年度成本協同效應。我們期待將許多未充分利用的資產貨幣化，無論是多餘的資料中心空間、我們的 IPv4 位址或是我們網路中的大量暗光纖庫存。

Our Sprint acquisition costs do not include separately identified integration costs related to the operating expenses associated with the integration. This has reduced our EBITDA and EBITDA margins as adjusted, but we felt that it was more appropriate to just include these in our standard run rate.

我們的 Sprint 收購成本不包括與整合相關的營運費用相關的單獨確定的整合成本。這降低了我們的 EBITDA 和調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率，但我們認為將這些納入我們的標準運行率更為合適。

Finally, I want to take a moment to address question that several shareholders have raised with me, and that is my sale of a portion of my Cogent Holdings. Unfortunately, I have a large real estate portfolio outside of Cogent, and that portfolio has been under significant pressure. My stock sales are solely attributable to supporting that portfolio and have no reflection on my optimism of Cogent. In fact, I'm more optimistic today about Cogent's prospects to both grow its revenues and expand its profitabilities than I have been in Cogent's entire history.

最後，我想花點時間回答幾位股東向我提出的問題，也就是我出售部分 Cogent Holdings 的問題。不幸的是，我在 Cogent 之外擁有大量的房地產投資組合，而且該投資組合一直承受著巨大的壓力。我的股票銷售僅歸因於支持該投資組合，並沒有反映我對 Cogent 的樂觀態度。事實上，我今天對 Cogent 增加收入和擴大盈利能力的前景比我在 Cogent 整個歷史上的任何時候都更加樂觀。

With that, let me open up the floor for questions. Operator?

接下來，讓我開始提問。操作員？

(Operator Instructions) Sebastiano Petti, JPMorgan.

（操作員指示）Sebastiano Petti，摩根大通。

We continue to see issues with the provisioning on the wave side. I mean what gives you comfort in hitting the 800 locations by year end? And how should we think about the trajectory or the ramp-up in the revenue portion of that as you progress over the course of the year and then perhaps on a 12 to 18-month basis thereafter?

我們繼續看到 Wave 側的配置問題。我的意思是，是什麼讓您在年底前到達 800 個地點時感到安心？隨著一年中的進展以及此後 12 到 18 個月的發展，我們應該如何考慮收入部分的軌跡或成長？

And then can you help us, perhaps, trying to get more comfortable with the decline in enterprise? You said a lot of the revenue decline was predicated on non-core and other legacy revenues deteriorating but help us think about enterprise specifically. And what is the glide path there? Is that just a continued decline in revenue? Or should that stabilize in the coming quarters perhaps maybe before returning to growth? Thank you.

然後你能幫助我們，也許，試著讓我們更適應企業的衰退嗎？您說收入下降很大程度上是由於非核心收入和其他遺留收入惡化造成的，但這有助於我們具體考慮企業業務。那裡的下滑路徑是什麼？這只是收入持續下降嗎？或者說，在未來幾個季度，這種情況是否應該穩定下來，然後才能恢復成長？謝謝。

And it's that we're wave enabled to 419 in the 12 months since the acquisition was closed. The wave enablement contains four key work efforts. We need to put a transponder shelf in each of our carrier-neutral data centers to accept the wavelengths. We need to reconfigure the metropolitan networks to be optimized for wavelength delivery. We need to physically extend the Sprint network to intersect our metro networks.

自收購完成以來，我們在 12 個月內就已啟用 419。 Wave賦能包含四項關鍵工作。我們需要在每個運營商中立的資料中心放置一個轉發器架來接受波長。我們需要重新配置城域網路以優化波長傳輸。我們需要物理擴展 Sprint 網路以與我們的城域網路相交。

And then finally, we need to deploy a reconfigurable add drop multiplexer at the intersection of the intercity and intracity networks. All four of those efforts are underway to touch all 800 of the locations. This project has multiple subprojects and multiple constraints. Most of those constraints that were outside of Cogent's hands have been resolved. And now all of the additional work is work that is under our control. All of our markets are now physically interconnected. All of the markets have a clear project plan to complete them. And I think we'll see a continued increase in that number relatively linearly between 419 on May 9 to 800 by 12/31/24.

最後，我們需要在城際網路和城內網路的交叉點部署可重新配置的分插復用器。所有四項工作都正在進行中，以涵蓋全部 800 個地點。此項目有多個子項目和多個約束。大多數 Cogent 無法控制的限制都已解決。現在所有額外的工作都在我們的掌控之下。我們所有的市場現在都在物理上相互關聯。所有市場都有明確的項目計劃來完成它們。我認為我們會看到這個數字在 5 月 9 日的 419 例到 2024 年 12 月 31 日的 800 例之間相對線性地持續增長。

Now to maybe the more important question on wavelength is provisioning. One of the key advantages that Cogent will have in this market is the standardization of our products and the ability to provision these services within a two-week window, which is far better than the industry has historically been able to provision wavelength services.25 years ago when Cogent started selling high-capacity transit services, the provisioning windows in the industry for those services averaged over 90 days. Cogent transformed the industry by shrinking that to an average of nine days to install, and that is a big part of the reason why Cogent has become the largest transit provider globally.

現在，關於波長的更重要的問題可能是配置。 Cogent 在這個市場上擁有的主要優勢之一是我們產品的標準化以及在兩週內提供這些服務的能力，這遠遠優於業界歷史上提供波長服務的能力。容量運輸服務時，產業中這些服務的配置視窗平均超過90 天。 Cogent 將安裝時間縮短至平均 9 天，從而改變了整個行業，這也是 Cogent 成為全球最大的交通提供者的一個重要原因。

Now with wavelength services, most carriers provision those on a customized or bespoke basis. We have architected the network, so the provisioning is much more standardized. Each of the data centers will have the requisite transponder shelf, and the actual provisioning will require three key steps. The first step will be the plugging of a pluggable optic at each of the two endpoints. So that's actually two of the steps, one at the A-N, one at the Z-N, which does require a field technician coordination. But since these are all in carrier-neutral data centers, and we have nearly 500 people in our field services organization, we anticipate being able to do that within two to three days of order validation.

現在，對於波長服務，大多數營運商都以定製或客製化的方式提供這些服務。我們已經建立了網絡，因此配置更加標準化。每個資料中心將擁有必要的應答器架，實際配置需要三個關鍵步驟。第一步是在兩個端點處插入可插拔光學元件。所以這實際上是兩個步驟，一個在 A-N，一個在 Z-N，這確實需要現場技術人員的協調。但由於這些都位於營運商中立的資料中心，而我們的現場服務組織有近 500 名員工，因此我們預計能夠在訂單驗證後的兩到三天內完成這項工作。

The second piece is once those physical work efforts at the two endpoints are complete, the network operation center needs to build the physical path through all of the intermediate devices. All of that work has been automated and scripted. That work is done by the nearly 250 people in our customer care and NOC support group on a routine basis. We've been doing that literally for decades to support the Cogent IP network. It was invisible to customers, but now it will be customer-facing. So we should be able to reduce those provisioning time substantially.

第二部分是一旦兩個端點的實體工作完成，網路運作中心需要建構通過所有中間設備的實體路徑。所有這些工作都已自動化並編寫了腳本。這項工作由我們的客戶服務和 NOC 支援團隊中的近 250 名人員定期完成。幾十年來，我們一直在這樣做，以支援 Cogent IP 網路。以前對客戶來說是看不見的，但現在它將面向客戶。因此，我們應該能夠大幅減少這些配置時間。

Today, Cogent is averaging over 120 days to provision a wavelength. So we're talking about a 10x improvement in that provisioning, but it's migrating from a custom one-off provisioning to a modularized, standardized provisioning program, and we feel very comfortable that we have the resources and the architecture to do that. So as these sites become fully wave enabled, the amount of custom engineering declines materially.

如今，Cogent 平均需要 120 天以上的時間來配置一個波長。因此，我們談論的是該配置的 10 倍改進，但它正在從自訂的一次性配置遷移到模組化、標準化的配置程序，我們感到非常滿意，因為我們擁有實現這一目標的資源和架構。因此，當這些網站完全啟用 Wave 功能時，客製化工程的數量就會大幅下降。

I'm now going to switch to your second question around enterprise. One of the challenges in the enterprise market globally, and it was a challenge that the Sprint enterprise business face, is that the service providers to maximize revenue oftentimes sold products and services where they had little or no core competence. When we acquired the business from Sprint, there were tens of thousands of non-core services spread over 24 discrete product categories.

我現在要轉向你關於企業的第二個問題。全球企業市場面臨的挑戰之一，也是 Sprint 企業業務所面臨的挑戰，是服務提供者為了實現收入最大化，往往在他們幾乎沒有或根本沒有核心能力的情況下銷售產品和服務。當我們從 Sprint 收購該業務時，有數以萬計的非核心服務分佈在 24 個離散產品類別中。

We have been end-of-lifing those services. We reduced our non-core revenue sequentially by another $1.2 million. This is by design. These are products that have negative gross margin. Cogent adds no value in delivering those services. These tend to be security management services or land administration type services which were sold in conjunction with connectivity.

我們已經終止了這些服務。我們的非核心收入又減少了 120 萬美元。這是設計使然。這些是毛利率為負的產品。 Cogent 在提供這些服務時並沒有增加任何價值。這些服務往往是與連接一起出售的安全管理服務或土地管理類型服務。

Part of Cogent's differentiation from other service providers is the limited number of products that we support. We are a connectivity company. We basically sell five key products. We sell Internet access, by far and away our largest product.

Cogent 與其他服務提供者的部分差異在於我們支援的產品數量有限。我們是一家連結公司。我們基本上銷售五種主要產品。我們銷售互聯網接入，這無疑是我們最大的產品。

Our second largest product is VPN services. These are connectivity services delivered over the Internet as either an MPLS tunnel or a VPLS encapsulated mesh. We sell wavelength services, which are transport between point A and point Z. We sell Internet address space to customers and then we sell space and power in our 78 data centers and 159 megawatts of capacity. And that's it. That's what Cogent sells.

我們的第二大產品是 VPN 服務。這些是透過互聯網作為 MPLS 隧道或 VPLS 封裝網格提供的連接服務。我們銷售波長服務，即 A 點和 Z 點之間的傳輸。就是這樣。這就是 Cogent 賣的東西。

So in our enterprise business, we are going through two simultaneous grooming exercises. The first is the elimination of these non-core products. The second is analyzing the connectivity products on a circuit-by-circuit basis. We are aggressively migrating off-net to on-net. You saw that show up in our substantial margin improvement and reduction in cost of goods sold.

因此，在我們的企業業務中，我們正在同時進行兩項修飾練習。首先是淘汰這些非核心產品。第二個是逐一電路分析連接產品。我們正積極地從網外遷移到網內。您已經看到了我們利潤率的大幅提高和銷售成本的降低。

We are also growing out-circuits across delivery medium that are not supportable, whether it be wireless, coax or even twisted copper, consolidating on an entire fiber-based platform that will give us the ability to scale. And we are withdrawing from countries and markets that are unprofitable and ones in which Sprint was offering services without the requisite regulatory infrastructure.

我們還在不支援的傳輸介質上增加外電路，無論是無線、同軸電纜還是雙絞銅，整合到整個基於光纖的平台上，這將使我們能夠擴展。我們正在退出那些無利可圖的國家和市場，以及斯普林特在沒有必要的監管基礎設施的情況下提供服務的國家和市場。

So for all of these reasons, we are grooming less profitable business. We think the enterprise business will stabilize over the next several quarters, and we actually have the opportunity to grow that business as many other global service providers are withdrawing from this market space.

因此，基於所有這些原因，我們正在培養利潤較低的業務。我們認為企業業務將在未來幾季穩定下來，而且我們實際上有機會發展該業務，因為許多其他全球服務供應商正在退出這個市場空間。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Greg Williams, TD Cowen.

格雷格·威廉斯，TD·考恩。

Maybe I can follow up on the waves question, just ask it differently. You had $3.3 million in waves revenue. Last fall, I think you said you're going to get a run rate of about $20 million in revenue annualized by around now. Of course, you rescinded that goal. But when could we reach the $20 million? Or any other target you can give for waves? Just help us figure out the cadence and the confidence in the wave revenue increase?

也許我可以跟進波浪問題，只是以不同的方式提出。您的波浪收入為 330 萬美元。去年秋天，我想您曾說過，到目前為止，您將獲得約 2000 萬美元的年化收入。當然，你取消了這個目標。但我們什麼時候才能達到 2000 萬美元呢？或者您可以為波浪指定任何其他目標嗎？只是幫我們弄清楚一波收入成長的節奏和信心嗎？

And then the second question is just on the integration cost for Sprint. You noted $9 million in Sprint acquisition cost. But at the end of your scripted remarks, I think you were mentioning separate identified integration costs and that's reducing your EBITDA. What is that number? How much of this onetime sort of integration cost of Sprint do you have? And where is that going throughout the course of the next year or two? Thanks.

第二個問題是關於 Sprint 的整合成本。您注意到 Sprint 的收購成本為 900 萬美元。但在你的腳本化評論的最後，我認為你提到了單獨確定的整合成本，這會減少你的 EBITDA。那個數字是多少？ Sprint 的一次性整合成本有多少？在接下來的一兩年裡，情況會是如何？謝謝。

Two very good questions, Greg. So first of all, on wavelengths, we continue to grow our funnel. We're actually trying to discourage customers until we can give them more realistic provisioning time lines. The demand for the routes that we have and the data centers that we are targeting is stronger than we had initially expected. As we outlined, we anticipate the wave business to be about a $500 million run rate business five years after the acquisition.

兩個非常好的問題，格雷格。首先，在波長方面，我們繼續擴大我們的漏斗。我們實際上是在試圖勸阻客戶，直到我們能夠為他們提供更現實的配置時間表。對我們現有航線和目標資料中心的需求比我們最初預期的要強。正如我們所概述的，我們預計收購五年後，波浪業務的運作率將達到約 5 億美元。

We were hoping that we could grow that business linearly, meaning it would grow $100 million to $100 million business a year, post-closing $200 million in the second year. And our hope was based on the fact that the limited number of locations that we initially serve would actually be the locations that the market wanted. What we discovered as we began selling was that the wave demand was much more diffused across a much larger number of data centers. It's not that the demand is not there. It's just spread out into facilities that we could not provision. So we do still believe that there will be a $500 million business by run rate of May of '28.

我們希望能夠線性成長該業務，這意味著業務每年將成長 1 億至 1 億美元，第二年交易完成後將成長 2 億美元。我們的希望是基於這樣一個事實：我們最初服務的有限數量的地點實際上是市場想要的地點。當我們開始銷售時，我們發現波浪需求在更多數量的資料中心中更加分散。並不是說沒有需求。它只是分散到我們無法提供的設施。因此，我們仍然相信，以 28 年 5 月的運行率計算，業務量將達到 5 億美元。

I know that's a long time and investors want much nearer targets. The reconfiguration of the network is progressing. We are over halfway through bringing on the number of sites that we need. We are not though yet in a position to have the standardized delivery that I spoke about. That will be in place by year-end. We hope that that will allow us to eat into the backlog and to also accelerate new sales as we will be more comfortable in taking those orders with more standardized provisioning windows.

我知道那是很長一段時間，投資人想要更接近的目標。網路重構工作正在進行中。我們所需的站點數量已完成一半以上。但我們還無法實現我所說的標準化交付。這將在年底前到位。我們希望這將使我們能夠消化積壓的訂單，並加速新的銷售，因為我們將更輕鬆地透過更標準化的供應窗口接受這些訂單。

So in terms of a specific target, burn once, I'm not going to get burned again and lay something out other than we anticipate a relatively linear approach to a $500 million business by the spring of 2028. And we will fully admit that the initial demand did not line up with the locations, but we will catch up as those sites come online.

因此，就具體目標而言，一旦被燒毀，我就不會再被燒毀，並製定出除我們預計到 2028 年春季實現 5 億美元業務的相對線性方法之外的其他方案。最初的需求與地點不符，但隨著這些網站上線，我們會迎頭趕上。

Now for your second question around integration costs. The operational integration of the business has a real cost associated with it. Oftentimes, companies put a bucket of expenses into that and are kind of given a free pass by investors as these are viewed as transitory as opposed to permanent expenses. We already had enough accounting complexity associated with this transaction. It is highly unusual to have a transaction that has a bargain purchase gain, has a effective -- someone gave you something and it had the ability to take costs out.

現在回答關於整合成本的第二個問題。業務的營運整合具有與之相關的實際成本。通常情況下，公司會投入大量費用，並獲得投資者的免費通行證，因為這些費用被視為暫時性費用，而不是永久性費用。我們已經有足夠的與此交易相關的會計複雜性。一項具有討價還價購買收益、有效的交易是非常不尋常的——有人給了你一些東西，並且它有能力消除成本。

Normally, a company pays for a transaction and then integrate that over time. That additional complexity resulted in us ultimately going to the Chief Accountant of the Securities and Exchange Commission. We've mentioned this previously to get a final ruling on how we should appropriately count for it.

通常情況下，公司會為交易付費，然後隨著時間的推移進行整合。這種額外的複雜性導致我們最終求助於美國證券交易委員會的首席會計師。我們之前已經提到過這一點，以便就我們應該如何適當地計算它做出最終裁決。

And we included the Transit service payment agreement from T-Mobile, which is the $700 million payment in EBITDA as adjusted. We did not want yet another extraordinary adjustment. But there are numerous operational costs associated with converting back-office systems and billing systems. We have not quantified those externally and don't want to report on them to yet have another metric that would be EBITDA as adjusted, as adjusted, as adjusted.

我們還包括了 T-Mobile 的 Transit 服務付款協議，即調整後的 EBITDA 中的 7 億美元付款。我們不想再進行一次非同尋常的調整。但轉換後台系統和計費系統會產生大量營運成本。我們還沒有在外部對這些進行量化，也不想報告它們以擁有另一個指標，即調整後的 EBITDA、調整後的 EBITDA。

I think that's just a little too confusing for people, but you should see continued operational improvement going forward, that will include headcount rationalization, site optimization, network integration, and these integration costs will decline. They are baked into our overall guidance of at least 100 basis points a year of annual margin expansion. I think you saw the very rapid impact of that this quarter with a sequential improvement in EBITDA margins of 260 basis points in a quarter that would traditionally have a decline in the EBITDA margins.

我認為這對人們來說有點太令人困惑了，但你應該看到未來運營的持續改進，這將包括人員合理化、站點優化、網絡集成，並且這些集成成本將會下降。它們被納入我們每年至少 100 個基點的年度利潤率擴張的總體指導中。我認為您在本季度看到了這一影響的非常迅速，在傳統上 EBITDA 利潤率下降的季度，EBITDA 利潤率環比提高了 260 個基點。

I'll just add something to the Sprint costs that we do include. So they're just professional fees directly associated with the acquisition, so non-recurring. And then because under the US GAAP accounting, we need to record the severance amount as a receivable at the closing date, so you put that asset on the books and it increases the gain, even though they're reimbursed when we're actually paying those severance costs. They are also included as an expense. So that is obviously directly attributed to the acquisition and those severance costs are included in the Sprint costs. I hope that helps.

我將在我們確實包含的 Sprint 成本中添加一些內容。因此，它們只是與收購直接相關的專業費用，因此是非經常性的。然後，因為根據美國公認會計準則會計，我們需要在截止日期將遣散費金額記錄為應收帳款，因此您將該資產記入帳簿，它會增加收益，即使它們是在我們實際支付時償還的那些遣散費。它們也作為費用包含在內。因此，這顯然直接歸因於收購，而這些遣散費包含在 Sprint 成本中。我希望這有幫助。

That is helpful. Thank you.

這很有幫助。謝謝。

Thank you, Greg.

謝謝你，格雷格。

David Barden, Bank of America.

大衛巴登，美國銀行。

Just one housekeeping item, Dave. You gave us the IPv4 contribution $3.4 million per month. Can you give us a sense as to what that would look like sequentially and year-over-year from a growth standpoint as a contributor to presumably the corporate revenue line?

只有一件家事用品，戴夫。您每月向我們捐贈 340 萬美元的 IPv4。您能否讓我們了解從成長的角度來看，作為公司營收線的貢獻者，連續和同比情況會是什麼樣子？

And then just on a related point, you've discussed the reservoir of IPv4 that you have and the data center opportunity that's midstream and then the dark fiber. Could you give us a sense as to how we monetize that? Is the intention to do more ABS-type financings to reinvest in the business? Or have you had any inbounds for potential sales of these assets, that sort of thing? Thank you.

然後就一個相關點，您討論了您擁有的 IPv4 資源以及中游的資料中心機會，然後是暗光纖。您能為我們介紹如何將其貨幣化嗎？是否打算進行更多ABS類融資以再投資業務？或者您有任何可能出售這些資產的收入，諸如此類的事情？謝謝。

Okay. A couple of great questions, Dave. So first of all, the growth rate in the IPv4 revenue stream has been running between 2% and 3% sequentially per month for the past 1.5 years, and we anticipate that growth to continue. As part of focusing on the IPv4 value, we did a few things. We modified our compensation structure for the sales force to increase their commission rates to make leasing of address space equivalent to that of selling bandwidth.

好的。戴夫，有幾個很好的問題。首先，在過去 1.5 年裡，IPv4 收入流的成長率一直在每月 2% 到 3% 之間，我們預計這種成長將持續下去。作為關注 IPv4 價值的一部分，我們做了一些事情。我們修改了銷售人員的薪酬結構，以提高他們的佣金率，使地址空間的租賃與銷售頻寬的同等。

And two, we have incrementally raised prices on addresses. Now we did not raise the installed base, but for new sales we have increased prices because of the pricing umbrella established by both Amazon through AWS and Microsoft through Azure.

第二，我們逐步提高了地址的價格。現在我們沒有提高安裝量，但對於新銷售，我們提高了價格，因為亞馬遜透過 AWS 和微軟透過 Azure 建立了定價保護傘。

So I would expect this business to continue to grow at a similar rate. We are also evaluating should we sell some of the addresses, because it may take us too long at this growth rate to fully recognize value out of them by leasing them. That final decision has not been made. We today are leasing out about one third of our inventory, meaning two thirds are unutilized.

因此，我預計這項業務將繼續以類似的速度成長。我們也正在評估是否應該出售一些地址，因為按照這樣的成長率，我們可能需要很長時間才能透過租賃它們來充分認識到它們的價值。最終決定尚未做出。今天，我們出租了大約三分之一的庫存，這意味著三分之二未利用。

We'll continue to aggressively raise prices and increase sales and then may also choose to pair our inventory by selling. Again, a final decision has not been made. And it's somewhat dependent on market conditions. I think the IPv4 purchase market was more robust six months ago. It slacked off a little bit. I think that will come back and that may impact our decision on timing and exact magnitude of potential sales.

我們將繼續積極提高價格並增加銷量，然後也可能選擇透過銷售來配對我們的庫存。同樣，最終決定尚未做出。這在一定程度上取決於市場狀況。我認為六個月前 IPv4 購買市場更為強勁。它稍微鬆懈了一些。我認為這種情況會回來，這可能會影響我們對潛在銷售的時間和確切規模的決定。

Now with regard to the data centers, there we have a lot of foundational work. So independent of everything that I've described on the network reconfiguration, there is a dedicated team of individuals working on clearing out these sites and then converting them into modern data centers. That work is well underway. We have converted 25 of the facilities. We have 23 more that are in the process of conversion. And even of the 25 that have been converted, there is still some additional remedial work.

現在關於資料中心，我們有很多基礎工作。因此，獨立於我在網路重新配置中所描述的一切，有一個專門的團隊致力於清理這些站點，然後將它們轉換為現代資料中心。這項工作正在順利進行中。我們已經改造了 25 個設施。我們還有 23 個正在轉換過程中。即使已完成改造的 25 座，仍需進行一些額外的補救工作。

Within those facilities, we are basically dividing the facility into three areas. There is a small PoP room that is being established, that will house our network equipment. Typically, that utilized is about 0.5 megawatt of power at about 1,000 square feet of the facility.

在這些設施中，我們基本上將設施分為三個區域。正在建立一個小型 PoP 房間，用於容納我們的網路設備。通常，在大約 1,000 平方英尺的設施中，所使用的電力約為 0.5 兆瓦。

Secondly, we are establishing a retail Cogent data center in each of these locations. Those will range from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet and will typically be between 0.5 and 1 megawatt of power, and they will look exactly like the inventory of data centers that Cogent had previously and the customer bases typically take one and two racks of space at a time with typically 2 to 5 kilowatts per rack. That leaves a substantial amount of inventory, approximately a 1 million square feet and about 100 megawatts of power today as surplus.

其次，我們正在每個地點建立一個零售 Cogent 資料中心。這些面積從 5,000 到 10,000 平方英尺不等，功率通常在 0.5 到 1 兆瓦之間，它們看起來與 Cogent 之前的資料中心庫存一模一樣，客戶群通常佔用一到兩個機架的空間。架通常為2 至5 千瓦。這使得目前剩餘的庫存量很大，大約有 100 萬平方英尺和大約 100 兆瓦的電力。

We have begun the process of marketing that to third parties on a wholesale basis. That will either be direct users or other data center operators. We have offered those participants two different models. They can lease space from us on a per megawatt basis or they can elect to purchase the facility along with the power. We've gone out to about 117 counterparties and have begun those negotiations. We have three LOIs in hand after two weeks, offer three specific facilities.

我們已經開始向第三方批發銷售。這將是直接用戶或其他資料中心營運商。我們為這些參與者提供了兩種不同的模式。他們可以按每兆瓦向我們租賃空間，也可以選擇購買設施和電力。我們已經聯繫了大約 117 個交易對手並開始了這些談判。兩週後我們手邊有三份意向書，提供三個具體設施。

It is probably too early for us to bake that into our financial model, but probably over the next quarter or two, we'll be in a position to comment on the monetization. And if they are leases, they'll be long-term streams of revenue that we would look to securitize if we want a cash or just harvest. If they are sales, they would obviously reduce our leverage on our balance sheet and give us additional capital.

對我們來說，將其納入我們的財務模型可能還為時過早，但可能在接下來的一兩個季度，我們將能夠對貨幣化發表評論。如果它們是租賃，它們將是長期的收入流，如果我們想要現金或只是收穫，我們會尋求將其證券化。如果它們是銷售，它們顯然會減少我們資產負債表上的槓桿並為我們提供額外的資本。

And then on dark fiber, we have a substantial footprint of dark fiber. However, we have not been willing to sell that, not because of any philosophical reason, but because the team that's involved in provisioning that dark fiber is the exact team of people that are full speed ahead on delivering our wave network reconfiguration. By year end, that wave reconfiguration will be substantially complete and then we can turn our attention to figuring out how deep and what is the right pricing model for the dark fiber in our network.

然後在暗光纖上，我們有大量的暗光纖足跡。然而，我們一直不願意出售它，不是因為任何哲學原因，而是因為參與配置暗光纖的團隊正是全速推進我們的波網絡重新配置的團隊。到年底，波浪重新配置將基本完成，然後我們可以將注意力轉向弄清楚我們網路中暗光纖的深度和正確的定價模型。

So all of these assets are ones that we will ultimately create value out of, what we need to sequence us properly. Hopefully that was helpful, Dave.

因此，所有這些資產都是我們最終會創造價值的資產，我們需要對它們進行正確的排序。希望這對你有幫助，戴夫。

Super helpful, Dave. Thank you so much.

超級有幫助，戴夫。太感謝了。

Frank Louthan, Raymond James.

弗蘭克·勞森，雷蒙德·詹姆斯。

Great. Thank you. Dave, can you comment on where the non-core revenue bottomed out? I assume it doesn't necessarily go to zero. But when you get rid of the negative gross margin and other products and so forth, how should we think about where that revenue line bottoms out? And how long do you think it will take to get there? And is there any part of it that you might consider putting in discontinued ops since you're clearly pushing it out? First question.

偉大的。謝謝。戴夫，您能評論一下非核心收入在哪裡觸底嗎？我認為它不一定會為零。但是，當你擺脫負毛利率和其他產品等因素後，我們應該如何考慮收入線觸底的位置？您認為需要多長時間才能到達那裡？由於您顯然正在取消其中的任何部分，因此您可能會考慮加入已停止的操作？第一個問題。

Secondly, can you comment on the usage of the circuits to T-Mobile thing? Or are they cash payments? Are they using those? And is there a potential for them to grow and do more business with you beyond that?

其次，您能否評論一下 T-Mobile 電路的使用情況？還是現金支付？他們在使用那些嗎？除此之外，他們是否有潛力發展並與您開展更多業務？

Yes. Two very different questions. So in the non-core business, prior to the Sprint acquisition, Cogent had about $100,000 a month of non-core revenue, about $300,000 a quarter. And that was services that were left over from acquisitions that were 18 years or more earlier. So there is a very long tail on these services. We are actually still providing hosted e-mail to PSINet customers 21 years after the acquisition. We kind of wish it goes away, it produces some margin, and we support it.

是的。兩個截然不同的問題。因此在非核心業務方面，在收購 Sprint 之前，Cogent 每月的非核心收入約為 10 萬美元，每季約為 30 萬美元。這些服務是 18 年或更早之前的收購留下的。所以這些服務有很長的尾巴。實際上，在收購 21 年後，我們仍在向 PSINet 客戶提供託管電子郵件。我們有點希望它消失，它會產生一些利潤，我們支持它。

The Sprint services were much more complex and probably much lower margin. Our goal is to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Our expectation is they will be substantially gone by the end of 2026, which is the longest dated contract that were obligated to support. But there probably will be some residual tail beyond that.

Sprint 服務要複雜得多，而且利潤率可能要低得多。我們的目標是盡快擺脫它們。我們的預期是，到 2026 年底，它們將基本消失，這是有義務支持的期限最長的合約。但除此之外可能還會有一些殘留的尾巴。

We are also looking at the enterprise customer base and realizing that some of the services they are getting for connectivity are not economically viable. The locations are very remote. The services are delivered over inferior transmission, off-net circuits and the margins are very low.

我們也正在關注企業客戶群，並意識到他們獲得的一些連結服務在經濟上並不可行。地點非常偏遠。這些服務是透過劣質傳輸、網外電路提供的，利潤非常低。

We are doing a combination of raising prices and migrating traffic. First and foremost, anything that's off-net that we can bring into on-net, we're doing that. And you see that in both our numbers in terms of on-net connections and also revenue improvement as well as margin improvement. We have no intention of putting these services into a separate bucket of discontinued operations. There is already too much accounting complexity here at Cogent.

我們正在採取提高價格和遷移流量相結合的方式。首先也是最重要的，任何我們可以將網外的東西帶入網路的東西，我們都會這樣做。您可以從我們的線上連結數、收入改善以及利潤率改善的數據中看到這一點。我們無意將這些服務單獨歸入已停止營運的類別中。 Cogent 的會計工作已經太複雜了。

Yes. Just comparing the amounts related to this non-core revenue and the associated cost, it's really not material enough to group into a discontinued operations bucket.

是的。僅比較與非核心收入相關的金額和相關成本，實際上還不足以將其歸類為已停止營運的類別。

Thanks.

謝謝。

Walter Piecyk, Lightshed Ventures.

沃爾特·皮西克 (Walter Piecyk)，Lightshed Ventures。

Thanks. Dave, I just want to go back to Barden's question on the IPv4 stuff. So 2.5%, does that mean that one year ago you had about $3 million of revenue? And when exactly did that revenue start for you in corporate, Dave?

謝謝。 Dave，我只想回到 Barden 關於 IPv4 的問題。那麼 2.5%，這是否意味著一年前您的收入約為 300 萬美元？戴夫，您在公司的收入到底是從什麼時候開始的？

Okay. So first of all, we began leasing IPv4s in 2015. One thing I did not correct in Dave's question was the breakdown between corporate, net-centric and enterprise. Let me give that in IPv4 leasing, 85% of the revenues are net-centric. 14% are corporate and 1% are enterprise. Between 2015 and midyear 2022, we would only lease addresses to companies that also purchased bandwidth from us at the same time. In the summer of '22, we relaxed that restriction. At that point, the growth rate in this business materially accelerated.

好的。首先，我們在 2015 年開始租賃 IPv4。我想說的是，在 IPv4 租賃中，85% 的收入都是以網路為中心的。 14% 為公司，1% 為企業。從 2015 年到 2022 年中，我們只會將地址租賃給同時從我們這裡購買頻寬的公司。 22 年夏天，我們放鬆了這個限制。那時，該業務的成長速度大幅加快。

The second thing that we did in the beginning of this year was to normalize the commission structure. So we would pay the sales force the same payout ratio if they lease addresses as opposed to just selling bandwidth. That had a positive impact on the sales rate.

今年年初我們做的第二件事就是規範佣金結構。因此，如果銷售人員租賃地址而不是僅僅銷售頻寬，我們將向他們支付相同的支付率。這對銷售率產生了正面影響。

And then the third thing that we implemented actually April 1 is an increase in pricing. This was a relatively small part of Cogent's business and something that, quite honestly, we had not focused on initially.

我們在 4 月 1 日實際實施的第三件事是提高定價。這是 Cogent 業務中相對較小的一部分，老實說，我們最初並沒有關注這一點。

We were approached by a number of banks to potentially do an asset-backed securitization of our network. We reviewed that and concluded that would be impractical due to the fact that our network traverses 12,000 municipal, local, and national jurisdictions, perfecting a security interest and that broad of a network is just not practical.

許多銀行與我們接洽，希望對我們的網路進行資產支持證券化。我們對此進行了審查，並得出結論，這是不切實際的，因為我們的網路跨越 12,000 個市、地方和國家司法管轄區，完善了安全利益，而廣泛的網路是不切實際的。

Second, 60% of our network is based on IRU. While there is precedent to securitize that, it's more challenging. And third, there was not a huge amount of customer diversity. As we looked in our aggregate balance sheet, we thought that it would make sense for us to reach out to ABS investors as a new group of investors and realized that our V4 revenues were an optimal candidate, widely diffused customer base, 8,000 customers, 12,000 unique agreements, a very sticky customer base. The churn rate and IPv4 leasing is 0.8% of 1% annually, almost 15 times better than the churn rate in our bandwidth business. And it is an extremely high-margin business with no real operating cost. So it was an ideal candidate for this market.

其次，我們的網路 60% 是基於 IRU 的。雖然有將其證券化的先例，但更具挑戰性。第三，客戶的多樣性並不高。當我們查看總資產負債表時，我們認為將ABS 投資者作為新的投資者群體接觸是有意義的，並意識到我們的V4 收入是最佳候選者，廣泛分散的客戶群，8,000 名客戶，12,000 名客戶獨特的協議，非常黏性的客戶群。每年的流失率和 IPv4 租賃為 0.8% 至 1%，幾乎比我們頻寬業務的流失率高出 15 倍。而且這是一項利潤極高的業務，沒有實際的營運成本。因此它是這個市場的理想候選者。

Now what turned out to be challenging in doing this transaction were two things: the complexity involved in securitizing not only domestic but international revenue streams; and then secondly, educating investors on a new asset that they had never seen before. So it was a lengthy process.

現在，進行這項交易的挑戰有兩件事：不僅是國內收入流證券化，而且是國際收入流證券化所涉及的複雜性；其次，向投資者介紹他們從未見過的新資產。所以這是一個漫長的過程。

But our business for IPv4 leasing has some significant tailwinds and the decision by Microsoft and Amazon to lease out at 12 times Cogent's rates at the time in 2023, created quite a high umbrella for us in terms of pricing and giving us the confidence that we have the ability to move prices up. Hopefully, that was helpful.

但我們的 IPv4 租賃業務有一些重要的推動力，微軟和亞馬遜決定在 2023 年以 Cogent 費率 12 倍的價格出租，這為我們在定價方面創造了相當高的保護傘，並讓我們有信心推高價格的能力。希望有幫助。

Well, you mentioned that last quarter, Dave, about Amazon and Microsoft. So it's been 90 days, it doesn't look like growth accelerated there or you sold. And then I think in answering Barden's question you said, I guess, the market looked a little softer, I guess, for IPv4. So I mean who knows what happens given what can happen with IPV6? It would seem like there would be some immediacy to either increase price at the existing leases, try and lease more aggressively or sell it more aggressively in case that market disappears. So just comments on that?

戴夫，你在上個季度提到亞馬遜和微軟。 90 天過去了，看起來成長並沒有加速，你也沒有賣出。然後我想，在回答 Barden 的問題時，您說，我猜，IPv4 的市場看起來有點疲軟。所以我的意思是，考慮到 IPV6 會發生什麼，誰知道會發生什麼？似乎需要立即提高現有租賃的價格，嘗試更積極地租賃或更積極地出售，以防市場消失。那麼只是對此發表評論？

And also as it relates to corporate, I know this is more of a net-centric business, but I think your buildings dropped for the first time. I look back in my model. I think I go back to like 2008, I don't think I've ever seen your multi-tenant buildings actually drop. What's going on with that? Because you usually add buildings, which obviously gives you incremental potential capacity for some corporate growth.

而且由於它與企業相關，我知道這更像是一個以網路為中心的業務，但我認為你們的建築物第一次倒塌。我回頭看看我的模型。我想我回到了 2008 年，我認為我從未見過你們的多租戶建築真正倒塌。這是怎麼回事？因為您通常會增加建築物，這顯然會為您的某些企業成長提供增量的潛在能力。

Okay. I'll take those in reverse order. So post pandemic, we have slowed the rate of multi-tenant building additions. We actually did add several buildings in the quarter, but we also had a half a dozen buildings converted to residential service from office. So the net reduction of one building from 1,862 to 1,861 was fairly insignificant.

好的。我將以相反的順序進行處理。因此，大流行後，我們放慢了多租戶建築的增加速度。實際上，我們在本季度確實增加了幾棟建築，但我們也有六棟建築從辦公室改建為住宅服務。因此，一棟建築物從 1,862 棟減少到 1,861 棟的淨減少量相當微不足道。

Actually, the square footage increased, meaning the new buildings that came on were larger than the ones that were taken offline because of the residential conversion. We do expect our multi-tenant footprint to continue to grow, but at a more moderate rate. It makes more sense for us to divert that capital into more data center connectivity as that is a more robust and growing market.

事實上，建築面積增加了，這意味著新建的建築比因住宅改建而停建的建築更大。我們確實預期我們的多租戶足跡將繼續成長，但成長速度較為溫和。對我們來說，將資金轉移到更多的資料中心連接上更有意義，因為這是一個更強勁且不斷成長的市場。

Now I'll go to your IPv4 monetization question. IPV6 was introduced in 1998. It today accounts for a whopping 7% of Internet traffic. The US Federal Government in 2010 put a mandate out for all agencies to be entirely on V6 within 18 months. Today, they're less than 2% converted. This has a very long tail. It is a very fine resource, and the expense of renumbering is not trivial. So even if you had v6 and it would work, the cost of leasing and addresses so diminished versus the benefit it gives. Most companies will take a very long time to renumber. And no one wants a partial view of the Internet.

現在我將討論您的 IPv4 貨幣化問題。 IPV6 於 1998 年推出。 2010 年，美國聯邦政府要求所有機構在 18 個月內完全採用 V6。如今，他們的轉換率還不到 2%。它有一條很長的尾巴。這是一個非常好的資源，而且重新編號的費用也不是微不足道的。因此，即使您有 v6 並且它可以工作，租賃和地址的成本相對於它所帶來的好處來說也會大大減少。大多數公司需要很長時間才能重新編號。沒有人想要對網路有片面的看法。

The primary reason sale prices have softened over the past six months as Amazon and Microsoft have been withdrawing from the purchase market as they accomplish our initial goals. Now I think both of those companies will re-enter the market. There is still a broad and active market. The pricing for larger blocks has actually continued to go up, so we will explore sales.

過去六個月銷售價格疲軟的主要原因是亞馬遜和微軟在實現我們最初的目標時退出了採購市場。現在我認為這兩家公司都會重新進入市場。仍有廣大且活躍的市場。較大區塊的價格實際上一直在上漲，因此我們將探討銷售情況。

We're very comfortable with our ability to continue to grow the leasing business, and we are going to do what it takes to create the maximum long-term value for shareholders out of this asset, our data center assets and our fiber assets. No one should have any doubt that Cogent is sitting on foul assets that could be monetized.

我們對繼續發展租賃業務的能力感到非常滿意，我們將盡一切努力利用這項資產、我們的資料中心資產和光纖資產為股東創造最大的長期價值。沒有人應該懷疑 Cogent 坐擁可以貨幣化的不良資產。

Okay, that's helpful, Dave. But in the absence of a sale, maybe you can just give us some sense of, without having the IPv4s in order to secure that incremental financing? I mean, obviously, these TSA payments are going to drop from $87 million to $24 million. So that drop alone, I think, takes your EBITDA to a level that I'm not sure it covers CapEx and cash interest expense. So when we think about incremental financing without IPv4 assets to lean on for incremental gross debt increases, what is that rate going to look like, interest rate?

好的，這很有幫助，戴夫。但在沒有銷售的情況下，也許您可以給我們一些感覺，無需 IPv4 即可確保增量融資？我的意思是，顯然，這些 TSA 付款將從 8700 萬美元減少到 2400 萬美元。因此，我認為，僅此一項下降就將您的 EBITDA 提升到了一個水平，我不確定它是否能夠覆蓋資本支出和現金利息支出。因此，當我們考慮沒有 IPv4 資產來增加總債務增量的增量融資時，利率會是什麼樣子？

Yes. So first of all, if I remember, Walter, I had a few fairly aggressive questions from you several quarters ago around our aggregate leverage. And as I pointed out, it peaked at a net leverage target of 4.6, which was, as you pointed out on that call, substantially above the 2.5 to 3.5 range that we had laid out. We have been able to reduce that leverage to 3.17, substantially below the high end of that range. And that number will come down even further in the next quarter as it is, as Tad pointed out, an LTM tax.

是的。首先，沃爾特，如果我記得的話，幾個季度前我就我們的總槓桿率向您提出了一些相當激進的問題。正如我所指出的，淨槓桿目標達到高峰 4.6，正如您在電話會議中指出的那樣，該目標大大高於我們設定的 2.5 至 3.5 範圍。我們已將槓桿率降低至 3.17，遠低於該範圍的上限。正如泰德指出的那樣，這個數字將在下個季度進一步下降，因為它是 LTM 稅。

We are going to look at our aggregate balance sheet and try to optimize whether it be through incremental high yield, whether it be through securitization or through asset sales. We have many levers to pull. We have been very transparent around the reduction in payments from T-Mobile. They are going down. They will go down in June. However, we are achieving substantial cost savings ahead of what we laid out.

我們將審視我們的整體資產負債表，並嘗試透過增量高收益、證券化或資產出售來優化它。我們有很多槓桿可以拉動。對於 T-Mobile 付款的減少，我們一直非常透明。他們正在走下坡路。他們將在六月下降。然而，我們正在提前實現大幅成本節約。

And again, I think it was last quarter, you had great doubts on our call about our ability to do that. And I think our improvement in EBITDA shows clearly our ability to reduce those costs, both SG&A and COGS substantially. So I think it will be the combination of cost reductions and revenue growth.

再說一遍，我認為是在上個季度，您在我們的電話會議上對我們做到這一點的能力表示了極大的懷疑。我認為我們 EBITDA 的改善清楚地表明我們有能力大幅降低這些成本，包括銷售成本、管理費用和銷貨成本。所以我認為這將是成本降低和收入成長的結合。

As the incremental wavelength business grows at a more normalized rate with very high contribution margins, our aggregate EBITDA will begin to grow. As I laid out on the last call, we did $352 million in EBITDA in '23, up from $233 million in '22. While we're not giving exact guidance, it will be similar in '24. But in '25, the impact of wavelengths, IPv4 monetization and data center monetization, coupled with growth in the core IP business should grow our EBITDA and expand margins. As I said, it's a top line 5% to 7% growing business with a 100% or a 100 basis point a year margin expansion.

隨著增量波長業務以更標準化的速度成長且貢獻率非常高，我們的 EBITDA 總額將開始成長。正如我在上次電話會議中所說，我們 23 年的 EBITDA 為 3.52 億美元，高於 22 年的 2.33 億美元。雖然我們沒有給出確切的指導，但 24 年將會類似。但在 25 年，波長、IPv4 貨幣化和資料中心貨幣化的影響，加上核心 IP 業務的成長，應該會增加我們的 EBITDA 並擴大利潤率。正如我所說，這是一項營收成長 5% 到 7% 的業務，每年利潤率成長 100% 或 100 個基點。

I'm also going to clarify a question that I didn't answer for Frank, which is T-Mobile's utilization. And that's two parts. One, the commercial services are typically connectivity services and Colo. They're getting out of our facilities. They are stopping using us for backhaul. In many cases, we're buying it and reselling it to them. That's part of why off-net declined. They are very far along in that exit. The revenues declined sequentially at about $5 million.

我還要澄清一個我沒有為 Frank 回答的問題，即 T-Mobile 的使用率。這是兩個部分。第一，商業服務通常是連接服務和科羅拉多州。他們停止使用我們進行回程。在許多情況下，我們會購買並轉售給他們。這就是網外拒絕的部分原因。他們在那個出口已經很遠了。收入連續下降約 500 萬美元。

On the transit services, it was always meant to be a subsidy payment to Cogent. They are using a couple percent of the transit that we are providing them. They could use it all. It would be fine with us. It's all provision. But I'm not sure there's a huge incremental opportunity with T-Mobile. Hopefully --

在交通服務方面，它始終是向 Cogent 提供的補貼。他們只使用了我們為他們提供的交通的百分之幾。他們可以利用這一切。我們這樣就好了。都是供給。但我不確定 T-Mobile 是否會帶來巨大的增量機會。希望 -

So what is the incremental rate -- no, I mean, the question was what's the incremental rate when you're not using IPv4 to back the cash you're going to need to pay the dividend? Because again, yes, the leverage is going down, Dave, that's just math, right? You're getting TSA payments. But when those payments drop from $87 million to $24 million, so does the EBITDA and then EBITDA can't cover CapEx or cash interest. I mean, it's just math, right? The leverage is obviously going to go up. So the only question is what is the rate when you have to borrow more? what do you think the rate on that new debt is going to look like?

那麼增量利率是多少——不，我的意思是，問題是當你不使用 IPv4 來支持支付股息所需的現金時，增量利率是多少？因為，是的，槓桿正在下降，戴夫，這只是數學，對吧？您將收到 TSA 付款。但當這些付款從 8,700 萬美元下降到 2,400 萬美元時，EBITDA 也會下降，然後 EBITDA 就無法涵蓋資本支出或現金利息。我的意思是，這只是數學，對吧？槓桿率顯然會上升。所以唯一的問題是，當你必須借更多錢時，利率是多少？您認為新債務的利率會是多少？

So a couple of things. One, you are correct. As the TSA payments go away, that will have a negative impact on EBITDA. However, growth in the business and the ability to monetize these assets will have a positive impact. They are roughly going to offset each other. So EBITDA for full year '24 will be similar to full year '23 and will grow in full year '24. In terms of being a (inaudible) on interest rates, that's difficult. I'm not Jay Powell and I'm not in a position to answer that question totally.

有幾件事。一，你是對的。隨著 TSA 付款的取消，這將對 EBITDA 產生負面影響。然而，業務的成長和這些資產貨幣化的能力將產生正面的影響。它們大致會相互抵消。因此，24 年全年的 EBITDA 將與 23 年全年相似，並且 24 年全年將會成長。就利率而言（聽不清楚），這很難。我不是傑伊·鮑威爾，我無法完全回答這個問題。

But what I can tell you is that our current unsecured bonds not IPv4 securitized are trading at around $99 million, giving a yield to worst of about 7.5%. And I think that would be indicative of about what our incremental cost of capital would be. We will explore a combination of additional securitizations and additional debt. We understand that as our EBITDA grows, we have a targeted range. We are committed to returning capital to shareholders. So your point that we're giving out more than 100% of our free cash flow is old news, Walt. It's been our policy since 2010 --

但我可以告訴你的是，我們目前未進行 IPv4 證券化的無擔保債券的交易價格約為 9,900 萬美元，最差收益率約為 7.5%。我認為這將表明我們的增量資本成本是多少。我們將探索額外證券化和額外債務的結合。我們知道，隨著 EBITDA 的成長，我們有一個目標範圍。我們致力於向股東返還資本。因此，沃爾特，您所說的我們將發放超過 100% 的自由現金流的觀點已經不再是新聞了。自 2010 年以來，這一直是我們的政策——

No, no, no. I didn't say -- I'm not talking about the dividend. I was saying the EBITDA is not covering CapEx or cash interest. That is new after these payments run because of the cash interest from the deal, right? That's the new thing --

不不不。我沒有說——我不是說股息。我是說 EBITDA 不包括資本支出或現金利息。由於交易產生的現金利息，這些付款運行後這是新的，對吧？這就是新事物——

I don't – I disagree with your arithmetic. I think you're --

我不同意——我不同意你的算術。我認為你是——

Okay. We will just see how it plays out. Dave, just one last question. Just on the synergies, just ballpark, like what have you realized so far? And what's left in the bucket when we try and come up with EBITDA estimates? And we know what the targets are, so you don't need to review them, just percentage realized, or dollars already realized? Thank you.

好的。我們只會看看結果如何。戴夫，最後一個問題。只是關於協同作用，只是大概，到目前為止你已經意識到了什麼？當我們嘗試估算 EBITDA 時，桶子裡還剩下什麼？我們知道目標是什麼，所以您不需要審查它們，只需實現百分比或已經實現的美元？謝謝。

Yes. We're probably 40% through the synergy realization.

是的。我們可能已經透過協同效應實現了 40%。

Awesome. Thank you very much.

驚人的。非常感謝。

Thank you, Walt.

謝謝你，沃特。

Michael Rollins, Citi.

麥可羅林斯，花旗銀行。

I'm just curious, if we take a step back, can you simplify either how Heritage growth rate in corporate net-centric are performing? And if you'd rather do it pro forma given the integration of the business? It's just some way to appreciate the level of growth that you're achieving relative to what you're used to over the long-term. And if you see things in those growth rates inflecting more positively or pulling back in terms of that rate of growth as you look out over the next few quarters and you look at the sales trends, the volumes, et cetera?

我只是好奇，如果我們退一步，您能否簡化以網路為中心的傳統成長率的表現？考慮到業務整合，您是否願意以形式進行？這只是評估您所實現的成長水平（相對於您長期習慣的水平）的某種方式。當您展望未來幾季並查看銷售趨勢、銷售等時，您是否發現這些成長率的變化更加積極或有所回落？

Yes, absolutely. Mike, good questions. So Cogent has two market segments. It has a net-centric segment that it focuses on transit sales, that continued to grow. T-Mobile as a customer was a net-centric customer. They're a service provider. If you just net out their decline in revenue, that business grew. Traffic grew sequentially 1%, roughly 20% year-over-year, and that business on a Heritage basis is probably growing around 10%.

是的，一點沒錯。麥克，好問題。因此，Cogent 有兩個細分市場。它有一個以網路為中心的細分市場，專注於交通銷售，並且持續成長。 T-Mobile 作為客戶是以網路為中心的客戶。他們是服務提供者。如果你只是抵消收入的下降，那麼該業務就會成長。流量較上季成長 1%，年增約 20%，而基於 Heritage 的業務可能成長 10% 左右。

In the Heritage business, that represented about 40% of Cogent's aggregate revenues. The other larger business, Heritage, was Cogent's corporate customer base. That corporate customer business was actually declining during the pandemic, far worse than its long-term average growth rate of 11%.

在傳統業務中，這約佔 Cogent 總收入的 40%。另一個更大的業務，Heritage，是 Cogent 的企業客戶群。企業客戶業務在疫情期間實際上正在下降，遠低於其11%的長期平均成長率。

And today is probably at a growth rate of around 3% to 4% year-over-year. Still far worse than what we had experienced for nearly 15 years between going public and the beginning of the pandemic. That business is slowly improving, but I've given up trying to predict when everybody is going to be back in the office at the same level of occupancy pre-pandemic.

如今，年成長率可能在 3% 至 4% 左右。與我們從上市到大流行開始之間近 15 年所經歷的情況相比，仍然要糟糕得多。該業務正在緩慢改善，但我已經放棄嘗試預測每個人何時會以大流行前的相同入​​住率水平回到辦公室。

There is improvement. That business is improving sequentially and year-over-year, but it is a slow pace. We now have a singular integrated customer base. We report now on three customer types, and we report on some additional products that were not material. Non-core, we always reported on, but was immaterial. Now it's more material, and we now have wavelengths as a service.

有改善。該業務正在逐年改善，但速度緩慢。我們現在擁有一個單一的綜合客戶群。我們現在報告三種客戶類型，並報告一些不重要的其他產品。非核心，我們總是報道，但並不重要。現在它變得更加物質化，而且我們現在將波長作為一種服務。

So yes, Cogent became more complicated when we acquired Sprint. We got new customers and new products. But the trends in the underlying Heritage business are reasonable. They're not at peak, but they're doing pretty well. I mean a 10% growing net-centric base and a kind of 3% to 4% corporate is not terrible.

所以，是的，當我們收購 Sprint 後，Cogent 變得更加複雜。我們有了新客戶和新產品。但傳統遺產業務的趨勢是合理的。他們雖然還沒達到巔峰，但已經表現得相當不錯了。我的意思是，以網路為中心的基礎成長 10%，企業成長 3% 到 4%，這並不可怕。

And two follow-ups, if I could. Just first on the corporate side. Just given where your share is in your buildings of unique customers, what do you see as the catalyst to try to improve share? Is there anything competitively that's shifting in that market that could help or hurt this performance?

如果可以的話，還有兩個後續行動。首先是在公司方面。考慮到您的份額在您的獨特客戶群中的位置，您認為什麼是嘗試提高份額的催化劑？該市場中是否有任何競爭性變化可能有助於或損害這種業績？

It's been a gradual shift. Everybody in our footprint is already using Internet connectivity. And if they need a VPN service, they already have a VPN service. So they need to either relocate or they need to change their usage patterns. I think video conferencing was a huge tailwind to that as people became dependent on it, that max out their connections.

這是一個逐漸的轉變。我們足跡中的每個人都已經在使用網路連線。如果他們需要 VPN 服務，他們已經有 VPN 服務。因此，他們要么需要搬遷，要么需要改變他們的使用模式。我認為視訊會議是一個巨大的推動力，因為人們變得依賴它，最大限度地擴大了他們的聯繫。

However, many, many companies were reluctant to enter into new IP contracts until they had some clarity around their office real estate requirements. I think companies are now settling into what that new real estate requirements footprint looks like.

然而，許多公司不願意簽訂新的智慧財產權合同，直到他們明確了自己的辦公室房地產要求。我認為公司現在正在適應新的房地產需求足跡。

So I think we're seeing this gradual improvement, but there are still leases that have term left on them that people intend to exit or downsize from. And until they make that final real estate decision, they're not going to make a permanent bandwidth decision. Bandwidth is a utility to support their office occupancy.

因此，我認為我們正在看到這種逐步改善，但仍有一些租約還有期限，人們打算退出或縮小規模。在他們做出最終的房地產決定之前，他們不會做出永久的頻寬決定。頻寬是支援辦公室佔用的實用工具。

I don't know if there's another killer application that's going to drive things, but I do think the dependence on video conferencing is a significant shift in the world from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic. And I think as companies figure out, I'm going to stay in this office, this is how many square feet, they're going to be much more interested in signing a long-term higher cap bandwidth connection.

我不知道是否還有另一個殺手級應用程式可以推動事情發展，但我確實認為對視訊會議的依賴是世界從大流行前到大流行後的重大轉變。我認為，隨著公司的了解，我將留在這個辦公室，這是多少平方英尺，他們會對簽署長期更高上限頻寬連線更感興趣。

It was interesting. Five years ago, our average corporate on-net user was using about 18% of a 100 meg connection at peak. Today, our average corporate customer is using 13% of a 1 gigabit connection at peak. So they're using eight times more bandwidth than they were five years ago. I think video conferencing is probably the one thing I'd point to. And remember, they're doing that with 40% less employee days in the office. Hopefully, that was helpful.

很有意思。五年前，我們的企業網路用戶平均在高峰時使用了 100 兆連線的 18% 左右。如今，我們的企業客戶在高峰時平均使用 1 GB 連線的 13%。因此，他們使用的頻寬是五年前的八倍。我認為視訊會議可能是我要指出的一件事。請記住，他們在辦公室工作的時間減少了 40%。希望有幫助。

It was. Thanks, Dave.

它是。謝謝，戴夫。

Nick Del Deo, MoffettNathanson.

尼克·德爾·迪奧，莫菲特·內森森。

How are you plans to use the proceeds from the securitization? Are you going to buy out that uneconomic dark fiber lease that you've seen from Sprint you've talked about? And if that's the case, can you talk about the mechanics and the benefits?

您打算如何使用證券化的收益？您是否打算買斷您所談到的 Sprint 的不經濟的暗光纖租賃？如果是這樣的話，您能談談其中的機制和好處嗎？

Yes, sure. So I'll start with the benefits of mechanics. So the lease has a provision that allows us to buy out at a 12% discount rate. This is a lease that is fiber, that we don't need and would like to exit as quickly as possible. There is about a $130 million liability associated with that lease today.

是的，當然。所以我將從力學的好處開始。所以租約中有一項條款允許我們以 12% 的折扣率買斷。這是光纖租賃，我們不需要並且希望盡快退出。如今，與該租賃相關的負債約為 1.3 億美元。

The payment stream on that is $4.2 million a month, and we would have to write a check for probably about $112 million, $113 million to buy out. I don't necessarily know we would use all of our cash to do that that we received.

每個月的付款流為 420 萬美元，我們必須開一張大約 1.12 億美元的支票，1.13 億美元才能買斷。我不一定知道我們會用所有現金來做我們收到的事情。

So we did $206 million and with an ABS securitization that were both substantial costs and reserve accounts established, our net proceeds were about $200 million, of which about $6 million were restricted in reserve accounts. So $194 million of debt proceeds, and I'm not sure I want to use $112 million of that in cash. So we are looking at the points that Walt raised, do we raise more money. So I think what we're going to do is keep some cash on the balance sheet.

因此，我們籌集了2.06 億美元，並進行了ABS 證券化，這既花費了大量成本，又建立了儲備帳戶，我們的淨收益約為2 億美元，其中約600 萬美元被限制在儲備帳戶中。 1.94 億美元的債務收益，我不確定我是否想用其中的 1.12 億美元現金。所以我們正在研究沃爾特提出的觀點，我們是否籌集更多資金。所以我認為我們要做的就是在資產負債表上保留一些現金。

We will look to buy out of this lease and continue to be able to invest in the business at the appropriate rates, which include the conversion of the data centers, the wave enablement of the network and our ability to demonstrate, I think, all three legs of the value proposition that we were anticipating from Sprint. We've been able to, I think, validate the worth of our IP address inventory. I think we have to show the value of the wavelength and dark fiber assets and the colocation. And I think these proceeds will be used to help demonstrate all of that.

我們將尋求買斷該租約，並繼續以適當的價格投資該業務，其中包括數據中心的轉換、網絡的浪潮支持以及我認為我們展示這三個方面的能力我們對 Sprint 的價值主張的期望。我認為，我們已經能夠驗證 IP 位址庫存的價值。我認為我們必須展示波長和暗光纖資產以及託管的價值。我認為這些收益將用於幫助證明這一切。

Okay. Great. And then two clarifications on EBITDA. So first, it looks like your unfavorable lease amortization went from $10.3 million in Q4 to $2.5 million in Q1. So I think if we were to look at it on like a cash basis, I think the sequential improvement would have been even stronger than you showed. Is that fair?

好的。偉大的。然後是關於 EBITDA 的兩點澄清。首先，您的不利租賃攤銷似乎從第四季的 1,030 萬美元增加到第一季的 250 萬美元。所以我認為，如果我們以現金為基礎來看待它，我認為連續的改善會比你所展示的還要強。這樣公平嗎？

Yes. The unfavorable lease liability had to be adjusted and increased for the extension in renewal terms, that we had already recorded under leases themselves, so the lease liabilities that are on the balance sheet, kind of as a gross up, but the unfavorable lease needed to be matched to that. So that was one of the corrections that was made in the quarter that resulted in a net of a $5.5 million reduction in the gain and the $1.4 billion gain for the bargain purchase.

是的。不利的租賃負債必須根據續約期限的延長進行調整和增加，我們已經在租賃項下記錄了這些負債，因此資產負債表上的租賃負債有點總計，但不利的租賃需要與此相匹配。因此，這是本季進行的修正之一，導致淨收益減少 550 萬美元，而討價還價購買收益減少 14 億美元。

Yes. So we would have been a little better without that accounting adjustment. And listen, there are so much complexity to Cogent's accounting for this transaction. We are working very diligently to report everything in a consistent and non-confusing way for investors.

是的。因此，如果沒有會計調整，我們的情況會好一些。聽著，Cogent 對這筆交易的會計處理非常複雜。我們正在非常努力地以一致且不混亂的方式向投資者報告一切。

But going forward, in terms of changes to the purchase accounting, we'll have additional severance and perhaps an adjustment to the tax rate could be an adjustment to the deferred tax liability. That is all that is expected in the second quarter.

但展望未來，就採購會計的變化而言，我們將獲得額外的遣散費，也許稅率的調整可能是對遞延所得稅負債的調整。這就是第二季的全部預期。

Yes. We also have an anticipated substantial tax refund coming as a result of this. We had overpaid based on Cogent's run rates going in our Federal estimated tax and have approximately $18 million of a pending tax refund.

是的。因此，我們預計還會獲得大量退稅。根據聯邦預估稅中 Cogent 的運行費率，我們多付了費用，並且還有大約 1800 萬美元的未決退稅。

Right. So that will be split. We'll get some prior to filing the tax return and the remainder when the tax return is filed.

正確的。所以這會被分割。我們將在提交納稅申報表之前獲得一些，並在提交納稅申報表時獲得剩餘的。

Okay. That's great. And just to be clear on the amortization point, the reduction versus Q4, you're saying it went into the gain rather than an expense reduction?

好的。那太棒了。為了明確攤銷點，即與第四季度相比的減少，您是說它進入了收益而不是費用減少？

Yes, that's right

恩，那就對了

And then second, just a quick one. I think you called out FIC indication accruals in Q1. Tad, did you say that you did not have audit expenses in Q1 because you normally have those?

然後是第二個，只是一個快速的。我認為您在第一季度提到了 FIC 指示應計項目。泰德，您是否說您在第一季沒有審計費用，因為您通常有這些費用？

We absolutely did. So --

我們絕對做到了。所以 -

They were high.

他們很高。

Yes. Those associated just with the Sprint acquisition, which was valuation services, are in the Sprint cost. But the traditional audit, we paid over $2 million. You can read it in the proxy on a regular audit, that's included in the first quarter costs. And the variation, if you look at fourth quarter to first quarter, it's a couple of million dollars in --

是的。那些與 Sprint 收購相關的評估服務，都包含在 Sprint 成本中。但傳統的審計，我們支付了超過 200 萬美元。您可以在定期審計的代理中閱讀它，這包含在第一季的成本中。如果你看看第四季和第一季的變化，你會發現有幾百萬美元——

I must have heard your comment then. And then did you have your sales meeting this quarter? Is that in Q2?

我當時一定聽到了你的評論。那麼這個季度你們有銷售會議嗎？是在第二季嗎？

We're actually not going to have it this year because it would end up just a large distraction. We've got so much integration work going on. Now what we have done is ramped up our regional learning manager program, hire some additional resources and are doing it on a more regionalized basis as opposed to a global meeting. We'll resume that next year. But we felt with all that was going on with the integration that there just wasn't enough cycles to do that. We think there's great value in it, but we're taking a less impactful strategy in doing it just through regional meetings.

實際上今年我們不會有它，因為它最終會造成很大的干擾。我們正在進行大量的整合工作。現在我們所做的是加強我們的區域學習經理計劃，僱用一些額外的資源，並在更區域化的基礎上進行，而不是在全球會議上進行。我們明年將繼續這樣做。但我們認為，在整合過程中，沒有足夠的週期來做到這一點。我們認為這很有價值，但我們採取的策略影響力較小，僅透過區域會議來實現這一目標。

Okay, perfect. Thanks guys.

好的，完美。多謝你們。

All right. Great.

好的。偉大的。

And we have no further questions at this time. I'll hand the call back to Dave Schaeffer for any closing remarks.

目前我們沒有進一步的問題。我會將電話轉給戴夫‧謝弗 (Dave Schaeffer)，讓其結束語。

As always, our calls tend to be a little long. I want to thank everyone for their patience. I think hopefully, we've been clear in answering questions, and we look forward to seeing each and every one of you as we get together at conferences. Take care, Sam. See you soon. Bye-bye.

像往常一樣，我們的通話時間往往有點長。我要感謝大家的耐心。我想我們希望能夠明確地回答問題，並且我們期待在會議上見到你們每一個人。保重，山姆。再見。再見。

That will conclude today's meeting. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

今天的會議到此結束。感謝大家的加入。您現在可以斷開連線。