Charter Communications Inc (CHTR) 2017 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Kim, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Charter's Fourth Quarter 2017 Investor Call. (Operator Instructions) Stefan Anninger, you may begin your conference, sir.

早安.我叫金，今天我將擔任你們的會議接線生。在此，我謹代表Charter公司歡迎各位參加2017年第四季投資人電話會議。（操作員指示）斯特凡·安寧格先生，您可以開始您的會議了。

Good morning, and welcome to Charter's Fourth Quarter 2017 Investor Call. The presentation that accompanies this call can be found on our website, ir.charter.com under the Financial Information section.

早安，歡迎參加Charter公司2017年第四季投資人電話會議。本次電話會議的簡報可在我們的網站 ir.charter.com 的「財務資訊」部分找到。

Before we proceed, I would like to remind you that there are a number of risk factors and other cautionary statements contained in our SEC filings, including our most recent proxy statement and Form 10-K. We will not review those risk factors and other cautionary statements on this call. However, we encourage you to read them carefully. Various remarks that we make on this call concerning expectations, predictions, plans and prospects constitute forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from historical or anticipated results. Any forward-looking statements reflect management's current view only and Charter undertakes no obligation to revise or update such statements or to make additional forward-looking statements in the future.

在我們繼續之前，我想提醒各位，我們在提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件中包含許多風險因素和其他警示性聲明，包括我們最新的委託書和 10-K 表格。本次電話會議我們將不討論這些風險因素和其他警示性聲明。不過，我們建議您仔細閱讀。我們在本次電話會議中就預期、預測、計畫和前景所作的各種評論構成前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述存在風險和不確定性，可能導致實際結果與歷史結果或預期結果有所不同。任何前瞻性陳述僅反映管理階層目前的觀點，Charter 不承擔任何義務修改或更新此類陳述，也不承擔未來作出其他前瞻性陳述的義務。

During the course of today's call, we will be referring to non-GAAP measures as defined and reconciled in our earnings materials. These non-GAAP measures, as defined by Charter, may not be comparable to measures with similar titles used by other companies. We may also refer to pro forma results. While the Time Warner Cable and Bright House transactions closed on May 18, 2016, these pro forma results present information regarding the combined operations as if the transactions had closed on January 1, 2015, in order to provide a more useful discussion of our results.

在今天的電話會議中，我們將提及我們在獲利資料中定義和調整的非GAAP指標。根據 Charter 的定義，這些非 GAAP 指標可能與其他公司使用的類似名稱的指標不具可比性。我們也可以參考形式化結果。雖然時代華納有線電視和 Bright House 的交易於 2016 年 5 月 18 日完成，但這些模擬業績報告提供了有關合併運營的信息，就好像這些交易是在 2015 年 1 月 1 日完成的一樣，以便對我們的業績進行更有用的討論。

Unless otherwise specified, customer and financial data that we may refer to on this call for periods prior to the third quarter of 2016 are pro forma for the transactions as if they had closed at the beginning of the earliest period referenced. Pro forma reconciliations are provided in Exhibit 99.1 to our Form 10-Q filed on November 3, 2016. Please also note that all growth rates noted on this call and in the presentation are calculated on a year-over-year basis, unless otherwise specified. Additionally, all customer and passings data that you see in today's materials continue to be based on the legacy company definition.

除非另有說明，否則我們在本次電話會議中可能提及的 2016 年第三季之前的客戶和財務數據均為模擬交易數據，如同這些交易在所提及的最早期間開始時已經完成一樣。模擬對帳表已在 2016 年 11 月 3 日提交的 10-Q 表格的附件 99.1 中提供。另請注意，除非另有說明，本次電話會議和簡報中提及的所有成長率均按同比計算。此外，您在今天資料中看到的所有客戶和通行資料仍然基於公司原有的定義。

Joining me on today's call are Tom Rutledge, Chairman and CEO; and Chris Winfrey, our CFO. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom.

今天和我一起參加電話會議的有董事長兼執行長湯姆·拉特利奇，以及財務長克里斯·溫弗瑞。這樣，我就把電話交給湯姆了。

Thank you, Stefan. 2017 was a formative year for the New Charter. We executed well and accomplished what we set out to do in our plan. Our integration from 3 legacy companies to a unified company with 1 service and operating approach is on schedule, our business is growing quickly and the most challenging elements of our integration are behind us.

謝謝你，斯特凡。2017 年是新憲章的形成之年。我們執行得很好，完成了計畫中設定的目標。我們從 3 家傳統公司整合為一家擁有 1 個服務和營運模式的統一公司，目前正按計劃進行，我們的業務正在快速成長，整合過程中最具挑戰性的環節已經過去。

Our 2017 customer results were as planned. For the full year, we grew total customer relationships by nearly 4%, despite all the significant change that we made to our business. Quality sales have increased and the worst of Legacy Time Warner Cable churn is behind us.

我們2017年的客戶業績符合預期。儘管我們對業務進行了許多重大變革，但全年客戶關係總數仍增加了近 4%。優質產品銷售成長，傳統時代華納有線電視用戶流失最嚴重的時期已經過去。

In the fourth quarter, we continued to see year-over-year improvement in customer connect volumes in our new markets. Spectrum, our high-value product set, is now the majority of our services with over 50% of former Time Warner Cable and Bright House residential customers now subscribing to the Spectrum pricing and packaging. Nearly all of our video connects are purchasing our expanded basic video product and our total expanded video relationships grew again this quarter. We now offer minimum Internet speeds of 100 megabits in 99% of our entire footprint, up from just over 50% in June of last year. We grew full year revenue by 3.9%, or 4.5% excluding advertising, and EBITDA grew by nearly 6%.

第四季度，我們在新市場的客戶連結量持續年增。Spectrum 是我們高價值的產品組合，目前已成為我們服務的大部分，超過 50% 的前 Time Warner Cable 和 Bright House 住宅用戶現在都訂閱了 Spectrum 的定價和套餐。幾乎所有的視訊連線用戶都在購買我們擴展的基本視訊產品，本季我們的擴展視訊關係總數再次成長。現在，我們已在 99% 的服務區域內提供最低 100 兆位元的網路速度，而去年 6 月這一比例僅為 50% 多一點。全年營收成長 3.9%，不計廣告收入則成長 4.5%，EBITDA 成長近 6%。

In addition to the launch of our Spectrum pricing and packaging, we also made meaningful progress in consolidating our customer-facing applications and platforms in 2017. We reduced and unified our various video applications so that, today, virtually of our customers, regardless of the footprint or package, use a single Spectrum TV app to access our IT-based video products. We largely integrated our VOD content offerings and we consolidated our sales and service portals. We also continue to integrate our 3 legacy networks' backbone and facilities and to rationalize our IP systems and product and provisioning platforms.

除了推出我們的 Spectrum 定價和套餐之外，我們在 2017 年還取得了整合面向客戶的應用程式和平台的重大進展。我們精簡並統一了各種視訊應用程序，因此，如今，幾乎所有客戶，無論其設備規模或套餐如何，都使用單一的 Spectrum TV 應用程式來訪問我們基於 IT 的視訊產品。我們基本上整合了視訊點播內容產品，並合併了銷售和服務入口網站。我們將繼續整合我們 3 個傳統網路的骨幹網路和設施，並對我們的 IP 系統、產品和配置平台進行合理化。

Over the last 18 months, we've hired thousands of new employees into good jobs in the communities we serve, creating a more in-sourced service and delivery workforce. That local hiring is driving higher-quality craftsmanship, improved product delivery and better customer experience. And at the same time, we have rationalized our management structure driving significant reductions to our overhead costs.

在過去的 18 個月裡，我們在我們服務的社區中僱用了數千名新員工，為他們提供良好的工作崗位，從而創造了一支更加內部化的服務和交付隊伍。本地招聘正在推動更高品質的工藝、更有效率的產品交付和更優質的客戶體驗。同時，我們對管理結構進行了合理化調整，從而大幅降低了管理費用。

In addition to in-sourcing, we've also been unifying our service personnel practices. That means having calls from anywhere handled by agents in a consistent way. Our end-market workforce standardization efforts and our simplified pricing and packaging are beginning to drive efficiencies into our operations. In the fourth quarter, for example, billing-related service calls and billing-related calls from Legacy Time Warner customers were down by 15% year-over-year, and average call handle times have been reduced as our in-house employees provide better, more efficient services.

除了內部資源整合外，我們還在統一服務人員管理方式。這意味著無論來自哪裡，客服人員都能以一致的方式處理來電。我們在終端市場勞動力標準化方面的努力，以及我們簡化的定價和包裝方式，正在逐步提高我們的營運效率。例如，在第四季度，與帳單相關的服務電話和來自傳統時代華納客戶的與帳單相關的電話同比下降了 15%，隨著我們內部員工提供更好、更有效率的服務，平均通話處理時間也減少了。

Still, 2018 will be another busy year of integration for Charter. We remain focused on a number of key customer-facing initiatives, which will position us for faster customer relationship creation and long-term financial growth. We continue to drive penetration of our Spectrum pricing and packaging in our new markets, selling Spectrum-branded services to new customers and migrating legacy customers to Spectrum, including small business customers. That process, underway for over a year, drives onetime investments and puts some short-term pressure on revenue in order to extend customer lives and drive higher customer revenue and returns over time.

不過，2018 年對 Charter 來說仍將是整合工作的另一個繁忙之年。我們將繼續專注於多項面向客戶的關鍵舉措，這將使我們能夠更快地建立客戶關係並實現長期財務成長。我們繼續在新市場推廣 Spectrum 定價和套餐，向新客戶銷售 Spectrum 品牌服務，並將舊客戶（包括小型企業客戶）遷移到 Spectrum。該過程已持續一年多，旨在推動一次性投資，並在短期內對收入造成一定壓力，以延長客戶生命週期，並隨著時間的推移推動更高的客戶收入和回報。

On the operations front, we'll continue to in-source more of our field operations and our customer care workforce in 2018. We're streamlining our billing platforms and infrastructure. And by 2019, all of our customer care personnel will be working from a single, virtualized platform with unified front end for all sales, billing, provisioning, service and retention efforts nationwide, allowing any one of our care personnel at any call center to handle customer calls from any location in our national footprint.

在營運方面，2018 年我們將繼續把更多的現場營運和客戶服務人員納入公司內部管理。我們正在簡化計費平台和基礎設施。到 2019 年，我們所有的客戶服務人員都將在一個統一的虛擬化平台上工作，該平台擁有統一的前端，用於全國範圍內的所有銷售、計費、配置、服務和客戶維繫工作，從而使我們任何呼叫中心的任何一名客戶服務人員都能在我們全國範圍內的任何地點處理客戶來電。

In June of last year, we restarted our all-digital project. And at the end of 2017, 30% of Legacy Time Warner Cable and 50% of Legacy Bright House Networks continue to carry full analog video lineups. Those regions will be fully digitized by the end of this year as we deploy fully functioning 2-way digital set-top boxes on all remaining analog TV outlets that we serve. Our video products in those markets will improve, Internet speeds will increase further and all-digital will drive more efficient operations in the field, including electronic disconnects, self-installation and a reduction of unauthorized connections.

去年六月，我們重啟了全數位化計畫。截至 2017 年底，30% 的舊時代華納有線電視和 50% 的舊 Bright House Networks 仍然提供完整的類比視訊節目。到今年年底，這些地區將全面數位化，因為我們將在我們服務的所有剩餘類比電視終端上部署功能齊全的雙向數位機上盒。我們在這些市場的視訊產品將會改進，網路速度將會進一步提高，全數位化將推動現場營運更加高效，包括電子斷開連接、自助安裝和減少未經授權的連接。

We also continue to develop our core products. In 2016 and 2017, we delayed a number of new product launches through the integration, particularly at Legacy Charter. With our fundamental structure, operating model and business rules now in place, we will more aggressively launch new products nationwide.

我們也在持續開發核心產品。2016 年和 2017 年，由於整合，我們推遲了許多新產品的發布，尤其是在 Legacy Charter 公司。隨著我們基本架構、營運模式和業務規則的建立，我們將更加積極地在全國範圍內推出新產品。

Our primary hardware for video customers in all-digital will be our Worldbox, our faster, less expensive and more powerful set-top box, of which we've deployed approximately 2 million to date. Over the course of the year, we'll expand our streaming video and on-demand library to approximately 50,000 HD titles in multiple digital formats.

我們面向全數位化視訊客戶的主要硬體將是我們的 Worldbox，這是一款速度更快、價格更低、功能更強大的機上盒，迄今為止我們已經部署了大約 200 萬台。今年，我們將把串流媒體影片和點播庫擴展到約 5 萬部高清影片，涵蓋多種數位格式。

By the end of 2018, we expect Spectrum Guide to be available to essentially all-new video customers, allowing us to fully expose the depth of that large content library. That includes Legacy Charter markets that are contiguous with Legacy TWC or Bright House markets or what we call mixed markets, like Los Angeles, where we've waited to roll out Spectrum Guide to the full DMA at the same time. Existing customers in those markets will, over time, have the choice to switch to Spectrum Guide from their remote.

到 2018 年底，我們預計 Spectrum Guide 將對幾乎所有新的視訊用戶開放，使我們能夠充分展現這個龐大內容庫的深度。這包括與傳統 TWC 或 Bright House 市場相鄰的傳統 Charter 市場，或者我們稱之為混合市場（如洛杉磯）的市場，我們一直等待著同時向整個 DMA 推出 Spectrum Guide。隨著時間的推移，這些市場的現有客戶將可以選擇透過遙控器切換到 Spectrum Guide。

We'll also begin offering popular third-party applications including Netflix and others on Spectrum Guide, making our set-top box a hub for accessing content that originates from us or from somewhere else. Those applications will first appear on our Worldbox, then across legacy box types over time. As our fourth quarter video results demonstrate, we are having success with our new video products and we're testing and launching new and traditional video stream products without equipment to better serve the consumer demand for more choices and economical options.

我們還將在 Spectrum Guide 上開始提供包括 Netflix 等在內的熱門第三方應用程序，使我們的機上盒成為訪問來自我們或其他地方的內容的中心。這些應用程式將首先出現在我們的 Worldbox 上，然後隨著時間的推移出現在各種舊版盒子類型中。正如我們第四季度的視訊業績所表明的那樣，我們的新視訊產品取得了成功，我們正在測試和推出無需設備的新型和傳統視訊串流產品，以更好地滿足消費者對更多選擇和更經濟實惠方案的需求。

In December, we began launching our gigabit speed offering in several markets using DOCSIS 3.1 technology. Today, we offer gigabit services in 8 markets, approximately 9 million passings. By year-end, we'll offer gigabit services in virtually everywhere we serve, all 50 million passings. And in December, we raised the minimum Spectrum Internet speed to 200 megabits in markets like New York, Hawaii, Austin and Charlotte at no additional cost to consumers. In the fourth quarter, we also began deploying our Wave 2 WiFi router, which offers faster speeds and better propagation and reliability throughout the home.

12 月，我們開始在多個市場推出採用 DOCSIS 3.1 技術的千兆速度服務。目前，我們在 8 個市場提供千兆服務，每年通行量約 900 萬次。到今年年底，我們將在我們服務的幾乎所有地方提供千兆服務，涵蓋所有 5000 萬個過路地區。去年 12 月，我們在紐約、夏威夷、奧斯汀和夏洛特等市場將 Spectrum 網路的最低速度提高到 200 兆比特，而消費者無需支付額外費用。在第四季度，我們也開始部署 Wave 2 WiFi 路由器，它在整個家庭中提供更快的速度、更好的傳播和可靠性。

Turning to wireless. We are on track to launch our new services in the middle of this year under our MVNO agreement with Verizon. Chris will discuss the financial implications of that launch, but the goal is to create and retain more cable customers. Our 5G wireless tests are also going well, as are our 6G tests, which is our pre-spec definition of the integration of small cell architecture using unlicensed and licensed spectrum working together interchangeably with our advanced DOCSIS road map to create high capacity, low-latency product offerings. We expect that, over time, our existing infrastructure will put us in a unique position to economically deploy new powerful products that benefit from small cell connectivity.

轉向無線技術。根據我們與 Verizon 的 MVNO 協議，我們正按計劃於今年年中推出新服務。克里斯將討論此次推出的財務影響，但目標是吸引和留住更多有線電視用戶。我們的 5G 無線測試進展順利，6G 測試也是如此。 6G 測試是我們預先定義的整合小型蜂窩架構，該架構使用免許可和許可頻譜，並與我們先進的 DOCSIS 路線圖互換工作，以創建高容量、低延遲的產品。我們預計，隨著時間的推移，我們現有的基礎設施將使我們處於獨特的地位，能夠經濟高效地部署受益於小型蜂窩連接的新型強大產品。

In 2017, we announced a partnership with Viacom and AMC, which will produce original content for the Spectrum video platform before subsequent windowing. Working with our long-standing programming partners allows us to leverage their expertise in creating compelling original content as well as to defray cost. We hired seasoned original content executive to help us manage these partnerships and evaluate new ones with our existing programming partners. Our experience with our local Spectrum news networks, like NY1 and Bay News 9 in Tampa, has demonstrated that well-branded, high-quality programming can have a meaningful differentiation and customer retention benefit.

2017 年，我們宣布與 Viacom 和 AMC 建立合作關係，將為 Spectrum 視訊平台製作原創內容，然後再進行窗口期播出。與我們長期合作的節目製作夥伴攜手，使我們能夠利用他們在創作引人入勝的原創內容方面的專業知識，同時也能降低成本。我們聘請了一位經驗豐富的原創內容主管，幫助我們管理這些合作關係，並評估與現有節目合作夥伴的新合作關係。我們在與本地 Spectrum 新聞網絡（如坦帕的 NY1 和 Bay News 9）的合作中積累的經驗表明，品牌形象良好、高品質的節目能夠帶來顯著的差異化優勢和客戶留存效益。

So we have another busy year of execution ahead with some meaningful product enhancements planned, and we remain confident in our plan and our growth potential. Before turning the call over to Chris, just a few comments on tax reform and the elimination of Title II.

因此，我們未來一年將迎來繁忙的執行階段，並計劃進行一些重要的產品改進，我們對我們的計劃和成長潛力仍然充滿信心。在將電話轉給克里斯之前，我想就稅改和取消第二章發表幾點看法。

At the end of last year, Congress and the President passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which we see as very positive for American competitiveness and a significant incentive for infrastructure development. The FCC also eliminated the Title II rules implemented in 2015, returning to the net neutrality framework that has been in place since the inception of the Internet.

去年年底，國會和總統通過了《減稅與就業法案》，我們認為這對美國的競爭力非常有利，也是基礎建設發展的重要誘因。美國聯邦通訊委員會 (FCC) 也廢除了 2015 年實施的第二章規則，恢復了自網路誕生以來一直實行的網路中立框架。

Charter is committed to net neutrality, we've never violated Open Internet principles and we have promoted consumer-friendly practices, like not imposing data caps or usage-based billing. This growing discussion about permanent legislative solutions to codify net neutrality principles and online privacy protection, that kind of solution would establish a level playing field for all companies and will promote regulatory certainty we need to make investments.

Charter 致力於網路中立，我們從未違反開放網路原則，我們一直在推行對消費者友善的措施，例如不設定資料上限或按使用量計費。關於永久性立法解決方案的討論日益增多，這些解決方案將為所有公司創造公平的競爭環境，並促進我們進行投資所需的監管確定性。

Last year, I said, subject to the tax reform and FCC removing the Title II framework, we would hire over 20,000 American workers and invest over $25 billion here in the U.S. over a 4-year period. In 2017, we increased our U.S.-based workforce significantly and we increased our capital expenditures by 15% to $8.7 billion. We also increased our broadband availability to underserved communities, including rural areas. Those statistics increased throughout 2017 as we grew more confident that tax reform and FCC actions to promote net neutrality for all market players would be enacted.

去年我說過，如果稅改得以實施，聯邦通訊委員會取消第二章框架，我們將在4年內僱用超過20,000名美國工人，並在美國投資超過250億美元。2017 年，我們大幅增加了美國本土員工人數，資本支出增加了 15%，達到 87 億美元。我們也提高了寬頻網路在服務不足的社區（包括農村地區）的覆蓋範圍。2017 年，隨著我們越來越有信心稅收改革和聯邦通信委員會 (FCC) 為促進所有市場參與者的網路中立性而採取的行動將會實施，這些統計數據也隨之增加。

Late in the fourth quarter, we accelerated the 2018 deployment of our Spectrum gig offering. In a number of markets, we doubled our minimum Internet speeds from 100 megabits to 200 megabits at no additional cost to our customers and accelerated testing of the new integrated wireline and wireless products. Tax reform and the removal of Title II overhang incent companies to invest more and build larger U.S.-based workforces with good paying jobs.

第四季末，我們加快了 2018 年 Spectrum 千兆寬頻服務的部署。在某些市場，我們將最低網路速度從 100 兆位元提高到 200 兆位元，而沒有向客戶收取任何額外費用，並加快了對新的整合有線和無線產品的測試。稅改和取消第二章稅負激勵企業加大投資，在美國建立規模更大、薪資更高的勞動力隊伍。

Based on those regulatory reforms, we're announcing today that we're committed to paying every employee at Spectrum at least a $15 per hour income this year. That's in addition to the significant medical and retirement benefits we've already increased for our employees. Investing in our own locally-based workforce with more training and better wages and craftsmanship results in higher-quality service and drives value into our business.

基於這些監管改革，我們今天宣布，我們承諾今年將向Spectrum的每位員工支付至少每小時15美元的收入。除了我們已經大幅提高的員工醫療和退休福利之外，我們還增加了其他福利。投資於我們本地的員工隊伍，提供更多培訓、更高的薪資和更精湛的工藝，可以帶來更高品質的服務，並為我們的業務創造價值。

Now I'll turn the call over to Chris.

現在我把電話交給克里斯。

Thanks, Tom. Before covering our results, a few administrative items, first, I want to remind everyone that when I reference fourth quarter 2017 customer results, I'll be comparing them to the fourth quarter 2016 results that have been adjusted to exclude seasonal program and customer activity in the fourth quarter of 2016 at Legacy Bright House. We've provided that year-over-year comparison on Slide 6 of today's investor presentation.

謝謝你，湯姆。在介紹我們的業績之前，先說幾件行政事項。首先，我想提醒大家，當我提到 2017 年第四季的客戶業績時，我會將其與 2016 年第四季的業績進行比較，而 2016 年第四季的業績已經過調整，排除了 Legacy Bright House 在 2016 年第四季的季節性項目和客戶活動。我們在今天投資者簡報的第 6 張投影片中提供了同比數據。

Additionally, as we head into the second year of our integration, the distinction between pure integration activities and the implementation of our operating model is blurring. So starting in the first quarter of 2018, we'll no longer disclose transition expenses in our P&L or transition-related capital expenditures, although this cost will still occur for some time.

此外，隨著我們進入整合的第二年，純粹的整合活動和我們營運模式的實施之間的界線正在變得模糊。因此，從 2018 年第一季開始，我們將不再在損益表中揭露過渡費用或與過渡相關的資本支出，儘管這項成本仍會在一段時間內發生。

Page 6 of today's trending schedule provides a mapping of historical transition expense into our regular expense lines. So those who would like to adjust models in advance of the first quarter reporting can do so now. That trending schedule also shows a line flip we'll make in Q1. All inbound sales and retention expense will move from cost to service customers to marketing, where these call center activities are now managed. We haven't reflected that change in the fourth quarter financials, but wanted to highlight the change before Q1.

今日趨勢表第 6 頁提供了歷史過渡費用與常規費用項目的對應關係。因此，那些希望在第一季財報發布前調整模型的人現在可以進行調整了。此趨勢圖也顯示，我們將在第一季進行一次產品線調整。所有入站銷售和客戶維繫費用將從客戶服務成本轉移到行銷部門，這些電話中心活動目前由行銷部門管理。我們尚未在第四季度財務報表中反映出這一變化，但希望在第一季之前強調這一變化。

Finally, our fourth quarter 2017 results were modestly impacted by the third quarter storms in Texas and Florida. There was no negative impact to subscriber results or revenue in the fourth quarter. The fourth quarter storm-related operating expenses and capital expenditures were immaterial, under $10 million combined.

最後，我們 2017 年第四季的業績受到了第三季德州和佛羅裡達州風暴的輕微影響。第四季用戶數和收入均未受到負面影響。第四季與風暴相關的營運費用和資本支出微不足道，總計不到 1,000 萬美元。

Now turning to our results. During the fourth quarter, total customer relationships grew by 206,000 from 1 million customer relationships in the last year with 3.4% growth at TWC, 3.9% at Legacy Charter and 5.4% at Bright House. Including residential and SMB, video grew by 15,000, Internet by 300,000 and voice by 53,000. 49% of residential, TWC and Bright House customers were in Spectrum pricing and packaging at the end of the year.

現在來看我們的結果。第四季度，客戶關係總數從去年的 100 萬個增長了 206,000 個，其中 TWC 增長了 3.4%，Legacy Charter 增長了 3.9%，Bright House 增長了 5.4%。包括住宅用戶和中小企業用戶在內，視訊用戶增加了 15,000 人，網路用戶增加了 30 萬人，語音用戶增加了 53,000 人。截至年底，49% 的住宅用戶、TWC 和 Bright House 用戶都採用了 Spectrum 的定價和套餐服務。

Customer connects were up year-over-year in our new markets. And as Slide 6 shows, we grew residential PSUs by 287,000 versus 213,000 last year. Over the last year, TWC residential video customers declined by 2.5%, pre-deal Charter declined by 1% and Legacy Bright House grew its video customer base by about 0.5%.

我們在新市場的客戶連線數較去年同期成長。如幻燈片 6 所示，我們住宅電源單元數量增加了 287,000 個，而去年為 213,000 個。過去一年，TWC 住宅視訊用戶下降了 2.5%，交易前的 Charter 下降了 1%，而原 Bright House 的視訊用戶群則成長了約 0.5%。

Within the quarter, TWC residential video net adds were flat with continued growth in traditional expanded customers offset by continued churn and migration from the lower base of limited basic customers. We also had growth in our stream offerings, which is a lower priced video product that doesn't require equipment. It is targeted at customers who don't currently buy a video product from us today. We marketed that product more actively and widely across the footprint in the fourth quarter.

本季度，TWC 住宅視訊淨新增用戶數量持平，傳統擴展用戶的持續成長被有限基本用戶的持續流失和遷移所抵消。我們的串流媒體服務也實現了成長，這是一種價格較低且無需設備的視訊產品。它的目標客戶是目前尚未向我們購買視訊產品的客戶。第四季度，我們在業務覆蓋範圍內更積極、更廣泛地推廣了該產品。

Legacy Charter lost 10,000 residential video customers in the quarter versus a gain of 20,000 a year ago, driven by our integration focus on the larger acquired footprints. As Tom mentioned, getting to a national product and service standard also caused us to adjust the timing of product upgrades across Legacy Charter for over 2 years.

由於我們專注於整合收購的較大業務範圍，Legacy Charter 本季度流失了 10,000 名住宅視訊用戶，而去年同期則增加了 20,000 名。正如湯姆所提到的那樣，為了達到全國統一的產品和服務標準，我們也調整了 Legacy Charter 旗下所有產品的升級時間，這項調整持續了兩年多。

In the meantime, we've seen some additional competitive build-out, price-driven promotional offers advertised by competitors. And we had less of a benefit this year from integration struggles at a key competitor. We also merged some Legacy Charter markets into the Legacy TWC service infrastructure as we created new regional operating areas.

同時，我們看到競爭對手推出了一些額外的競爭性建設和價格驅動的促銷活動。今年，我們從主要競爭對手的整合困境中獲得的收益較少。我們在創建新的區域營運區域的同時，也將一些原有的Charter市場併入了原有的TWC服務基礎設施。

That puts certain Legacy Charter areas into a pre-upgraded state with respect to service. Bright House gained 13,000 video customers versus a loss of 6,000 last year. In total, we added 2,000 residential video customers in the fourth quarter, in addition to SMB growth.

這使得某些傳統特許服務區域在服務方面處於升級前狀態。Bright House 的視訊用戶增加了 13,000 人，而去年則減少了 6,000 人。第四季度，我們新增了 2000 名住宅視訊用戶，此外，中小企業用戶也有所成長。

In residential Internet, we added a total of 263,000 customers versus 303,000 last year. Over the last 12 months, we grew our total residential Internet customer base by 1.2 million customers or 5.4%, with 5.1% growth at TWC, 5.6% growth at Legacy Charter and 6.9% at Bright House.

在住宅網路方面，我們新增了 263,000 名用戶，而去年為 303,000 名。在過去的 12 個月裡，我們的住宅網路用戶總數增加了 120 萬，增幅達 5.4%，其中 TWC 增加了 5.1%，Legacy Charter 增加了 5.6%，Bright House 增加了 6.9%。

In voice, we grew residential customers by 22,000 in the fourth quarter versus 1,000 last year with higher Triple Play sales, offset by higher churn of legacy packages at TWC.

在語音業務方面，第四季度住宅用戶增加了 22,000 戶，而去年同期僅增加了 1,000 戶，這主要得益於三重播放業務的銷售額增長，但被 TWC 傳統套餐用戶流失率的上升所抵消。

So subscriber results will continue to improve. We expect further success with a higher portion of the base in Spectrum as well as the launch of new products. But, as we said before, the progress will not be linear, particularly as we go through the positive and negative short-term effects of all-digital, new product launches and business integration with each of these often staged across markets.

因此，訂閱用戶數量將會持續成長。我們預計隨著 Spectrum 用戶群佔比的提高以及新產品的推出，我們將取得更大的成功。但是，正如我們之前所說，進展不會是線性的，尤其是在我們經歷全數位化、新產品發布和業務整合帶來的正面和負面的短期影響時，而這些往往是跨市場的。

Over the last year, we grew total residential customers by 828,000 or 3.3%. ARPU growth remained muted given modest price increases, continued stand-alone Internet sell-in, higher sell-in at promotional rates and migration activity at Legacy TWC and Bright House to Spectrum pricing and packaging. There's also a mechanical ARPU hit from the changes to the Legacy Bright House seasonal plan.

過去一年，我們的住宅用戶總數增加了 828,000 戶，增幅為 3.3%。由於價格小幅上漲、獨立網路銷售持續成長、促銷價格銷售增加以及傳統 TWC 和 Bright House 向 Spectrum 定價和套餐的遷移活動，ARPU 成長依然疲軟。Legacy Bright House 季節性計畫的變更也對 ARPU 造成了機械性的影響。

Slide 7 shows our customer growth combined with our ARPU growth resulted in year-over-year residential revenue growth of 4.0%. Total commercial revenue, SMB and enterprise combined, grew by 6%, with SMB up 4.5% and enterprise up by 8.3%. Excluding cell backhaul and NaviSite, enterprise grew by over 12%.

投影片 7 顯示，我們的客戶成長與 ARPU 成長相結合，使得住宅收入較去年同期成長 4.0%。商業總收入（中小企業和大型企業合計）成長了 6%，其中中小企業成長了 4.5%，大型企業成長了 8.3%。除去蜂巢回傳和 NaviSite，企業業務成長超過 12%。

Sales were up in both SMB and enterprise with 32% higher SMB PSU net adds at TWC and Bright House in the fourth quarter versus last year. Our revenue growth in the TWC and Bright House markets hasn't yet followed the unit growth, and it won't until we get through the transition to more competitive pricing of both of our SMB and enterprise products. We expect that ARPU offset will continue through 2018, but the revenue growth will ultimately follow the unit growth.

第四季度，TWC 和 Bright House 的中小企業和企業銷售額均有所成長，其中中小企業 PSU 淨新增量比去年同期成長了 32%。我們在 TWC 和 Bright House 市場的收入成長尚未跟上銷售成長，而且在我們完成向更具競爭力的中小企業和企業產品定價的過渡之前，這種情況不會改變。我們預計 ARPU 抵銷現象將持續到 2018 年，但營收成長最終將跟隨銷售成長。

Fourth quarter advertising revenue declined by 17% year-over-year, driven by political in the prior year. Excluding political, advertising revenue grew close to 3% year-over-year given higher year-over-year local, national and digital revenue. In total, fourth quarter revenue for the company was up 3.2% year-over-year and 4.2% when excluding advertising.

第四季廣告收入較去年同期下降 17%，主要原因是去年政治廣告收入下降。剔除政治廣告收入，由於本地、全國和數位廣告收入較去年同期成長，廣告收入較去年同期成長近 3%。該公司第四季總營收年增 3.2%，若不計廣告收入，則較去年同期成長 4.2%。

Looking at total revenue growth, excluding advertising, at each of our legacy companies, TWC revenues grew by 3.9%, pre-deal Charter grew by 5.1% driven by customer growth and Bright House revenue grew by 4.2%.

從我們各家原有公司（不包括廣告）的總收入增長來看，TWC 的收入增長了 3.9%，交易前的 Charter 的收入增長了 5.1%（主要得益於客戶增長），Bright House 的收入增長了 4.2%。

Moving to operating expenses on Slide 8. In the fourth quarter, total operating expenses grew by $199 million or 3.1% year-over-year. Programming increased 10.8% year-over-year driven by contractual rate increases and renewals and a higher expanded customer base and mix which accounted for roughly 3% of that programming cost growth.

接下來是第 8 張投影片中的營運費用。第四季度，營運費用總額年增 1.99 億美元，增幅為 3.1%。受合約費率上漲和續約以及客戶群和客戶組合擴大等因素推動，節目製作成本同比增長 10.8%，約佔節目製作成本增長的 3%。

For the full year 2018, we expect programming costs for video customers to grow at a slower rate than 2017. That reflects the significant amount of programming renewed in the last 15 to 18 months, and that expected decline in growth rate applies whether or not you include the small investment we expect to make in exclusive original content, which Tom mentioned.

我們預計 2018 年全年視訊客戶的節目製作成本成長速度將低於 2017 年。這反映了過去 15 到 18 個月內續訂的大量節目，而且無論是否包括湯姆提到的我們預計對獨家原創內容進行的小額投資，預期的增長率下降都是成立的。

Cost to service customers declined by 0.4% year-over-year, driven by the benefits from the combination of the 3 companies, productivity benefits from our operating model, partly offset by higher bad debt expense from higher customer acquisition levels and revenue. Marketing expenses also grew by 7.8% year-over-year due to the higher level of marketing and sales activity. And other expenses were down 2.7% year-over-year, driven by the elimination of duplicate costs.

客戶服務成本年減 0.4%，這主要得益於 3 家公司合併帶來的好處以及我們營運模式帶來的生產力提升，但部分被客戶獲取水準和收入提高導致的壞帳支出增加所抵銷。由於行銷和銷售活動的增加，行銷費用也比去年同期成長了 7.8%。其他支出較去年同期下降 2.7%，主要原因是消除了重複成本。

Adjusted EBITDA grew by 3.3% in the fourth quarter. Including transition cost -- or sorry, excluding transition costs in both periods, adjusted EBITDA grew by 1.8%. There are still a lot of moving parts and we won't pass up opportunities to grow, but the fourth quarter probably reflects the low point of our EBITDA growth rate for cable. We should also benefit from some political advertising later in the year.

第四季調整後 EBITDA 成長 3.3%。包括過渡成本在內——或者抱歉，不包括兩個時期的過渡成本，調整後的 EBITDA 增加了 1.8%。雖然仍有許多變數，我們也不會放過任何成長機會，但第四季可能反映了我們有線電視業務 EBITDA 成長率的最低點。今年晚些時候，我們也應該會從一些政治廣告中受益。

Turning to net income on Slide 9. We generated $9.6 billion of net income attributable to Charter shareholders in the fourth quarter. $9.3 billion of that is related to a noncash tax benefit given the reduction in our deferred tax liability as a result of tax reforms. Much of that deferred tax liability was put on the balance sheet as part of purchase accounting related to our transactions.

接下來我們來看投影片 9 的淨利。第四季度，我們為 Charter 股東創造了 96 億美元的淨利潤。其中 93 億美元與非現金稅收優惠有關，這是由於稅收改革導致我們的遞延所得稅負債減少所致。其中大部分遞延所得稅負債作為與我們交易相關的購買會計處理的一部分計入了資產負債表。

We generated $454 million in net income in the fourth quarter of last year due to a gain from the remeasurement of our pension liability. So leaving aside the pension gain last year and the tax gain this year, adjusted EBITDA was higher, severance-related expenses were lower. And we recognized a $101 million benefit in this fourth quarter from the remeasurement of our liability from the Advance/Newhouse tax receivables agreement, also due to tax reform. Those benefits were partly offset by higher depreciation and amortization and higher interest expense.

由於重新計量退休金負債帶來的收益，我們去年第四季實現了 4.54 億美元的淨收入。因此，撇開去年的退休金收益和今年的稅收收益不談，調整後的 EBITDA 更高，與遣散相關的支出更低。由於稅收改革，我們在本季確認了 1.01 億美元的收益，這主要得益於我們對 Advance/Newhouse 稅收應收款協議負債的重新計量。這些收益部分被更高的折舊和攤提以及更高的利息支出所抵銷。

Turning to Slide 10. Capital expenditures totaled $2.6 billion in the fourth quarter, including $202 million of transition spend. Excluding transition, fourth quarter CapEx increased by $682 million year-over-year, primarily driven by higher spending on CPE, scalable infrastructure and support.

翻到第10張投影片。第四季資本支出總額為 26 億美元，其中包括 2.02 億美元的過渡支出。不計過渡費用，第四季資本支出年增 6.82 億美元，主要原因是 CPE、可擴展基礎設施和支援方面的支出增加。

Our fourth quarter CapEx included purchases for 2018 activity, including significant CPE inventory purchases from the much larger all-digital activity this year and for DOCSIS 3.1 and scalable infrastructure. For both all-digital and 3.1, there is a significant operating and procurement benefit to staged inventory and equipment in 2017 for launches in 2018.

我們第四季的資本支出包括 2018 年活動的採購，包括今年規模更大的全數位化活動中的大量 CPE 庫存採購，以及 DOCSIS 3.1 和可擴展基礎設施的採購。對於全數位化和 3.1 版本，在 2017 年分階段儲備庫存和設備，以便在 2018 年推出，在營運和採購方面都有顯著優勢。

Excluding the impact of transition and any "pull forward spend", fourth quarter CapEx was still higher year-over-year, with higher CPE, given higher connect volumes, a higher set-top box placement rate per connect and the migration of legacy customers over to Spectrum, who were frequently provided with new equipment.

撇開過渡期和任何「提前支出」的影響不談，第四季度資本支出仍然比上年同期更高，CPE 支出也更高，這是因為連接量更大，每個連接的機上盒安裝率更高，而且傳統客戶遷移到 Spectrum 後，通常會獲得新設備。

We also had all-digital spend, which, excluding the inventory staging I mentioned, totaled about $70 million in the fourth quarter. We also spent more in the support categories on vehicles, tools and test equipment, software development and facility spending, in each case some related to in-sourcing, some related to integration.

我們還有全部數位化支出，不包括我提到的庫存準備工作，第四季總額約為 7,000 萬美元。我們在車輛、工具和測試設備、軟體開發和設施支出等支援類別上也投入了更多資金，其中一些與內部開發有關，一些與整合有關。

As we look to 2018, our cable capital expenditures should be driven by many of the same factors as last year, including customer growth, Spectrum migration, all-digital and in-sourcing and integration. In total, we expect cable capital intensity or capital expenditures as a percentage of revenue to be a bit lower than 2017.

展望 2018 年，我們的有線電視資本支出將受到與去年相同的許多因素的驅動，包括客戶成長、頻譜遷移、全數位化以及內部化和整合。整體而言，我們預期有線電視資本密集度或資本支出佔收入的百分比將略低於 2017 年。

Next year, 2019, that is, should deliver a meaningful decline in capital intensity in dollars. Continued revenue growth improvement remains the best path to that efficiency, but all-digital will be complete, we'll be on the back half of our integration and the bulk of Spectrum packaging and DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade spending will have occurred already in 2017 and 2018. And even with video unit growth, the dollars of video CPE should also dramatically drop with a fully deployed base of modern 2-way set-top boxes with the DOCSIS modem inside.

也就是說，2019 年，以美元計價的資本密集度應該會大幅下降。持續的收入成長改善仍然是提高效率的最佳途徑，但全面數位化完成後，我們將完成整合的後半段，Spectrum 打包和 DOCSIS 3.1 升級的大部分支出將在 2017 年和 2018 年完成。即使視訊單元數量成長，隨著內建 DOCSIS 數據機的現代化雙向機上盒的全面部署，視訊 CPE 的價格也應該會大幅下降。

Slide 11 shows we generated about $1.2 billion of free cash flow in the fourth quarter versus $1.9 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, and that decline was largely driven by the higher CapEx. We finished the quarter with $69 billion in debt principal, and our run rate annualized cash interest expense at December 31 was approximately $3.7 billion. Whereas, our P&L interest expense in the quarter suggests a $3.4 billion annual run rate. That difference is due to purchase accounting.

第 11 張投影片顯示，我們第四季產生了約 12 億美元的自由現金流，而去年第四季為 19 億美元，這一下降主要是由於資本支出增加所致。本季末，我們的債務本金為 690 億美元，截至 12 月 31 日，我們的年化現金利息支出約為 37 億美元。而本季損益表中的利息支出表明，年化利息支出為 34 億美元。這種差異是由於採購會計處理造成的。

As of the end of the fourth quarter, our net debt to last 12-months adjusted EBITDA was 4.47x, at the high end of our target leverage range of 4 to 4.5x.

截至第四季末，我們的淨負債與過去 12 個月調整後的 EBITDA 比率為 4.47 倍，處於我們 4 至 4.5 倍目標槓桿率範圍的高端。

2017 was a busy year of financings for us. We executed over $26 billion of debt transactions and about $17 billion for refinancing and the balance, partly from the share repurchases. Our refinancings extended the weighted average life of our debt to 11.5 years from 11.1 at the end of last year. And today, over 85% of our debt matures after 2020. So a very attractive maturity profile.

2017年對我們來說是融資繁忙的一年。我們完成了超過 260 億美元的債務交易，約 170 億美元用於再融資，其餘部分來自股票回購。透過再融資，我們的債務加權平均期限從去年年底的 11.1 年延長至 11.5 年。如今，我們超過 85% 的債務將在 2020 年後到期。因此，其到期期限結構非常有吸引力。

We also upsized our revolver by $1 billion to enable more strategic flexibility, including around buybacks. So we did all that without raising the weighted average cost of our debt, which today stands at 5.4% as it did a year ago. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased 13.5 million shares in Charter Holdings common units, totaling $4.7 billion at an average price of $347 per share. For all of 2017, we bought back $13.2 billion, also at an average price of $347 per share.

我們也增加了 10 億美元的循環信貸額度，以實現更大的策略彈性，包括股票回購。因此，我們在不提高債務加權平均成本的情況下完成了所有這些工作，目前的債務加權平均成本與一年前一樣，為 5.4%。第四季度，我們以每股 347 美元的平均價格回購了 1,350 萬股 Charter Holdings 普通股，總計 47 億美元。2017 年全年，我們回購了 132 億美元的股票，平均價格為每股 347 美元。

As Slide 11 shows, over a 16-month period, we spent $14.8 billion on repurchases reflecting 14% of the company's fully diluted equity. The raising of our leverage by about a half turn over the last year to the high end of our target range reflects the confidence we have in our operating model and what we knew would drive complexity in our operating statistics throughout 2017.

如投影片 11 所示，在 16 個月的時間裡，我們花了 148 億美元用於股票回購，相當於公司完全稀釋後股權的 14%。過去一年，我們將槓桿率提高了約半倍，達到目標範圍的高端，這反映了我們對自身營運模式的信心，以及我們預料到會在 2017 年全年推動營運統計數據複雜性的因素。

We're not changing our target leverage range of 4 to 4.5x despite the material positive cash flow impacts from tax reform, which I'll cover in a moment. The fact that we're currently at the high end of that leverage range versus a half-turn increase in 2017, mathematically means our 2018 buybacks will be less than 2017.

儘管稅改帶來了實質的正面現金流影響（我稍後會詳細介紹），但我們不會改變 4 到 4.5 倍的目標槓桿率範圍。鑑於我們目前的槓桿率處於該範圍的高端，而 2017 年的槓桿率僅增長了半圈，從數學角度來看，這意味著我們 2018 年的股票回購規模將小於 2017 年。

So the other factors also played a role, including the launch of our mobile products with working capital effects from consumer devices. And I don't expect that we can achieve the same level of working capital improvement for 2018 given the effects of the 2017 CapEx pull forward on 2018 working capital and our expectation for lower capital purchases in late 2018 with the completion of all-digital and other large integration projects, which has an impact to 2018 working capital.

因此，其他因素也發揮了作用，包括我們行動產品的推出以及消費設備帶來的營運資本影響。鑑於 2017 年資本支出提前支出對 2018 年營運資金的影響，以及我們預計 2018 年底隨著全數位化和其他大型整合項目的完成，資本採購將會減少，這將對 2018 年營運資金產生影響，因此我不認為我們 2018 年的營運資金能夠達到同樣的改善水準。

So no guidance on buybacks other than we liked what we did when we did it in 2017. 2018 will be less and we'll remain opportunistic to preserve flexibility to create shareholder value without getting trapped by artificial targets.

所以除了我們喜歡在 2017 年所做的回購之外，我們沒有對回購做出任何指導意見。2018 年我們將減少投資，並保持機會主義，以保持靈活性，在不被人為目標束縛的情況下創造股東價值。

Turning to taxes on Slide 13. At Charter, we expect to see significant cash tax savings over the long term from tax reform. Those tax savings and the FCC actions to remove the Title II framework will support the significant commitments that Tom made on Charter's behalf at the White House last year and the extension of those commitments today. The imminent passing of tax legislation in December was already a factor in the fourth quarter capital investment acceleration I mentioned previously, specifically around the benefits in the fourth quarter 2017 bonus depreciation.

接下來請看第 13 張投影片，內容是關於稅金的。Charter公司預計，從長遠來看，稅制改革將帶來可觀的現金稅收節省。這些稅收節省以及聯邦通信委員會取消第二章框架的行動，將支持湯姆去年在白宮代表Charter公司做出的重大承諾，以及今天對這些承諾的延期。12 月即將通過的稅收立法已經是第四季度資本投資加速成長的因素，正如我之前提到的，特別是 2017 年第四季額外折舊的好處。

Anticipating greater regulatory certainty was a key factor in accelerating our DOCSIS 3.1 deployment, including Spectrum gig and increasing minimum Internet speeds in a number of markets for Spectrum customers. Lower taxes and higher regulatory certainty also create better incentives for new construction and more rural broadband deployment, which will utilize our deep fiber and anticipated wireless capabilities.

預期監管確定性將會增加，這是我們加快 DOCSIS 3.1 部署的關鍵因素，其中包括 Spectrum 千兆網絡，以及在多個市場提高 Spectrum 客戶的最低互聯網速度。較低的稅收和更高的監管確定性也為新建項目和更多農村寬頻部署創造了更好的激勵，這將利用我們深厚的光纖網路和預期的無線能力。

We don't expect the tax bill to omit the use of our existing NOLs. And in the time scope of our current business plan, we do not expect material limitations on our ability to deduct interest for tax purposes, if ever. We also don't currently expect to be a material cash income taxpayer until 2021 at the earliest, and that's 2 years later than what we previously expected.

我們預計稅改法案不會忽略我們現有淨營業虧損的使用。在我們目前的商業計劃的時間範圍內，我們預計即使將來會受到稅務方面利息扣除能力的實質限制。我們目前預計最早也要到 2021 年才會成為重要的現金收入納稅人，這比我們之前的預期晚了 2 年。

Given the lower federal tax rate and lower income from bonus depreciation, we estimate the total present value of our tax assets, reflecting a later NOL utilization against a lower rate, has declined from just over $5 billion to about $3.5 billion. That decline is offset by the much larger value associated with net present value of tax reform, which drives higher free cash flow in perpetuity.

鑑於聯邦稅率降低以及額外折舊收入減少，我們估計，考慮到較晚的淨營業虧損利用率降低，我們稅務資產的總現值已從略高於 50 億美元下降到約 35 億美元。稅改的淨現值帶來的更大價值抵消了這一下降，這將持續推動更高的自由現金流。

Before moving to Q& A, I wanted to provide a financial framework for the launch of our Spectrum wireless services later this year. As Tom mentioned, we believe that our entry into wireless can further accelerate customer growth and drive penetration. The more customer growth we generate, the more incremental revenue we'll generate from wireless and cable. Much of that revenue in the beginning will be device contract revenue, which is fully recognized on the contract date, and similarly, as cost of goods sold under EIP accounting, with the actual customer payments received over a longer period.

在進入問答環節之前，我想先為我們今年稍後推出的 Spectrum 無線服務提供財務框架。正如湯姆所提到的那樣，我們相信進軍無線領域可以進一步加速客戶成長並提高市場滲透率。客戶成長越多，我們從無線和有線業務中獲得的增量收入就越多。初期的大部分收入將是設備合約收入，這部分收入將在合約簽訂日全額確認；同樣，根據 EIP 會計準則，這部分收入將作為銷售成本確認；而實際的客戶付款將在較長一段時間內收到。

As with any subscription business, there are upfront launch and acquisition activities, which creates OpEx and CapEx which exceed the gross margin benefits in the short term. The more wireless customer growth we generate early on, the more EBITDA and cash flow drag we experience in the early days.

與任何訂閱業務一樣，前期都需要投入啟動和用戶獲取活動，這會產生營運支出和資本支出，這些支出在短期內會超過毛利率收益。早期無線客戶成長越多，早期 EBITDA 和現金流的拖累就越大。

Over time, we expect our wireless service to generate positive EBITDA on a stand-alone basis with broader growth benefits to our core cable services. Our wireless business will eventually be fully integrated as just another cable product in the bundle from a marketing, care, billing and service perspective. So no different than Internet or voice today, and it will not be a separate P&L or segment as such.

隨著時間的推移，我們預計我們的無線服務將獨立產生正的 EBITDA，並為我們的核心有線電視服務帶來更廣泛的成長效益。從行銷、客戶關懷、計費和服務角度來看，我們的無線業務最終將完全整合為捆綁銷售中的另一種有線電視產品。所以它和今天的網路或語音服務沒有什麼不同，也不會成為一個單獨的損益表或商業板塊。

Through the launch phase, however, we'll be able to isolate certain key items to create transparency around cable performance. Those items, not necessarily with line by line disclosure, will include service revenue, which could be messy with bundle allocation effects of pricing in any subsidies, and device revenue related to cost of goods sold, the MVNO cost or selling cost and any direct CapEx.

不過，在發布階段，我們將能夠單獨列出一些關鍵項目，從而提高線纜效能的透明度。這些項目（不一定逐項揭露）將包括服務收入（由於捆綁分配定價效應和任何補貼，這可能會很複雜），以及與銷售成本、MVNO 成本或銷售成本以及任何直接資本支出相關的設備收入。

We should be able to isolate the working capital impacts from the timing of cash flow for device costs and related to subscriber payments. We will provide additional details on the wireless business as we move through the year. And as the business scales, but our current goal is to maintain our target leverage on a consolidated basis even through the launch phase.

我們應該能夠將營運資本的影響與設備成本和用戶付款相關的現金流量時間分開考慮。我們將在今年稍後提供有關無線業務的更多細節。隨著業務規模的擴大，我們目前的目標是在啟動階段也要維持合併後的目標槓桿率。

Operator, we're now ready for Q&A.

操作員，我們現在可以進入問答環節了。

(Operator Instructions) And your first question comes from the line of Bryan Kraft with Deutsche Bank.

（操作員說明）您的第一個問題來自德意志銀行的布萊恩·克拉夫特。

I just had 2 questions. One, Chris, can you talk about what the tax rate would be on a permanent basis if you take out the benefits of the NOL and the depreciation timing, so we can start to think about how we model that tax rate in the out-years of our models? And then, secondly, I know you don't want to talk about how much of the synergies in dollars have been realized and you're going to no longer disclose those, but can you just talk about roughly where you are in realizing the transaction synergies maybe in terms of rough percentage terms or something? Just so we can think about how much still could be on the come as we go forward.

我只有兩個問題。克里斯，你能否談談，如果剔除淨經營虧損和折舊時間帶來的好處，永久性稅率會是多少？這樣我們就可以開始考慮如何在模型的未來幾年中模擬該稅率了。其次，我知道您不想談論已經實現了多少美元的協同效應，您也不會再披露這些信息，但您能否大致談談您在實現交易協同效應方面進展如何，比如用大致的百分比或其他方式？這樣我們就可以思考，隨著我們不斷前進，還有多少事情可能會發生。

Sure. So in terms of tax reform, one of the key elements in addition to a lower rate was bonus depreciation for the next 5 years and then a fairly logical transition out of 100% bonus depreciation. So your question is, at the point where Charter does become a taxpayer, and ignoring the ongoing benefits of our NOL, the effective tax rate should be in the 24% to 25% area, all in, inclusive of state income tax. And as for synergies, right, we're not providing ongoing disclosure. Part of that is also the distinction between what our operating model synergies and transaction synergies. It's not a bright line. But I think if you take a look in our results for all of 2017 and in the fourth quarter, you can see that even in the areas of cost to serve and in the other expenses, and even in the marketing and sales where we have much higher sales and marketing activity, and we have synergies there that are offsetting some of those increases. We're doing everything that we intended to do on the synergy side. We expected to get to the numbers we had published over a 3-year period. And we're not quite there yet, but we're well on our way. Beyond that, I think I'd like to avoid trying to put a pin into it because it does become somewhat judgmental as to what's an operating synergy and transaction synergy at this stage.

當然。因此，就稅務改革而言，除了降低稅率外，關鍵要素之一是未來 5 年的額外折舊，然後逐步取消 100% 的額外折舊，這相當合乎邏輯。所以你的問題是，當 Charter 成為納稅人時，忽略我們持續的淨營業虧損 (NOL) 收益，實際稅率應該在 24% 到 25% 之間，包括州所得稅。至於綜效，沒錯，我們不會持續揭露相關資訊。這其中也包括我們營運模式綜效和交易綜效之間的差異。這不是一條明確的界線。但我認為，如果你看一下我們 2017 年全年以及第四季度的業績，你會發現，即使在服務成本和其他費用方面，甚至在我們銷售和營銷活動大幅增加的營銷和銷售方面，我們也有協同效應來抵消部分增長。我們在協同效應方面正在按計劃完成所有工作。我們預計在三年內達到我們公佈的數據。我們還沒完全到達目的地，但我們正在朝著目標穩步前進。除此之外，我想避免妄下斷言，因為在這個階段，判斷什麼是營運綜效和交易綜效多少有些主觀。

And your next question comes from the line of John Hodulik with UBS.

你的下一個問題來自瑞銀集團的約翰‧霍杜利克。

A couple of ones. First, Chris, there's some nice EBITDA commentary about this being the low point for cable EBITDA growth. First, a clarification. Does that include any sort of impact you're going to see from the wireless launch midyear? And then if you could give us any more color on what drives that accelerating EBITDA growth, is it more revenue related or more margin related? And then maybe for Tom. The 200 megabits per second service, can you give us a time line for sort of how you expect that to be rolled out across the U.S.? And I realized it's early, but any sort of early -- or a feedback you can give on terms of uptake or improving subscriber numbers in those areas?

幾個。首先，克里斯，有一些不錯的 EBITDA 評論指出，這是有線電視 EBITDA 成長的低谷。首先，需要澄清一點。這是否包括您預計年中無線產品發表會帶來的任何影響？那麼，您能否進一步說明是什麼因素推動了 EBITDA 的加速成長？是營收成長更多，還是利潤率成長更多？或許對湯姆來說也是如此。對於每秒 200 兆比特的服務，您能否給我們一個時間表，說明您預計如何在全美範圍內推出這項服務？我知道現在還為時過早，但是您能否就這些地區的用戶接受度或用戶數量增長情況提供一些初步的反饋意見呢？

The reason I mentioned cable EBITDA being at the low point was because it was specific to cable. And I'm not saying that now to spook anybody. But if we're wildly successful with wireless and there's upfront cost in terms of sales and marketing and that's attached to wireless subscriber growth. So I didn't want to get trapped into a point where we're regretting growth on something that ultimately is going to have significant cash flow contribution. So we think that Q4 was probably the low point for cable EBITDA growth, and that's why, intentionally, we said it that way. In terms of the sources of that growth, as subscriber units have improved and we expect to continue to improve, that doesn't mean there won't be some choppiness along the way, but over the medium- and long-term subscriber results continue to improve. That has a significant impact on the revenue flow-through. We're also coming out of a year where we didn't have political advertising and into a year where we will have advertising. So all of that implies that revenue should be a contributor to that EBITDA growth. We also mentioned in the prepared remarks that we expect a lower rate of programming cost growth, which does have an impact to EBITDA growth rate as well. And I think we'll become -- continue to become more efficient on the operating side. There are some tradeoffs there. We have a lot of in-sourcing investments that are ongoing. But to answer your question, I think it comes from both revenue and certainly, in parts of the cost structure, continued efficiency there as well.

我之所以提到有線電視業務的 EBITDA 處於低谷，是因為這種情況僅針對有線電視業務。我這麼說不是為了嚇唬任何人。但是，如果我們無線業務取得巨大成功，銷售和行銷方面會有前期成本，而這些成本與無線用戶成長息息相關。所以我不想陷入這樣的境地：我們後悔當初在某個最終會帶來大量現金流的項目上進行成長。所以我們認為第四季可能是有線電視業務 EBITDA 成長的最低點，這也是我們刻意這樣說的原因。就成長的來源而言，隨著用戶數量的增加，我們預計用戶數量將繼續增加，但這並不意味著在此過程中不會出現一些波動，但從中長期來看，用戶數量將繼續改善。這會對收入流動產生重大影響。我們剛結束了沒有政治廣告的一年，即將迎來有政治廣告的一年。因此，所有這些都意味著收入應該對 EBITDA 的成長做出貢獻。我們在準備好的發言稿中也提到，我們預期程式設計成本成長率會降低，這也會對 EBITDA 成長率產生影響。我認為我們會——而且會繼續在營運方面變得更有效率。這其中存在一些權衡取捨。我們有很多正在進行的內部投資項目。但要回答你的問題，我認為這既來自收入，也來自成本結構的某些方面，以及持續的效率提升。

So John, with regard to our data speeds. So our plan is to go 1 gig everywhere in the -- that we serve, essentially, this year. So we'll have all 50 million passing essentially activated with a 1 gig capability with our advanced wireless product with it, so that we can distribute the 1 gig throughout the home. The 200 megabit upgrade is currently about 18% of our footprint. And we have some plans to take that up further this year, but we have -- it's really a logistical question. Part of that is we're offering that to our existing customers as well. And in some cases, we have modem transfers to do, and so there are logistical issues in managing that. So we haven't decided how fast we're going to go with that and how far we'll roll that out entirely this year. But to sum it up, we plan to be 1 gig everywhere and marketing 1 gig everywhere this year. We're taking up a significant portion of our business to minimum speeds of 200 megabits at the same price we were charging for 60 a year ago. And we plan to do that as quickly as we can, but because of the all-digital rollout and some of the other operational issues we have, we haven't fully planned out to do the whole country yet.

約翰，關於我們的資料傳輸速度。所以我們今年的計劃是，基本上在我們服務的所有地區都實現 1 Gig 的頻寬。因此，我們將使所有 5000 萬用戶基本上都能透過我們先進的無線產品啟動 1Gbps 的速度，以便我們可以將 1Gbps 的速度分配到整個家庭。200兆位元的升級目前約占我們網路容量的18%。我們今年有一些計劃進一步推進這項工作，但這實際上是一個後勤問題。其中一部分是我們也向現有客戶提供這項服務。有些情況下，我們需要進行數據機傳輸，因此在管理方面存在一些後勤問題。所以我們還沒決定要推進速度，也沒有決定今年要全面推廣到什麼程度。總而言之，我們今年的計劃是在所有地方都提供 1 Gig 服務，並在所有地方推廣 1 Gig 服務。我們正在將相當一部分業務的最低速度提升至 200 兆比特，而價格與一年前 60 兆比特的價格相同。我們計劃盡快完成這項工作，但由於全面數位化推廣以及我們面臨的一些其他營運問題，我們還沒有完全制定出在全國範圍內推廣的計劃。

And our next question comes from the line of Jason Bazinet with Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗銀行的 Jason Bazinet。

Just a question for Mr. Winfrey. You do a nice job in your K outlining the aggregate transition expenses over the last 3 years both in OpEx and CapEx. And I was just wondering if you could give any commentary about how much more transition expense you expect to incur in '18? And is that the last year that there will be transition expenses?

我有個問題想問溫弗瑞先生。您在K報告中很好地概述了過去3年營運支出和資本支出的總過渡費用。我想問一下，您能否就預計在 2018 年將產生的過渡費用發表一些看法？那一年是最後一年需要支付過渡費嗎？

Let me start with the easy one. No, it won't be the last year. I think the -- in 2019, we'll still have, from an IT infrastructure standpoint, some ongoing transition capital, in particular, and also as we continue to converge some of the core networks into 2019. So I think it will go on through 2019. The reason we're no longer going to continue to provide that is, as we make changes through the business, some of that's really just to align to an operating model and sometimes it's to put in a brand-new overlying architecture. And so is that because it's the right thing to do for the overall business or is that because it's tied to integration? And making that black and white distinction was very easy early on. And particularly at the end of 2018, making that distinction in a way that's faithful that you can lay it out in your 10-K, which didn't -- we thought it was a little bit harder and maybe less relevant. And so what we wanted to do today is explain to people why we were going to make the change, provide the transparency of where those line items would be recast in Q1, so that people have time in advance to recast it. So I think you can already see the transition expense from an operating expense has been coming down. Some of that is because we're actually coming down in the activity, some of that is because it became harder to define. And when in doubt, we put into the "business as usual" just because we'd rather be conservative. And if that's the case, then providing that distinction becomes less useful, over time, to investors. And we thought it would be more transparent to show the transition that we intend to do in Q1 and report it back the usual way beginning in Q1 and going forward.

讓我先從簡單的開始。不，這不會是最後一年。我認為——從IT基礎設施的角度來看，2019年我們仍然會有一些持續的過渡資金，特別是隨著我們繼續將一些核心網路整合到2019年。所以我認為這種情況會持續到2019年。我們不再繼續提供該服務的原因是，隨著業務的不斷變化，其中一些變化實際上只是為了適應營運模式，而另一些變化則是為了引入全新的架構。所以，這樣做是因為這對整個業務來說是正確的做法，還是因為這與整合有關？早期很容易做出這種黑白分明的區分。尤其是在 2018 年底，要以一種忠實的方式做出這種區分，以便你可以在 10-K 表格中列出，而表格並沒有這樣做——我們認為這有點難，而且可能不太相關。因此，我們今天想做的就是向大家解釋我們為什麼要做出改變，並讓大家清楚地了解第一季這些項目將如何調整，以便大家有時間提前進行調整。所以我認為你已經可以看到，從營運費用過渡到營運費用的支出一直在下降。部分原因是我們的活動量確實減少了，部分原因是活動變得難以定義了。如果拿不定主意，我們就維持“一切照舊”，因為我們寧願保守一些。如果情況確實如此，那麼隨著時間的推移，這種區分對投資人來說就變得越來越沒用了。我們認為，向大家展示我們計劃在第一季進行的過渡，並從第一季開始按慣例匯報，會更加透明。

And our next question comes from the line of Jessica Reif with Bank of America.

下一個問題來自美國銀行的傑西卡·雷夫。

I guess 2 questions. You talked a lot about the certainty that you now have from regulation and also tax reform's done. How does that play into your views on further consolidation in the industry? And how you would view participating in that? And then, secondly, can you give us more color on the original content strategy? How much content will you be buying from Viacom and AMC? Will it be exclusive? How will you use it or benefit from it?

我想問兩個問題。您多次談到監管和稅收改革給您帶來的確定性。這如何影響您對產業進一步整合的看法？你如何看待參與其中？其次，能否詳細介紹原創內容策略？你們計劃從維亞康姆和AMC購買多少內容？會是獨家的嗎？你將如何使用它或從中受益？

Yes. Obviously, M&A in the industry -- if you're talking about cable M&A as opposed to programming M&A, from our point of view, we like the cable business. We think it's a good business. We think we can do well in it. And if there were opportunities for acquisitions at the right price, we'd always be interested in entertaining those. I don't know how the tax law or the Title II changes affect the regulatory environment for any M&A, if that's your question, and I'm not sure they do. And so we still have all the issues that we've always had in the industry in terms of M&A, as far as I can see it. With regard to content, yes, our plan is to work with proven content companies, to get economies that work for us in terms of a windowing of content and to use that content to create a brand halo around our products in an effective way in the marketplace. We've done 2 arrangements with -- one with AMC and one with Viacom, and they're slightly different in scope. But they essentially create a window of opportunity for us to use content in a way that benefits our customers and still together monetize that content properly over a bigger distribution footprint, meaning the world, and so we'll see where it goes. But it's an opportunity to -- for us to be associated for a period of time with original content.

是的。顯然，行業內的併購——如果你指的是有線電視併購而不是節目製作併購，從我們的角度來看，我們喜歡有線電視業務。我們認為這是一門好生意。我們認為我們能在這方面做得很好。如果價格合適，出現收購機會，我們始終有興趣考慮。如果你的問題是稅法或第二章的變更如何影響併購的監管環境，我不知道，我也不確定它們是否會產生影響。所以，在我看來，我們在併購方面仍然面臨著業界一直以來存在的所有問題。關於內容方面，是的，我們的計劃是與成熟的內容公司合作，以經濟高效的方式進行內容發布，並利用這些內容在市場上有效地為我們的產品打造品牌光環。我們已經與兩家公司達成了協議——一家是 AMC，另一家是 Viacom，它們的合作範圍略有不同。但它們實際上為我們創造了一個機會窗口，讓我們能夠以有利於客戶的方式使用內容，並在更大的分發範圍（即全球範圍）上共同實現內容的合理變現，所以我們將拭目以待。但這是一個機會——讓我們有機會在一段時間內與原創內容聯繫起來。

Tom, I'm sorry, but can I just -- and one follow-up. Does that play into your efforts at all in what you're doing in targeted advertising? And can you give us an update on what advancements you've made in advertising?

湯姆，對不起，但我可以──還有一個後續問題嗎？這是否對您在定向廣告方面的工作有任何影響？能否介紹一下您在廣告上的進展？

Well, we continue to make significant advancements in advertising and we're actually pretty bullish on our ability to grow our advertising business. As Chris said in his comments, we actually grew advertising, taking political out, by 3% last year. We are using more advanced data analytics, anonymized data analytics to drive better advertising products into market. We have, in all-digital environment, the ability to use our inventory much more effectively and much more targeted -- in a much more targeted way combined with data so that the advertiser gets a more responsive ad and we get a higher CPM. And so we've got investment planned for '18 to finish out our platform, to deliver that nationwide. We have made significant strides to date. And so we have a much more advanced advertising platform than we had historically and we're beginning to see traction.

嗯，我們在廣告領域持續取得重大進展，而且我們對廣告業務的成長能力非常有信心。正如克里斯在評論中所說，去年我們的廣告收入（不包括政治廣告）實際上增加了 3%。我們正在使用更先進的數據分析和匿名數據分析，以推動更好的廣告產品進入市場。在全數位化環境下，我們能夠更有效地、更有針對性地利用我們的廣告資源——透過更精準的方式結合數據，使廣告商獲得更具回應性的廣告，而我們獲得更高的 CPM。因此，我們計劃在 2018 年進行投資，以完成我們的平台建設，並將其推廣到全國。我們迄今為止已經取得了顯著進展。因此，我們擁有了比以往更先進的廣告平台，並且開始看到成效。

And our next question comes from the line of Phil Cusick with JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的菲爾·庫西克。

Two if I can. First, Chris, can you give us some clarity on the rate increases announced so far, both in the Legacy Charter and the acquired plans? And how should we think about any ARPU impact this year? And then maybe, Tom, can you talk about wireless a little bit more. For the midyear launch, should we expect something like a Comcast-type MVNO or something substantially different? And when can we start to see you offering some type of your own cellular augmentation rather than just using WiFi in addition to the MVNO?

如果可以的話，我會選兩個。首先，克里斯，你能否為我們澄清一下目前為止宣布的費率上漲情況，包括原有的章程和收購的計劃？那麼，我們該如何看待今年ARPU（每位用戶平均收入）的影響呢？那麼，湯姆，你能再多談談無線技術嗎？對於年中推出的產品，我們應該期待類似 Comcast 那樣的虛擬營運商 (MVNO)，還是會有截然不同的產品？我們什麼時候才能看到你們提供自己的蜂窩網路增強功能，而不僅僅是在虛擬運營商網路 (MVNO) 的基礎上使用 WiFi？

So we have not taken significant rate increases inside 2018, really consistent with our operating philosophy to go for market share growth. We did have some small rate increases to true-up for retransmission expense, and that's flowed through at the beginning of January, but that's really to offset a direct expense that we have. We've also harmonized some of our set-top box rates. In some cases, that resulted in a small increase. But as you know from the transition to Spectrum pricing and packaging, in many cases, that's a dramatic reduction in set-top box fees that are paid by consumers. So it really was more about standardization than a flat-out rate increase. Those were the 2 biggest items. We had some other small modifications around the edges, but those are the 2 that drive the most significant portion. But in general, our strategy is to drive revenue growth through unit growth as opposed to simply taking rate. That hasn't changed.

因此，我們在 2018 年沒有大幅提高利率，這與我們追求市場佔有率成長的經營理念完全一致。為了彌補轉播費用，我們確實進行了一些小幅提價，這些漲價已於 1 月初生效，但這實際上是為了抵消我們的一項直接支出。我們也統一了部分機上盒的價格。在某些情況下，這導致了小幅增長。但正如您從 Spectrum 定價和套餐的過渡中了解到的那樣，在許多情況下，這大大降低了消費者支付的機上盒費用。所以，這實際上更多的是關於標準化，而不是直接提高費率。這是最重要的兩項內容。我們還做了一些其他的小改動，但以上兩個改動是其中最重要的部分。但總的來說，我們的策略是透過銷售成長來推動營收成長，而不是只是提高成長率。這一點沒有改變。

Well, with regard to wireless, we do plan to roll out a mobile product. We already are in the wireless business today and we have 200 million authenticated devices connected to our WiFi network. We plan to sell a mobile product using the Verizon MVNO. We haven't decided how to price it. And the -- but our long-run view of pricing is that we should offer good value for high-quality products and we should integrate that into our overall product and packaging scenario so that the consumer ends up with a set of high-quality product features in a single customer relationship. And that those features individually and in aggregate are worth more to the customer than they would be as stand-alone products. And so we haven't decided our pricing. I would say this about Comcast pricing, I think they did a really nice job with their pricing model and it has a lot of very positive attributes. But we have yet to decide ours or announce ours. With regard to the WiFi and licensed Spectrum opportunities, small cell radios, if that's what you're referring to, which I referred to in the past as an inside-out strategy potential for high-capacity, low-latency services to be delivered to consumer premises and businesses. We don't have -- we've been experimenting with various licensed and, potentially, unlicensed -- some of the spectrum is unclear on what its long-run regulatory status will be, but we're experimenting with different spectrum that we hope will become licensable or private along with WiFi. But WiFi, interestingly, continues to increase in terms of its actual capability. We are doing this 1 gig service throughout the country with WiFi, and WiFi can handle a gig. And so that's the kind of speed that people are talking about from a 5G perspective. So our thought is that we may want to take additional licensed spectrum and combine it with WiFi spectrum to create an even broader in home, in business and mobile platform. We don't have any current plans to launch that in 2018 or 2019, for that matter, but we're working on the integration of licensed and unlicensed spectrum into the same radios so that we can improve the already good wireless coverage that we provide at home. I think the most interesting fact to consider about just the MVNO of which we're about to enter, 80% of the bits that mobile carrier customers receive on their devices come through our WiFi network. And so it's a robust network, and it's getting better.

至於無線領域，我們確實計劃推出一款行動產品。我們目前已經涉足無線通訊業務，並且有 2 億台經過認證的設備連接到我們的 WiFi 網路。我們計劃使用 Verizon MVNO 銷售行動產品。我們還沒決定如何定價。但我們對定價的長期看法是，我們應該為高品質的產品提供良好的價值，並且我們應該將這一點融入我們的整體產品和包裝方案中，以便消費者最終能夠在一次客戶關係中獲得一系列高品質的產品功能。而且，這些功能單獨或組合起來對客戶的價值，比它們作為獨立產品時的價值更高。因此，我們還沒有決定定價策略。關於康卡斯特的定價，我想說的是，我認為他們的定價模式做得非常好，並且有很多非常積極的特點。但我們尚未決定或公佈我們的方案。關於 WiFi 和授權頻譜的機會，小型蜂窩無線電（如果您指的是這個的話），我過去曾將其稱為一種由內而外的策略，它有可能為消費者場所和企業提供高容量、低延遲的服務。我們沒有——我們一直在試驗各種已授權和可能未授權的頻譜——一些頻譜的長期監管狀態尚不明確，但我們正在試驗不同的頻譜，希望它們能像 WiFi 一樣獲得授權或私有化。但有趣的是，WiFi的實際效能卻不斷提升。我們正在全國範圍內提供 1Gbps 的 WiFi 服務，而 WiFi 完全可以處理 1Gbps 的流量。所以，這就是人們從 5G 角度所談論的速度。因此，我們的想法是，我們可能需要獲得更多授權頻譜，並將其與 WiFi 頻譜結合起來，以創建一個更廣泛的家庭、商業和行動平台。目前我們沒有任何計劃在 2018 年或 2019 年推出這項服務，但我們正在努力將授權頻譜和非授權頻譜整合到同一無線電設備中，以便改善我們目前在家中提供的良好無線覆蓋範圍。我認為，關於我們即將進入的 MVNO 時代，最值得思考的事實是，行動電信商客戶在其裝置上接收到的資料中有 80% 是透過我們的 WiFi 網路傳輸的。所以這是一個強大的網絡，而且還在不斷改進。

And our next question comes from the line of Jeff Wlodarczak with Pivotal Research Group.

我們的下一個問題來自 Pivotal Research Group 的 Jeff Wlodarczak。

One for Chris and one for Tom. Chris, you bought back dramatically more stock, certainly, than I anticipated in the fourth quarter and the second half of '17. Should we assume going forward you're going to stay at the high end of your 4 to 4.5x leverage target? And then for Tom, I wanted to get your thoughts on the potential for the government to nationalize a portion of the mid-band wireless spectrum to create a competitor in 5G? And then just on 5G in general, you've done a lot of work on fixed 5G, how much of a competitive threat do you view telco fixed 5G to your core data business?

一個給克里斯，一個給湯姆。克里斯，你回購的股票數量確實遠遠超過了我在 2017 年第四季和下半年的預期。我們是否可以假設您未來會繼續保持 4 到 4.5 倍槓桿目標的上限？然後，我想問湯姆，你對政府將部分中頻段無線頻譜國有化以打造5G競爭對手的可能性有什麼看法？那麼就 5G 整體而言，您在固定 5G 方面做了很多工作，您認為電信固定 5G 對您的核心數據業務構成多大的競爭威脅？

So Jeff, on the leverage question and specifically related to buybacks, we did a lot of buybacks last year. And the reason that we took our leverage up by half a turn, still within our target leverage range, is because we knew all the changes that we were making inside the business would make Charter statistically challenged for a short period of time because the higher amount of sales and higher-quality sales were being masked by legacy product churn and migration. And it was very difficult, despite us talking about it, it was very difficult for people to see. We had confidence of where it was going and we thought that was the right window to take our leverage up and buy stock at those prices, in effect, $347 per share both over the full year and inside of Q4. But as you point out, we're now at 4.47x leverage. So mathematically, if we're going to stay in our target leverage range, and we intend to do so on a consolidated basis including the wireless launch costs, then it doesn't leave a whole lot of headroom. We do have EBITDA growth and we have cash flow, and both of those contribute to capacity. But I think we did what we did and we liked it, and we liked the price we did it. We liked how aggressive we were. We thought the timing was right. And in the course of this year, where do we take leverage? It's too early to say. I think a lot of that is dictated by the opportunity set that's in front of us. I would say that if our goal is to stay consolidated leverage at 4.5x, in a weird way, to the extent that we become more and more bullish about our ability to drive wireless growth, you would want to make sure that you've left enough capacity in your consolidated leverage to be able to still be within the target, that's our goal. If you saw M&A opportunities that came about, which haven't existed in a material way recently, then that would also factor into wanting to create some headroom. And most importantly, as I mentioned before, while subscriber results did what we said they were going to do and continue to do so, there's going to be choppiness along the way just given the amount of change that we're driving in the business. So it won't be a straight line. The overall curve over a medium to long term, we have high confidence in that. If there are reactions to choppiness along the way and the opportunity opens up, that's one of those strategic opportunities we'd look at as well. So no guidance on where we'll be inside the 4 to 4.5x, and that's simply because we need to keep that flexibility to go make the right decisions which I think, so far, we're pleased with.

傑夫，關於槓桿問題，特別是與股票回購相關的問題，我們去年進行了許多股票回購。我們之所以將槓桿率提高了半圈，但仍在目標槓桿率範圍內，是因為我們知道，我們在公司內部進行的所有變革，都會使 Charter 在短期內面臨統計上的挑戰，因為更高的銷售額和更高質量的銷售額被傳統產品的流失和遷移所掩蓋。儘管我們一直在談論這件事，但對人們來說，這件事仍然很難理解。我們對它的發展方向充滿信心，我們認為這是提高槓桿率並以這些價格（實際上是每股 347 美元）購買股票的合適時機，無論是在全年還是在第四季度。但正如你所指出的，我們現在的槓桿倍數是 4.47 倍。因此，從數學角度來看，如果我們要保持在目標槓桿率範圍內，並且我們打算在包括無線業務啟動成本在內的合併基礎上這樣做，那麼就沒有留下太多迴旋餘地了。我們實現了 EBITDA 成長，並且擁有現金流，這兩者都有助於產能提升。但我認為我們做了我們想做的事，我們喜歡那樣做，我們也喜歡那樣做的價格。我們喜歡自己當時的那種進取精神。我們認為時機成熟了。在今年的過程中，我們應該在哪些方面發揮作用？現在下結論還為時過早。我認為這很大程度上取決於我們面前的機會。我想說，如果我們的目標是將合併槓桿率保持在 4.5 倍，那麼從某種意義上說，隨著我們對推動無線業務成長的能力越來越樂觀，我們需要確保在合併槓桿率中留有足夠的空間，以便仍然能夠達到目標，這就是我們的目標。如果你發現出現了近期並不存在的併購機會，那麼這也會讓你想要創造一些迴旋餘地。最重要的是，正如我之前提到的，雖然訂閱用戶數量達到了我們預期的目標，並且還在繼續增長，但考慮到我們在業務中推動的變革數量，這一過程中難免會出現波動。所以它不會是一條直線。我們非常有信心，從中長期來看，整體曲線會呈現上漲趨勢。如果過程中出現波動，並且出現了機會，那也是我們會考慮的策略機會之一。因此，我們無法給出 4 倍至 4.5 倍區間內的具體位置，這僅僅是因為我們需要保持這種靈活性，以便做出正確的決定，我認為到目前為止，我們對這些決定感到滿意。

So Jeff, as far as the national 5G government-built mobile network, which I assume you mean. I don't know if there is such a thing, architecturally, even possible. It's a pre-spec notion. There is no 5G spec yet, and to do it in a mobile environment would mean a massive amount of very tiny cells. And could government manage something like that? It's hard to conceive. So -- and I don't know any -- I understand the security issues that I think underlie the -- how that concept got into the public space. And I do think there are significant cybersecurity issues that we have to deal with as a country and privacy issues that are real policy issues, but I just can't imagine a nationalized infrastructure. And I don't even know, from a mobile platform, what the product would be. When it comes to 5G fixed, I think it's -- really, you got to remember 5G is just a format to the same data at a certain speed. And there are alternatives to 5G, which is why we talk about 6G. It's kind of like the number 11 on the [spiral] cap on an amplifier. There are a lot of ways to get speed. 5G isn't the only way to provide a high-capacity, low-latency network. And so what is a 5G fixed network? It sounds to me like it's a wireless drop that costs more than a wireline drop. And what do you attach it to? You have to attach it to a network just like you do all wired drop connections. And so I see all the same kind of costs necessary to build a 5G network as there is to build a wireline network and maybe more. And so will that -- does that potential exist, does anyone with enough capital want to do that? And would they get a return of that capital? I don't know. But I think it has much of the same aspects of investment as wireline, if not greater.

所以傑夫，就國家建設的 5G 政府行動網路而言，我猜你指的是這個。我不知道從建築學的角度來看，是否有這樣的事物，甚至是否可能。這是一個預先設定的概念。目前還沒有 5G 標準，要在移動環境中實現 5G，就意味著需要大量的微型基地台。政府能做到類似的事嗎？難以想像。所以——雖然我不知道——但我理解我認為是安全問題導致的——這個概念是如何進入公共領域的。我確實認為，作為一個國家，我們必須應對重大的網路安全問題和隱私問題，這些都是真正的政策問題，但我無法想像一個國有化的基礎設施。我甚至不知道，從行動平台的角度來看，這款產品會是什麼樣子。說到 5G 固定網絡，我認為——實際上，你必須記住 5G 只是以特定速度傳輸相同數據的一種格式。除了 5G 之外還有其他選擇，所以我們才談論 6G。這有點像是擴大機上[螺旋]蓋上的數字 11。提高速度的方法有很多。5G 並不是提供高容量、低延遲網路的唯一途徑。那麼，什麼是5G固定網路呢？聽起來像是無線線路接入比有線線路接入更貴。那你把它連接到什麼上面呢？你需要像連接所有有線設備一樣，將它連接到網路。因此，我認為建造 5G 網路所需的成本與建造有線網路所需的成本基本上相同，甚至可能更高。那麼，這種可能性是否存在？是否有足夠資金的人願意這麼做？他們能收回那筆投資嗎？我不知道。但我認為它在投資方面與有線電視投資有許多相同之處，甚至可能更勝一籌。

And our final question comes from the line of Vijay Jayant with Evercore.

我們的最後一個問題來自 Vijay Jayant 與 Evercore 的對話。

Two if I may. Tom, there were some comments in the prepared remarks about the streaming product becoming a bigger piece of the mix. I just want to get your thoughts on the virtual MVPDs and how they're scaling. What's the sort of response, broadly, in the marketplace? And do we expect these IP products to be a bigger piece of the mix going forward? And just very quickly for Chris, you obviously talked about the trough EBITDA trends ex wireless, possibly we're there right now. Maybe just talk about the arc on the commercial side where it's sort of doing a similar thing. Is that behind the consumer arc on the recovery? Just for our understanding of scaling of the business going forward.

如果可以的話，我想選兩個。湯姆，在事先準備好的演講稿中，有人提到串流媒體產品將在整體業務中佔據越來越重要的地位。我只是想了解您對虛擬多頻道視訊節目分銷商 (MVPD) 及其擴展方式的看法。市場整體反應如何？我們是否預期這些智慧財產權產品在未來會佔據更大的市場份額？克里斯，我只想快速回答一下，你顯然提到了剔除無線業務後的 EBITDA 低谷趨勢，我們現在可能正處於這個低谷期。或許可以談談商業方面的發展軌跡，它在某種程度上也正在做類似的事情。這是否是消費者復甦進程中的原因？只是為了更了解公司未來的規模化發展。

Well, in that, what you're asking me is to describe what's going on in the video business and it's complicated. There's a lot of issues out there. I still think that we can grow video. I think there are a lot of pressures in the video business with the price of the packaging -- price of the product. And the fact that, in order to carry the whole product, you have to buy the whole product as a distributor. And -- which makes the retail price generally expensive for a fully featured service. And there are a lot of people being priced out of the market and price value relationship is declining because, among other things, it's gotten more expensive, but also the cost of not paying for it has gotten cheaper. Meaning, with password sharing and lack of control by programmers over their content, you have an easy ability to substitute Pay TV for free TV. And you can do that with an antenna for broadcast television, which has now become an expensive product. And you can do that with a streams product that isn't properly managed. So you have price pressure in the business that's significant. You have income levels that make price pressure significant. So the overall category is shrinking from a paid perspective for all of those reasons. And then you have our ability to sell, which I think is still good and significant, and I think that we have the ability to put better video products in front of the consumer and package them. There's no product out there that I can see that we don't have access to, to sell to our consumers or to provide to our consumers and integrate with our existing services. So I think we have an opportunity to continue to have a fully featured video product that meets customer expectations that's equivalent to what anyone else can do. And therefore, I think because we have a better business model and a better infrastructure that we can win against the satellite and we can win against other wireline competitors in the marketplace and grow our video business, but the overall category, I think, still is under enormous pressure for all the reasons I cited.

嗯，你其實是在問我影片產業現狀如何，這很複雜。外面有很多問題。我仍然認為我們可以發展視訊業務。我認為視訊產業面臨來自包裝價格（即產品價格）的諸多壓力。而事實上，身為經銷商，為了經銷整個產品，你必須購買整個產品。這也使得功能齊全的服務的零售價格通常比較昂貴。很多人因為價格過高而被擠出市場，價格價值關係正在下降，原因有二：一是價格上漲了，二是不買的代價也降低了。這意味著，由於密碼共享和程式設計師對其內容缺乏控制，你很容易就能用免費電視取代付費電視。你可以用接收廣播電視訊號的天線來實現這一點，但這種天線現在已經變得很昂貴了。如果串流媒體產品管理不當，就可能發生這種情況。所以，這個產業面臨巨大的價格壓力。你的收入水平使你面臨較大的物價壓力。因此，由於上述種種原因，從付費角度來看，整個類別正在萎縮。然後，我們還有銷售能力，我認為這仍然很好，而且意義重大，我認為我們有能力將更好的視訊產品推向消費者面前並進行包裝。我看不出市面上有什麼產品是我們無法取得並銷售給我們的消費者，或無法提供給我們的消費者並與我們現有的服務整合的產品。所以我認為我們有機會繼續推出一款功能齊全的視訊產品，滿足客戶的期望，其效果與其他任何公司的產品不相上下。因此，我認為，由於我們擁有更好的商業模式和更好的基礎設施，我們可以戰勝衛星，也可以戰勝市場上的其他有線競爭對手，並發展我們的視頻業務，但我認為，由於我列舉的所有原因，整個行業仍然面臨著巨大的壓力。

Thanks, Vijay. That ends our call. Thanks, operator.

謝謝你，維傑。通話到此結束。謝謝接線生。

Just so we didn't ignore, Vijay, I had forgotten he had the second question on commercial.

為了不讓我們忽略維傑，我忘了他還有關於商業的第二個問題。

Okay. Sure.

好的。當然。

The commercial migration -- what's happening in commercial, sales are up significantly. I mentioned in the prepared remarks 32% year-over-year growth at TWC and Bright House on SMB from a unit perspective. That's really a significant 32% increase in net adds. The trade-off to that is ARPU pressure. And so similar to residential with the migration that's been taking place, the key difference in SMB, and the same applies to enterprise, is the pricing differential is greater and the time period for it to occur is longer. So the SMB migration takes a longer period of time as does enterprise. So I think we're going to see similar pressure throughout 2018. I'm not giving you revenue guidance other than to say that we'll have positive unit growth, we'll have positive revenue growth, but it's just going to be depressed through 2018 relative to the unit growth until we can get a little bit further on in that migration path and get over the 50% point similar to what we've been talking about on residential.

商業遷移－商業領域正在發生的事情，銷售額大幅成長。我在準備好的發言稿中提到，TWC 和 Bright House 的中小企業業務從單位數量來看，比去年同期成長了 32%。淨新增用戶數確實大幅增加了 32%。這樣做的代價是每用戶平均收入（ARPU）壓力增加。因此，與住宅用戶正在經歷的遷移類似，中小企業用戶（以及企業用戶）的關鍵差異在於價格差異更大，遷移所需的時間更長。因此，中小企業的遷移所需時間與大型企業一樣長。所以我認為2018年全年我們都會面臨類似的壓力。我不會給出收入方面的預測，只能說我們會實現正的單位增長和正的收入增長，但相對於單位增長而言，2018 年的收入增長將會比較低迷，直到我們能夠沿著這條遷移路徑走得更遠一些，並超過 50% 的點，就像我們一直在住宅領域討論的那樣。

That, I think, that does wrap us up. I apologize. And thanks, everybody, for joining the call.

我想，我們的談話就到此結束了。我道歉。感謝各位參加本次通話。

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call and you may now disconnect.

謝謝。女士們、先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束，你們現在可以掛斷電話了。