(CHTR) 2022 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Hello, and welcome to the Charter Communications Second Quarter 2022 Investor Call. (Operator Instructions) Also, as a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to turn the conference over to Stefan Anninger. Please go ahead, sir.

您好，歡迎來到 Charter Communications 2022 年第二季度投資者電話會議。 （操作員說明）另外，作為提醒，今天正在錄製此會議。 （操作員說明）我現在想把會議交給 Stefan Anninger。請繼續，先生。

Good morning, and welcome to Charter's Second Quarter 2022 Investor Call. The presentation that accompanies this call can be found on our website, ir.charter.com, under the Financial Information section.

早上好，歡迎來到 Charter 的 2022 年第二季度投資者電話會議。本次電話會議隨附的演示文稿可在我們的網站 ir.charter.com 的財務信息部分下找到。

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 10-K and also our 10-Q filed this morning. We will not review those risk factors and other cautionary statements on this call. However, we encourage you to read them carefully.

在我們繼續之前，我想提醒您，我們的 SEC 文件中包含許多風險因素和其他警示性聲明，包括我們最近提交的 10-K 和今天早上提交的 10-Q。我們不會在本次電話會議上審查這些風險因素和其他警示性聲明。但是，我們鼓勵您仔細閱讀它們。

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.

我們在本次電話會議上就預期、預測、計劃和前景發表的各種評論構成前瞻性陳述。這些前瞻性陳述受到可能導致實際結果與歷史或預期結果不同的風險和不確定性的影響。任何前瞻性陳述僅反映管理層當前的觀點，Charter 不承擔修改或更新此類陳述或在未來做出額外前瞻性陳述的義務。

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. 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.

在今天的電話會議中，我們將參考我們收益材料中定義和核對的非公認會計原則措施。這些由憲章定義的非公認會計原則措施可能無法與其他公司使用的具有類似名稱的措施相比較。另請注意，除非另有說明，否則本次電話會議和演示文稿中提到的所有增長率都是按年計算的。

On today's call, we have Tom Rutledge, Chairman and CEO; Chris Winfrey, our COO; and Jessica Fischer, our CFO. With that, let's turn the call over to Tom.

在今天的電話會議上，我們有董事長兼首席執行官 Tom Rutledge；我們的首席運營官克里斯·溫弗瑞；和我們的首席財務官 Jessica Fischer。有了這個，讓我們把電話轉給湯姆。

Thank you, Stefan. Our business continues to grow despite an unusual macroeconomic environment. During the second quarter, we added 38,000 Internet customers when excluding an unfavorable impact related to the discontinuation of the emergency broadband benefit, EBB, program and additional definitional requirements of the affordable connectivity program. Customer relationship churn remains historically low due to current consumer behavior, and connect activity remains low primarily due to the low activity environment. At the same time, we continue to see very strong mobile line growth with line net additions of approximately 350,000. And over the last year, we've grown our mobile lines by nearly 50%. We now have over 4.3 million total mobile lines.

謝謝你，斯特凡。儘管宏觀經濟環境異常，我們的業務仍在繼續增長。在第二季度，我們增加了 38,000 名互聯網客戶，不包括與終止緊急寬帶福利、EBB、計劃和負擔得起的連接計劃的附加定義要求相關的不利影響。由於當前的消費者行為，客戶關係流失率保持在歷史低水平，而連接活動仍然很低，主要是由於低活動環境。與此同時，我們繼續看到非常強勁的移動線路增長，線路淨增加約 350,000 條。去年，我們的移動產品線增長了近 50%。我們現在擁有超過 430 萬條移動線路。

Financials were also strong in the second quarter. Second quarter revenue grew by 6.2%, and EBITDA grew by 9.7%. Looking forward, we remain well positioned. Our fixed and mobile broadband service continues to converge technically and operationally. We offer them along with all of our other high-quality products at attractive prices. Our growth is driven by offering value-rich packages that differentiate us from our competition at prices customers can afford regardless of the economic environment. And we plan to continue to do that.

第二季度金融股也表現強勁。第二季度收入增長 6.2%，EBITDA 增長 9.7%。展望未來，我們仍然處於有利地位。我們的固定和移動寬帶服務在技術和運營上繼續融合。我們以極具吸引力的價格提供它們以及我們所有其他高質量的產品。我們的增長是通過提供價值豐富的套餐來推動的，無論經濟環境如何，這些套餐都能以客戶能夠承受的價格使我們在競爭中脫穎而出。我們計劃繼續這樣做。

To continue to improve our service, we are focused on evolving our network. Data usage continues to grow at a very fast pace. During the second quarter, Internet customers who do not buy traditional video from us used over 650 gigabytes per month. Nearly 25% of those customers now use a terabyte or more of data per month. And even with the rise of work from home, peak usage patterns still prevail with the vast majority of data usage occurring during the evening hours. Our network is built to handle that peak demand and delivers consistent speeds regardless of the time of day.

為了繼續改進我們的服務，我們專注於發展我們的網絡。數據使用量繼續以非常快的速度增長。在第二季度，不從我們這裡購買傳統視頻的互聯網客戶每月使用超過 650 GB。這些客戶中有近 25% 現在每月使用 1TB 或更多的數據。即使在家工作的興起，高峰使用模式仍然占主導地位，絕大多數數據使用發生在晚上。我們的網絡旨在處理高峰需求，並在一天中的任何時間提供一致的速度。

With our dense HFC network, we deliver gigabit speeds today everywhere we offer service. And in the near term, we're implementing spectrum split upgrades, which expand our plant capacity and allocate more bandwidth to the upstream, all using our DOCSIS 3.1 infrastructure. In turn, we'll be able to offer our customers higher symmetrical speeds and multi-gigabit speeds in the downstream.

憑藉我們密集的 HFC 網絡，我們如今在我們提供服務的任何地方都能提供千兆位速度。在短期內，我們正在實施頻譜拆分升級，這將擴大我們的工廠容量並為上行分配更多帶寬，所有這些都使用我們的 DOCSIS 3.1 基礎設施。反過來，我們將能夠在下游為我們的客戶提供更高的對稱速度和數千兆位的速度。

Our long-term network evolution path includes DOCSIS 4.0. Recent testing using DOCSIS 4.0 technology simultaneously delivered over 8 gigabits in the downstream and over 6 gigabits in the upstream in a 4 amplifier cascade to a single modem.

我們的長期網絡演進路徑包括 DOCSIS 4.0。最近使用 DOCSIS 4.0 技術進行的測試在一個 4 個放大器級聯到單個調製解調器的情況下，同時在下游提供超過 8 Gb 的數據，在上游提供超過 6 Gb 的數據。

We will develop this technology even further, but the test demonstrated that we can successfully drive bidirectional multi-gigabit speed offerings across our entire network in a very capital-efficient manner and without the major disruption to our customers and operations that other kinds of upgrades require. So we can deliver a future-proof network that delivers the most compelling connectivity services in capital and time-efficient manner and, in turn, offer those services to consumers at highly attractive prices.

我們將進一步開發這項技術，但測試表明，我們可以以非常節省資本的方式在整個網絡中成功推動雙向數千兆位速度產品，並且不會像其他類型的升級那樣對我們的客戶和運營造成重大干擾.因此，我們可以提供面向未來的網絡，以資金和時間效率的方式提供最引人注目的連接服務，進而以極具吸引力的價格向消費者提供這些服務。

But we're not only working to improve speeds and latency in our network. We're also working to improve network quality and reliability, reducing service transactions, driving longer customer lives and reducing churn. We're doing that through better maintenance practices, using artificial intelligence, telemetry and machine learning technologies to drive what we call operational intelligence. We're now able to ingest, aggregate, correlate and analyze millions of data points from our network, offering us intelligence about the health of our network, services and anomalies in our network that are critical to the customer experience.

但我們不僅在努力提高網絡的速度和延遲。我們還致力於提高網絡質量和可靠性、減少服務交易、延長客戶壽命並減少客戶流失。我們通過更好的維護實踐來做到這一點，使用人工智能、遙測和機器學習技術來推動我們所謂的運營智能。我們現在能夠從我們的網絡中攝取、聚合、關聯和分析數百萬個數據點，為我們提供有關我們網絡的健康狀況、服務和網絡中對客戶體驗至關重要的異常情況的情報。

In the past, this type of real-time network intelligence did not exist, and substantial human effort and manual analysis were required to manage our network, which was time-consuming and brought only limited insights and required thousands of service transactions. In many cases, our intelligence now allows us to avoid network outages and disruptions altogether, maintaining the plant more efficiently with far less activity and cost and fewer outages in service transactions.

過去，這種實時網絡智能是不存在的，需要大量的人力和人工分析來管理我們的網絡，這既費時又能帶來有限的洞察力，需要數千次服務交易。在許多情況下，我們的智能現在使我們能夠完全避免網絡中斷和中斷，以更少的活動和成本以及更少的服務交易中斷更有效地維護工廠。

Our mobile business is growing at an extremely rapid pace. We remain the fastest-growing mobile provider in the nation, and we continue to improve and enhance our products in a number of ways, differentiating our offerings, helping to drive customer growth and making our mobile business economics, which are good, even better. Ultimately, with our mobile product, we're able to offer consumers a unique and superior fully converged connectivity service package while saving customers hundreds or thousands of dollars a year.

我們的移動業務正以極快的速度增長。我們仍然是全國增長最快的移動提供商，我們繼續以多種方式改進和增強我們的產品，使我們的產品與眾不同，幫助推動客戶增長，並使我們的移動業務經濟更加良好，甚至更好。最終，通過我們的移動產品，我們能夠為消費者提供獨特而卓越的完全融合連接服務包，同時每年為客戶節省數百或數千美元。

And our share of household connectivity spend, including mobile and fixed broadband is still very low. In fact, we capture less than 30% of household spend on wireline and mobile connectivity within our footprint. So there's a large opportunity for us to increase market share by saving customers money. And through our latest offerings, we can do that, which, in turn, raises connects, reduces churn and drives overall customer relationship growth.

而且我們在包括移動和固定寬帶在內的家庭連接支出中所佔的份額仍然很低。事實上，在我們的足跡範圍內，我們在有線和移動連接上的家庭支出不到 30%。因此，我們有很大的機會通過為客戶節省資金來增加市場份額。通過我們最新的產品，我們可以做到這一點，進而提高聯繫、減少客戶流失並推動整體客戶關係的增長。

In addition, our mobile business will drive meaningful EBITDA for Charter, even at our existing and very attractive mobile price points, giving us EBITDA growth simply by growing our mobile customer base. We're underpenetrated and our opportunity is large. Charter remains uniquely positioned to deliver superior services at superior prices, offering consumers the most attractive products for their connectivity needs. Our services remain the best choice for consumers, giving us the opportunity to continue to grow our business at a very healthy pace. Now I'll turn the call over to Jessica.

此外，我們的移動業務將為 Charter 帶來有意義的 EBITDA，即使是在我們現有且非常有吸引力的移動價格點上，僅通過擴大我們的移動客戶群就能使我們的 EBITDA 增長。我們的滲透率很低，我們的機會很大。 Charter 仍然具有獨特的優勢，能夠以優惠的價格提供優質的服務，為消費者提供最具吸引力的產品來滿足他們的連接需求。我們的服務仍然是消費者的最佳選擇，讓我們有機會繼續以非常健康的速度發展我們的業務。現在我將把電話轉給傑西卡。

Thanks, Tom. Now let's turn to our customer results on Slide 5. Including residential and SMB, we lost 21,000 Internet customers in the second quarter. As part of the EBB to ACP transition, a small portion of subsidized Internet customers either did not opt to continue their service after the EBB program ended or did not meet the ACP requirements, particularly the requirement that customers use their service in each 30-day period, which covers the vast majority of the impacted subscribers. This resulted in 59,000 customer disconnects during the quarter.

謝謝，湯姆。現在讓我們看看幻燈片 5 上的客戶結果。包括住宅和 SMB，我們在第二季度失去了 21,000 名互聯網客戶。作為 EBB 到 ACP 過渡的一部分，一小部分受補貼的互聯網客戶在 EBB 計劃結束後沒有選擇繼續他們的服務，或者不符合 ACP 要求，特別是客戶每 30 天使用他們的服務的要求期，涵蓋了絕大多數受影響的訂戶。這導致本季度有 59,000 名客戶斷開連接。

Excluding that headwind, we organically grew 38,000 Internet customers in the quarter. Looking forward, we expect that 0 usage ACP customers will have a smaller impact in our quarterly results than what we saw this quarter. Looking at the broader marketplace, while we saw seasonal increases in moves typical of the second quarter, moves remained well below pre-COVID levels. And voluntary churn, when excluding the EBB, ACP impact I mentioned, was even lower than last year, all of which reduced our selling opportunities.

排除逆風，我們在本季度有機增長了 38,000 名互聯網客戶。展望未來，我們預計 0 使用 ACP 客戶對我們季度業績的影響將小於我們在本季度看到的影響。縱觀更廣泛的市場，雖然我們看到第二季度的典型波動出現季節性增長，但波動仍遠低於 COVID 之前的水平。並且自願流失，當排除 EBB 時，我提到的 ACP 影響甚至低於去年，所有這些都減少了我們的銷售機會。

Turning to video. Video customers declined by 226,000 in the second quarter, following a programming pass through increase. Wireline voice declined by 266,000, and we added 344,000 mobile lines. Despite the lower number of selling opportunities from our reduced activity levels, we continue to drive mobile growth with our high-quality, attractively priced service.

轉向視頻。在節目通過增加之後，第二季度視頻客戶減少了 226,000 人。有線語音下降 266,000 條，我們增加了 344,000 條移動線路。儘管我們降低了活動水平導致銷售機會減少，但我們繼續通過我們高質量、價格誘人的服務推動移動增長。

Moving to financial results, starting on Slide 6. Over the last year, we grew total residential customers by 282,000 or 1%. Residential revenue per customer relationship increased by 2.8% year-over-year driven by promotional rate step-ups and earlier video rate adjustments versus last year that pass through programmer rate increases. These effects were partly offset by the same bundle and mix trends we've seen over the past year, including a higher mix of nonvideo customers and a higher mix of lower-priced video packages within our base. Also keep in mind that our residential ARPU does not reflect any mobile revenue.

轉向財務業績，從幻燈片 6 開始。在過去一年中，我們的住宅客戶總數增加了 282,000 或 1%。每個客戶關係的住宅收入同比增長 2.8%，這是由於促銷費率的提高和較早的視頻費率調整（與去年相比通過程序員費率的提高）。這些影響被我們在過去一年中看到的相同捆綁和混合趨勢部分抵消了，包括非視頻客戶的更高混合以及我們基礎中低價視頻套餐的更高混合。另請記住，我們的住宅 ARPU 不反映任何移動收入。

As Slide 6 shows, residential revenue grew by 4.5% year-over-year. Turning to commercial, SMB revenue grew by 3.7% year-over-year, reflecting SMB customer growth of 3.7%. Enterprise revenue was up by 4.9% year-over-year. Excluding all wholesale revenue, enterprise revenue grew by 8.2%, and enterprise PSUs grew by 4.7% year-over-year.

如幻燈片 6 所示，住宅收入同比增長 4.5%。商業方面，SMB 收入同比增長 3.7%，反映 SMB 客戶增長 3.7%。企業收入同比增長 4.9%。剔除所有批發收入，企業收入增長 8.2%，企業 PSU 同比增長 4.7%。

Second quarter advertising revenue grew by 12% year-over-year. That growth came primarily from political. It was slightly offset by a 1% decline in our core advertising business due to lower local and national advertising revenue, including auto, partly offset by our growing advanced advertising capabilities.

第二季度廣告收入同比增長 12%。這種增長主要來自政治。由於包括汽車在內的地方和全國廣告收入下降，我們的核心廣告業務下降了 1%，部分被我們不斷增長的先進廣告能力所抵消。

Mobile revenue totaled $726 million with $299 million of that revenue being device revenue. Other revenue increased by 8% -- 8.8% year-over-year and includes rural construction initiatives subsidies totaling $29 million. In total, consolidated second quarter revenue was up 6.2% year-over-year.

移動收入總計 7.26 億美元，其中 2.99 億美元是設備收入。其他收入同比增長 8% - 8.8%，其中包括總計 2900 萬美元的農村建設計劃補貼。總體而言，第二季度合併收入同比增長 6.2%。

Moving to operating expenses and EBITDA on Slide 7. In 2Q, total operating expenses grew by $307 million or 3.9% year-over-year. Programming costs declined by 0.2% year-over-year due to a decline in video customers of 3.2% year-over-year and a higher mix of lighter video packages, all of which was mostly offset by higher programming rates. Looking at the full year 2022, we continue to expect programming cost per video customer to grow in the low to mid-single-digit percentage range.

轉向幻燈片 7 上的運營費用和 EBITDA。第二季度，總運營費用同比增長 3.07 億美元或 3.9%。節目成本同比下降 0.2%，原因是視頻客戶同比下降 3.2%，以及更輕量級視頻套餐的組合增加，所有這些都被更高的節目費率所抵消。展望 2022 年全年，我們繼續預計每位視頻客戶的節目成本將在中低個位數百分比範圍內增長。

Regulatory connectivity and produced content declined by 10.3%, primarily driven by lower Lakers RSN costs and lower video CPE sold to customers. The decline in Lakers RSN cost was primarily driven by the delayed start of the NBA season in 2020, which drove more Lakers games charges in 2Q '21, making for an easier comparison this year. Excluding the RSN costs from both years, regulatory connectivity and produced content declined by 4.7%.

監管連接和製作內容下降了 10.3%，主要是由於湖人隊 RSN 成本降低和向客戶銷售的視頻 CPE 下降。湖人隊 RSN 成本的下降主要是由於 2020 年 NBA 賽季延遲開始，這推動了湖人隊在 21 年第二季度的更多比賽費用，從而使今年的比較更容易。剔除這兩年的 RSN 成本，監管連通性和製作內容下降了 4.7%。

For the full year 2022, we continue to expect regulatory connectivity and produced content expense to decline in the mid-single-digit percentage range versus 2021, primarily due to lower video CPE sold to customers and lower RSN costs given an abnormal Lakers game schedule last year.

對於 2022 年全年，我們繼續預計監管連通性和製作內容費用將與 2021 年相比下降中個位數百分比範圍，這主要是由於向客戶出售的視頻 CPE 較低，以及由於湖人隊最後一場比賽日程異常而導致 RSN 成本下降年。

Cost to service customers increased by 5.1% year-over-year. The increase was primarily driven by higher bad debt year-over-year given lower bad debt in the second quarter of 2021, which benefited from government stimulus packages at the time. And while this quarter's non-pay churn and bad debt write-offs both remain well below pre-COVID levels, our bad debt accrual includes expectations for potential softening of consumer finances later this year. Excluding bad debt from both years, cost to service customers grew by 1.1% primarily due to a larger customer base and higher fuel costs partly offset by productivity improvements.

服務客戶的成本同比增長 5.1%。這一增長主要是由於 2021 年第二季度壞賬減少，而壞賬同比增加，這得益於當時的政府刺激計劃。雖然本季度的非支付流失和壞賬核銷均遠低於疫情前的水平，但我們的壞賬計提包括對今年晚些時候消費者財務可能疲軟的預期。剔除這兩年的壞賬，為客戶提供服務的成本增長了 1.1%，這主要是由於更大的客戶群和更高的燃料成本，部分被生產力提高所抵消。

As the year progresses, prior year bad debt expense normalizes and should drive slower growth in cost to service customers expense during the second half of the year. Marketing expenses grew by 8.6% year-over-year due to higher labor costs driven by previously planned wage increases and higher staffing levels as Charter completes the insourcing of its inbound sales and retention call centers with a focus on providing better service to new and existing customers. For the full year 2022, we continue to expect marketing expense to grow in the mid-single-digit percentage range versus 2021.

隨著時間的推移，上一年的壞賬費用正常化，並應會在下半年推動服務客戶費用的成本增長放緩。營銷費用同比增長 8.6%，原因是先前計劃的工資增長和更高的人員配備水平推動勞動力成本上升，因為 Charter 完成了其入境銷售和保留呼叫中心的內包，重點是為新老客戶提供更好的服務顧客。對於 2022 年全年，與 2021 年相比，我們繼續預計營銷費用將在中個位數百分比範圍內增長。

Mobile expenses totaled $797 million and were comprised of mobile device costs tied to device revenue, customer acquisition and service and operating costs. And other expenses increased by 1.3%. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 9.7% year-over-year in the quarter.

移動費用總計 7.97 億美元，包括與設備收入、客戶獲取和服務以及運營成本相關的移動設備成本。其他費用增長1.3%。本季度調整後 EBITDA 同比增長 9.7%。

Just a quick note on inflation before moving on to net income. We've seen some inflationary pressure in fuel, freight and utilities as well as pricing pressure on CPE and other network components. In labor, our planned move to a $20 per hour starting wage blunted the impact, but we still see pressure in the labor market, which we may need to more fully respond to as the year progresses.

在轉向淨收入之前，只需簡要介紹一下通貨膨脹。我們已經看到燃料、貨運和公用事業方面的一些通脹壓力，以及 CPE 和其他網絡組件的定價壓力。在勞動力方面，我們計劃將起薪調整為每小時 20 美元，這削弱了影響，但我們仍然看到勞動力市場的壓力，隨著時間的推移，我們可能需要更全面地應對這種壓力。

I would also note that our consumers are experiencing inflationary pressure. But given the availability of subsidies for broadband and our focus on saving customers hundreds of dollars per year by switching to our converged connectivity product, we believe that we're well positioned for this environment.

我還要指出，我們的消費者正在承受通脹壓力。但鑑於寬帶補貼的可用性以及我們通過切換到我們的融合連接產品每年為客戶節省數百美元的重點，我們相信我們已經為這種環境做好了準備。

Turning to net income on Slide 8. We generated $1.5 billion of net income attributable to Charter shareholders in the second quarter versus $1 billion last year. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by higher adjusted EBITDA.

轉向幻燈片 8 的淨收入。我們在第二季度產生了 15 億美元歸屬於憲章股東的淨收入，而去年為 10 億美元。同比增長主要是由較高的調整後 EBITDA 推動的。

Turning to Slide 9. Capital expenditures totaled $2.2 billion in the second quarter above last year's second quarter spend of $1.9 billion. We spent a total of $357 million on our rural construction initiative in the quarter. Most of that spend relates to design, walk out and make ready, and as expected, has not yet resulted in significant passings growth. And the vast majority of that spend is accounted for in line extensions. We spent $95 million on mobile-related CapEx, which is mostly accounted for in support capital and scalable infrastructure and was driven by investments in back-office systems and wireless offload construction.

轉到幻燈片 9。第二季度的資本支出總額為 22 億美元，高於去年第二季度的 19 億美元。本季度，我們在農村建設計劃上總共花費了 3.57 億美元。大部分支出與設計、走出去和做好準備有關，正如預期的那樣，還沒有帶來顯著的傳球增長。絕大多數支出都用於線路擴展。我們在與移動相關的資本支出上花費了 9500 萬美元，主要用於支持資本和可擴展的基礎設施，並受到對後台系統和無線卸載建設的投資的推動。

As Slide 10 shows, we generated $1.7 billion of consolidated free cash flow this quarter versus $2.1 billion in the second quarter of last year. The decline was primarily driven by higher cash tax payments and higher CapEx, mostly driven by our rural construction initiatives.

正如幻燈片 10 所示，我們本季度產生了 17 億美元的綜合自由現金流，而去年第二季度為 21 億美元。下降的主要原因是更高的現金稅支付和更高的資本支出，主要是由我們的農村建設計劃推動的。

We finished the quarter with $95.7 billion in debt principal. Our current run rate annualized cash interest is $4.5 billion. As of the end of the second quarter, our ratio of net debt to last 12-month adjusted EBITDA was 4.45x. We intend to stay at or just below the high end of our 4 to 4.5x leverage range.

我們以 957 億美元的債務本金結束了本季度。我們目前的年化現金利息為 45 億美元。截至第二季度末，我們的淨債務與過去 12 個月調整後 EBITDA 的比率為 4.45 倍。我們打算保持在或略低於我們 4 至 4.5 倍槓桿範圍的高端。

During the quarter, we repurchased 8.3 million Charter shares and Charter Holdings common units totaling about $4.3 billion at an average price of $511 per share. And given where the share price has been, during the first 2 quarters of this year, we repurchased 7.2% of our fully diluted shares outstanding as of December 31, 2021, for approximately $7.8 billion.

本季度，我們以每股 511 美元的平均價格回購了 830 萬股 Charter 股票和 Charter Holdings 普通單位，總計約 43 億美元。鑑於股價的走勢，在今年前兩個季度，我們以約 78 億美元的價格回購了截至 2021 年 12 月 31 日已完全攤薄的已發行股票的 7.2%。

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

接線員，我們現在準備好進行問答了。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題將來自摩根士丹利的 Ben Swinburne。

A couple on sort of competition and your go-to-market. You guys didn't talk a lot about fixed wireless or the fiber builds that are happening in various parts of the country. I'm just wondering if you could comment on whether that competitive intensity has increased, if you're seeing, in particular, pressure in certain parts of your footprint, including in the third quarter. I realize you don't like to comment quarterly, but obviously, there's a lot of focus on that.

一對夫婦在競爭和你的市場。你們並沒有太多談論固定無線或全國各地正在發生的光纖建設。我只是想知道你是否可以評論這種競爭強度是否增加了，如果你看到，特別是在你的足蹟的某些部分，包括在第三季度，壓力。我知道你不喜歡每季度發表評論，但顯然，有很多關注點。

And then Tom, I was interested in your comment about generating mobile EBITDA because it would seem like there's maybe some tension between sort of passing on efficiencies in that business to the consumer through lower prices, which can drive volume and maybe drive broadband volume as it gets pulled through by mobile. But that tension exists versus sort of trying to make as much money as you can in that business. Just wondering if you could comment on how you think about balancing that, particularly as you move more traffic on network?

然後湯姆，我對你關於生成移動 EBITDA 的評論很感興趣，因為通過降低價格將這項業務的效率傳遞給消費者之間似乎存在某種緊張關係，這可以推動銷量，也可能推動寬帶銷量被手機拉過去。但是，與試圖在該行業中盡可能多地賺錢相比，這種緊張關係存在。只是想知道您是否可以評論一下您如何考慮平衡這一點，特別是當您在網絡上移動更多流量時？

Sure. I'll start there. Look, there's always a tension between how you price a product and how much of it you drive into the marketplace. And the difference between price and the volume you get ultimately is -- what you're trying to get to is the maximum amount of cash flow that you can generate out of the business based at the right price and the right volume distribution of that product at that price.

當然。我將從那裡開始。看，您如何為產品定價與您將多少產品推向市場之間總是存在緊張關係。價格和你最終獲得的數量之間的差異是——你想要獲得的是你可以在正確的價格和正確的產品數量分佈的基礎上從業務中產生的最大現金流量以那個價格。

So that's what we're seeking in mobile, and we think it's a huge opportunity for us. It's -- obviously, we're creating customer relationships. Those customers are paying us. There's good margin in that business and at the pricing that we have. And we think that we can get more efficient through time with that margin by offload. And at the same time, we think we're accretive to our MVNO partner and that the 9 million customers that have been created out of that are accretive and valuable too, and should be really counted as customers in many ways to our MVNO partner.

這就是我們在移動領域所尋求的，我們認為這對我們來說是一個巨大的機會。這是 - 顯然，我們正在建立客戶關係。那些客戶付錢給我們。該業務和我們擁有的定價有很好的利潤。我們認為我們可以通過卸載來提高效率。同時，我們認為我們對我們的 MVNO 合作夥伴是增值的，並且由此產生的 900 萬客戶也是增值和有價值的，並且應該在很多方面真正被視為我們的 MVNO 合作夥伴的客戶。

But that's a shared relationship and -- but the net of all of that is that we have an opportunity at the pricing that we have to continue to grow the business, and that pricing is really valuable relative to the price in the marketplace that those products are currently being offered by our competitors. And at the prices we're offering it now, we have an opportunity to create great value for us through time and to have an improving margin through time as well. But even without an improving margin, it's still a great value.

但這是一種共同的關係，而且——但所有這一切的最終結果是，我們有機會獲得我們必須繼續發展業務的定價機會，而且相對於這些產品在市場上的價格而言，定價確實很有價值目前由我們的競爭對手提供。以我們現在提供的價格，我們有機會隨著時間的推移為我們創造巨大的價值，並隨著時間的推移提高利潤率。但即使沒有提高利潤率，它仍然是一個很大的價值。

So we're in a pretty good place in terms of our mobile business and that we have lots of opportunity. We have a fully penetrated marketplace, and we have a very small share of it, and we're growing rapidly.

因此，就我們的移動業務而言，我們處於一個相當不錯的位置，而且我們有很多機會。我們有一個完全滲透的市場，我們只佔很小的份額，而且我們正在快速增長。

With regard to the overall competitive environment, our churn is extremely low. And activity levels in the marketplace are the biggest competitive -- biggest impact on our growth rates relative to historic growth rates. The fiber competition that we have is typical. If you go back to the second quarter of 2019 and look at fiber growth, it's not much different, although the footprint's bigger. And there is a new fixed wireless competitor. It's actually relatively small. It's not the major component of our quarterly performance, but it is a factor.

就整體競爭環境而言，我們的流失率極低。市場上的活動水平是最具競爭力的——相對於歷史增長率，對我們的增長率影響最大。我們的纖維競爭是典型的。如果你回到 2019 年第二季度，看看纖維的增長情況，它並沒有太大的不同，儘管足跡更大。還有一個新的固定無線競爭對手。它實際上是相對較小的。這不是我們季度業績的主要組成部分，但它是一個因素。

If you look at the numbers that the fixed wireless competitors say they're taking from cable and proportionately look at that across our footprint, if you do the math, it's not the major driver of the change in second quarter '19 versus second quarter of 2022. What's the major driver is the activity levels.

如果您查看固定無線競爭對手說他們從電纜中獲取的數字，並按比例查看我們的足跡，如果您進行數學計算，這並不是 19 年第二季度與 20 年第二季度相比發生變化的主要驅動力2022. 主要驅動因素是活動水平。

But also, there are other factors that are -- RDOF construction is beginning to ramp up. So that's an opportunity for us. Housing occupancy and new construction is lower because of supply chain issues. So that, I think, will get fixed in time, but it's an issue affecting growth at the moment. And so we're pretty optimistic, relatively speaking, that as the post-pandemic market activity levels return and normalize, that our share of broadband growth will rise. And we're pretty optimistic that our mobile business is highly accretive and a huge opportunity for us going forward.

但是，還有其他因素 - RDOF 建設開始加速。所以這對我們來說是一個機會。由於供應鏈問題，住房入住率和新建築率較低。所以，我認為，會及時得到解決，但目前這是一個影響增長的問題。因此，相對而言，我們相當樂觀地認為，隨著大流行後市場活動水平的恢復和正常化，我們在寬帶增長中的份額將會上升。我們非常樂觀地認為，我們的移動業務具有很高的增值性，對我們來說是一個巨大的發展機遇。

Our next question will come from Vijay Jayant with Evercore.

我們的下一個問題將來自 Evercore 的 Vijay Jayant。

A couple from me. One, really move churn is a phenomenon that is sort of new to us and what it sort of means for subs. Can you sort of help us understand, is your share of the gross add pool higher than the share of moveouts that have your service? I think it needs to be for low move activity to be negative for net adds. And if that's the case, how has that sort of shifted over time?

我的一對。一，真正的移動流失對我們來說是一種新現象，它對潛艇意味著什麼。您能幫我們理解一下，您在總添加池中的份額是否高於提供您服務的搬遷份額？我認為對於淨增加量來說，低移動活動必須是負面的。如果是這樣的話，隨著時間的推移，這種情況發生了怎樣的變化？

And obviously, you announced that you've increased your speeds by about 100 megabits for your service, but it was not on the upstream. Can you just talk about the importance of upstream? Obviously, the fiber guys keep talking about that being a well advantage for them and how that's impacted the service so far?

顯然，您宣布您的服務速度提高了大約 100 兆比特，但它不在上游。你能談談上游的重要性嗎？顯然，光纖人員一直在談論這對他們來說是一個很好的優勢，以及到目前為止這對服務有何影響？

Vijay, can you clarify on your first question a little bit more? I didn't fully understand what you meant by the mover flow? This is Chris.

維杰，你能再澄清一下你的第一個問題嗎？我沒有完全理解你所說的移動流是什麼意思？這是克里斯。

So your share of the gross add pool, is that higher than your share of moveouts that have your service. So given move churn as a factor. For that to -- needs to be for the low -- it needs to be for low move activity to be a negative for net adds, I think. So I'm just trying to understand like this move churn phenomena and people moving in and out, how that sort of impacts the gross add opportunity?

因此，您在總添加池中的份額高於您提供服務的搬遷份額。因此，考慮到移動流失是一個因素。我認為，為此 - 需要低 - 它需要低移動活動對淨增加不利。所以我只是想了解像這樣的移動流失現象和人們進出，這對總增加機會有何影響？

Yes, I think the way I would say -- what I think you're saying is we're a net share taker when there's a toss-up. And there's more toss-ups in -- when people are moving. And so therefore, our gross adds out of moves is higher than -- of all moves is higher than our disconnect rate of all moves. That's what you're saying.

是的，我想我會說的方式——我想你所說的是，當有一個折騰時，我們是一個淨份額接受者。當人們移動時，還有更多的折騰。因此，我們的移動總數高於所有移動的總增加率高於我們所有移動的斷開率。這就是你所說的。

And we're still a net share taker. You're in a Q2 where move activity remains well below pre-pandemic levels, nonpay churn well below pre-pandemic levels. We also saw the return of seasonality in college markets that didn't occur last year. So we expect to see those gross additions come back in August and September. So it was a seasonal Q2 where you had low move non-pay and our lowest still ever voluntary churn when you exclude this EBB impact. And so without that activity, I think what you're asking is if we were in a normalized environment, are we still in that share taker, and the answer is yes.

而且我們仍然是淨股票接受者。您處於第二季度，搬遷活動仍遠低於大流行前的水平，無薪流失率遠低於大流行前的水平。我們還看到了去年沒有出現的大學市場的季節性回歸。因此，我們預計這些總增加量會在 8 月和 9 月恢復。因此，這是一個季節性的第二季度，當您排除這種 EBB 影響時，您的未付工資和我們有史以來最低的自願流失率。因此，如果沒有這項活動，我認為您要問的是我們是否處於正常化的環境中，我們是否仍然處於共享接受者中，答案是肯定的。

That's our expectation. With regard to downstreams and upstreams, usage is still significant. 14:1 downstream versus upstream. And so from a practical point of view, our products are appropriate. We think, over the longer term, upstream use will continue, but it isn't actually growing faster than the downstream use at the moment.

這是我們的期望。關於下游和上游，使用量仍然很大。 14:1 下游與上游。所以從實用的角度來看，我們的產品是合適的。我們認為，從長遠來看，上游使用將繼續，但目前它實際上並沒有比下游使用增長更快。

Our next question will come from Craig Moffett with MoffettNathanson.

我們的下一個問題將來自 Craig Moffett 和 MoffettNathanson。

I wonder if you could just talk a little bit more about the broadband growth equation going forward, what you expect from broadband ARPU and -- going forward and then how much you think that with RDOF and the early state level Jobs Act awards you've gotten, how much you think you can grow broadband homes passed, and so just how you think about the sort of equation for total broadband growth?

我想知道你是否可以多談談未來的寬帶增長方程，你對寬帶 ARPU 的期望，以及你對 RDOF 和早期州級就業法案獎項的看法得到了，你認為你可以增加多少寬帶家庭，那麼你如何看待寬帶總增長的方程式？

And then separately, could you just comment on the degree to which you think you can offload wireless traffic? I think you called out your CBRS buildout for the first time in today's materials. What level of traffic do you think you can actually offload onto that network?

然後另外，您能否評論一下您認為可以卸載無線流量的程度？我認為你在今天的材料中第一次提到了你的 CBRS 擴建。您認為您實際上可以將什麼級別的流量卸載到該網絡上？

In terms of broadband opportunities in rural areas, we've won about 1.5 million passing so far in the RDOF program and the various state programs. There's a lot of bids that we have outstanding at the state level. And there's a $42 billion fund coming next year, which is a huge amount of money, which will allow for additional construction, which we hope to bid on and be successful with.

在農村地區的寬帶機會方面，到目前為止，我們已經在 RDOF 計劃和各種州計劃中贏得了大約 150 萬通行證。我們在州一級有很多未完成的投標。明年還有一個 420 億美元的基金，這是一筆巨款，將允許進行額外的建設，我們希望能夠競標並成功。

We haven't actually begun to offload on the CBRS yet in a commercial way. But it's interesting, our WiFi-first strategy in our mobile relationship with our customers allows significant offload of mobile traffic onto the WiFi network. So when you put those 2 things together, the success we're having in a managed WiFi first environment and the potential success of CBRS, that's what I was saying before, we have a good relationship in our MVNO today with good volume-based pricing and significant margins and an opportunity if we're continuously successful to make that even better by moving some of the traffic onto -- additional traffic on to WiFi and onto our own 5G CBRS network. So it's a good situation that can get a lot better.

我們實際上還沒有開始以商業方式卸載 CBRS。但有趣的是，我們與客戶的移動關係中的 WiFi 優先策略允許將移動流量大量卸載到 WiFi 網絡上。因此，當您將這兩件事放在一起時，我們在託管 WiFi 優先環境中取得的成功以及 CBRS 的潛在成功，這就是我之前所說的，我們今天在 MVNO 中建立了良好的關係，並具有良好的基於數量的定價如果我們能夠通過將部分流量轉移到 WiFi 和我們自己的 5G CBRS 網絡上來持續成功地使這一點變得更好，那麼我們將獲得巨大的利潤和機會。所以這是一個很好的情況，可以變得更好。

Yes. Craig, on the broadband growth, I'd just add that similar to what we were talking about with Vijay, the market transaction volume eventually is going to pick up and so our Internet net adds will pick up again. We're confident in that. And our recipe for broadband growth has always been about being competitive and price competitive in the marketplace. And we've had new entrants and overbuild for many, many years. So when you asked the question about ARPU, I assume it relates a little bit to competitive. And I don't see a major change there in terms of our strategy and how we go to market or how we need to go to market.

是的。克雷格，關於寬帶增長，我只想補充一點，就像我們與 Vijay 談論的一樣，市場交易量最終會回升，因此我們的互聯網網絡增長將再次回升。我們對此充滿信心。我們的寬帶增長秘訣一直是在市場上具有競爭力和價格競爭力。多年來，我們已經有新進入者和過度建設。所以當你問到關於 ARPU 的問題時，我認為它與競爭有一點關係。在我們的戰略以及我們如何進入市場或我們需要如何進入市場方面，我認為那裡沒有重大變化。

In fact, I would argue because of the mobile product and the converged mobile product that Tom was talking about and the ability to put these together and that we can save customers money and significant dollars, that has both good volume and ARPU impacts for broadband over time. So I think the outlook is still very, very strong.

事實上，我會爭論是因為 Tom 所說的移動產品和融合移動產品，以及將它們組合在一起的能力，我們可以為客戶節省金錢和大量資金，這對寬帶的數量和 ARPU 都有很好的影響。時間。所以我認為前景仍然非常非常強勁。

Our next question will come from Doug Mitchelson with Crédit Suisse.

我們的下一個問題將來自瑞士信貸的 Doug Mitchelson。

A couple of questions. One, just curious, based on your comment about the test on DOCSIS 4.0, what percent of your footprint is covered at plus 4? And when do you think that equipment will be ready for prime time? And then I guess, Tom, but maybe just a jump ball, I'm just curious when we think about stressing the consumer whether inflation impact on their wallets are ultimately Fed interest rate increases impact on the economy and overall consumer spending, where would you expect to see any pressures from the consumer in your business first? Have you seen anything so far? And where would you expect to see it?

幾個問題。一，只是好奇，根據您對 DOCSIS 4.0 測試的評論，您的足跡在 plus 4 時覆蓋了多少百分比？你認為這些設備什麼時候可以準備好迎接黃金時段？然後我想，湯姆，但也許只是一個跳球，當我們考慮向消費者強調通脹對他們錢包的影響是否最終是美聯儲加息對經濟和整體消費者支出的影響時，我只是好奇，你會在哪裡期望首先在您的業務中看到來自消費者的任何壓力？到目前為止你有看到什麼嗎？你希望在哪裡看到它？

And I'm just curious if you reflect back, you think about the great recession and consumer wallets got tighter and there was some readdressing of pay TV spending and tiering. Do you see across your businesses, any risk of tiering down? And how would you manage against that? So I know not a fun question, but I'm just curious how you think about that given your history?

我只是好奇你是否回想一下，你認為大蕭條和消費者錢包變得更緊，付費電視支出和分層有一些重新處理。您是否在您的業務中看到分層的風險？你將如何應對呢？所以我不知道一個有趣的問題，但我只是好奇你如何看待你的歷史？

Our doom and gloom question. Well, okay. In terms of DOCSIS 4.0, it hasn't been deployed. Our footprint right now is DOCSIS 3.1 fully. So we have 1 gig everywhere. The DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade opportunity is still significant, meaning we haven't gotten everything out of DOCSIS 3.1 by any means in terms of its full capacity. It can give us multi-gigabit speeds downstream and gigabit symmetrical speeds upstream. And so it's a quite robust infrastructure that's already been deployed. And the CPE for that has already been deployed.

我們的厄運和悲觀問題。哦，那好吧。就 DOCSIS 4.0 而言，尚未部署。我們現在的足跡完全是 DOCSIS 3.1。所以我們到處都有 1 場演出。 DOCSIS 3.1 的升級機會仍然很重要，這意味著我們還沒有以任何方式從 DOCSIS 3.1 中獲得全部功能。它可以為我們提供多千兆的下行速度和千兆對稱的上行速度。因此，這是一個已經部署的非常強大的基礎架構。並且已經部署了 CPE。

DOCSIS 4.0 is a complete new electronic drop-in and a whole new modulation scheme and so requires new CPE. And it is not being deployed yet, but it's in the lab and the specs have been written, and it's another technology upgrade that will allow us to get to very high speeds without having to replace our network, which means that you can do that in a really capitally efficient way, which means that ultimately, you have pricing opportunities that others don't. And that's the value of DOCSIS 4.0.

DOCSIS 4.0 是一種全新的電子插件和全新的調製方案，因此需要新的 CPE。它還沒有被部署，但它在實驗室中並且已經編寫了規範，這是另一項技術升級，可以讓我們在無需更換網絡的情況下達到非常高的速度，這意味著你可以在一種真正具有資本效率的方式，這意味著您最終擁有其他人沒有的定價機會。這就是 DOCSIS 4.0 的價值所在。

With regard to inflation and its impact on macroeconomic forces on us, look, I mean, I think we have access to capital and at good prices. I think that inflation in some ways, particularly if it's temporary, has some market advantages for us. As consumers are stressed, the value of our products become more clear in the consumer's mind. If you look at how much consumers are spending on telecom products and our share of those telecom products and what we can do with pricing for those telecom products, I think a stressed consumer will find our products even more attractive.

關於通貨膨脹及其對我們宏觀經濟力量的影響，看，我的意思是，我認為我們可以以良好的價格獲得資本。我認為通貨膨脹在某些方面，特別是如果它是暫時的，對我們有一些市場優勢。隨著消費者的壓力，我們產品的價值在消費者心中變得更加清晰。如果你看看消費者在電信產品上的花費、我們在這些電信產品中的份額以及我們可以對這些電信產品的定價做些什麼，我認為壓力大的消費者會發現我們的產品更具吸引力。

So I mean, yes, we'll have to deal with costs. But it's interesting when you look at our overall business and look at our cost structures, we're getting more efficient. And our opportunity to serve and our cost to serve continues to improve. And if we drive more customers, that actually improves on a per customer basis. So we can operate in a difficult economic environment, and we can -- and make our products valuable to consumers. So I'm -- I'd rather operate in a normal environment, but I think we have pretty good assets and pretty good opportunities to be successful.

所以我的意思是，是的，我們將不得不處理成本問題。但有趣的是，當您查看我們的整體業務並查看我們的成本結構時，我們的效率正在提高。我們的服務機會和服務成本也在不斷提高。如果我們吸引更多客戶，這實際上會在每個客戶的基礎上有所改善。因此，我們可以在困難的經濟環境中運營，我們可以——並使我們的產品對消費者有價值。所以我 - 我寧願在正常的環境中運營，但我認為我們擁有非常好的資產和非常好的成功機會。

The thing that I would add to that, we've been big proponents on the affordability side. And as part of that, we are a larger participant in the affordable connectivity program than many of the other -- well, to the best of our knowledge, all of the other wireline providers. And we've done a lot to try to push the program to our existing subscribers so not as an acquisition program that is a way to alleviate some of the stress on the consumer while it's in our customer base. And I think that, that also puts us in a better position than we would have been in 2008 to retain customers and to do so by providing value to them in a more challenged environment or where the wallet is more challenged.

我要補充的是，我們一直是可負擔性方面的大支持者。作為其中的一部分，我們是負擔得起的連接計劃的更大參與者，而不是其他許多 - 好吧，據我們所知，所有其他有線提供商。我們已經做了很多工作來嘗試將該計劃推向我們現有的訂戶，而不是作為一種收購計劃來減輕我們客戶群中消費者的一些壓力。而且我認為，與 2008 年相比，這也使我們處於更好的位置來留住客戶，並通過在更具挑戰性的環境或錢包受到更大挑戰的情況下為他們提供價值來做到這一點。

I do think video would be more challenged in a downturn or an inflationary environment than other products, but the margins are relatively -- have become smaller in that part of our business. So the net of it all is, I think it's somewhat of a market opportunity, but it's -- there will be stress on video.

我確實認為，在經濟低迷或通貨膨脹的環境中，視頻會比其他產品面臨更大的挑戰，但利潤率相對——在我們業務的這一部分中變得更小了。所以這一切的真相是，我認為這在某種程度上是一個市場機會，但它是——視頻會有壓力。

Yes. And just a final clarification, Tom. At 4 amplifiers for DOCSIS 4.0, I get that it will be a while before it arrives. Would that cover the vast majority of your network? Or would you be invested in seeing 6 amplifiers?

是的。最後澄清一下，湯姆。在 DOCSIS 4.0 的 4 個放大器上，我知道它還需要一段時間才能到達。這會覆蓋您網絡的絕大部分嗎？或者你會投資看 6 個放大器嗎？

Doug, I think the point of the example around 4 amplifiers is that the technology can work in an amplifier cascade that would allow it to cover a large portion of our network without having to move the nodes closer to the customers necessarily. So I think its performance in that environment in the lab at this point is a strong example of how it is that we can make it capital efficient when we deploy it down the road.

Doug，我認為圍繞 4 個放大器的示例的要點是，該技術可以在放大器級聯中工作，這將允許它覆蓋我們網絡的大部分，而不必將節點移動到離客戶更近的地方。因此，我認為此時它在實驗室環境中的表現是一個很好的例子，說明當我們在路上部署它時，我們可以如何使其具有資本效率。

Yes, it could get better.

是的，它可以變得更好。

It could get better, yes.

它可以變得更好，是的。

And it probably will. That would be our expectation and our experience with these kind of platforms.

它可能會。這將是我們對這類平台的期望和經驗。

Our next question will come from Jonathan Chaplin with New Street.

我們的下一個問題將來自新街的喬納森卓別林。

Two quick ones, if I may. First, it seems like wireless is becoming an increasingly important piece of the business. And one of the pieces that maybe investors don't understand so well is how it contributes to EBITDA because, on an aggregate basis, it's still a drag. Can you give us some idea of what the incremental margin is on a wireless side, what the contribution to EBITDA per sub is from wireless (inaudible) sub? And then on broadband, can you give us a sense of sort of how you saw trends progress as you came out of June into July?

兩個快速的，如果可以的話。首先，無線似乎正在成為業務中越來越重要的一部分。投資者可能不太了解的部分之一是它對 EBITDA 的貢獻，因為從總體上看，它仍然是一個拖累。您能否告訴我們無線方面的增量利潤是多少，無線（聽不清）子對每個子的 EBITDA 的貢獻是多少？然後在寬帶方面，您能否告訴我們您從 6 月到 7 月如何看待趨勢的進展？

So Jonathan, I'll take this one. On the wireless, the -- it is increasingly important, and I don't think it's well understood by the marketplace. It has a reported EBITDA loss right now, but that's entirely driven by subscriber acquisition cost for sales and marketing. The EBITDA for wireless passed the positive point really some time ago. I don't remember what quarter, but it's probably a year plus.

所以喬納森，我會接受這個。在無線方面，它越來越重要，我認為市場對它的理解並不好。它目前報告了 EBITDA 虧損，但這完全是由銷售和營銷的訂戶獲取成本驅動的。無線的 EBITDA 確實在不久前通過了積極點。我不記得是哪個季度，但可能是一年多。

And so it's an attractive product, and we're growing it fast, and I -- we're not going to get into margin analysis or forecast. But I will tell you that the -- everything that I've ever looked at that people publish on the topic grossly underestimates our margin that's inherent inside that business and what we can do with it to drive the business overall, including broadband net additions. So it's powerful. I don't think it's very well understood, and that's okay for now. The second question was what, was on volume?

所以它是一個有吸引力的產品，我們正在快速增長它，我 - 我們不會進入利潤分析或預測。但我會告訴你，我所看到的人們在該主題上發布的所有內容都嚴重低估了我們在該業務中固有的利潤率，以及我們可以用它來推動整體業務，包括寬帶淨增加。所以它很強大。我認為它不是很好理解，現在沒關係。第二個問題是什麼，音量？

June, July volume.

六月、七月卷。

On volume, yes.

在音量上，是的。

Yes. Look, that's a tough question because you've got a seasonal disconnect period that goes through June and July. I -- you've heard me mention earlier that we have had a more return to seasonal disconnects in our college markets, which actually bodes well for August and September, assuming that comes back. I would say, that our medium and long-term confidence is very high, we'll be back, market will return with net add activity. Short term, it's just difficult to see with volume and July is a very difficult month to go ask that question. So we'll see.

是的。看，這是一個棘手的問題，因為你有一個季節性的斷開期，貫穿 6 月和 7 月。我——你之前聽我提到過，我們的大學市場更多地恢復了季節性脫節，這實際上預示著 8 月和 9 月的好兆頭，假設這種情況回來了。我想說，我們的中長期信心非常高，我們會回來的，市場會隨著淨增加活動而回歸。短期而言，很難看到成交量，而 7 月是一個非常難以提出這個問題的月份。所以我們拭目以待。

And just one other comment on wireless and its impact, just we are a wireless company. And we have 450 million wireless devices connected to our network which is when you -- so you think about -- when you think about our new video strategy, our new joint venture with Xumo and our ability to connect video customers in the future wirelessly, all of our products would be wirelessly delivered.

只是關於無線及其影響的另一個評論，只是我們是一家無線公司。我們有 4.5 億個無線設備連接到我們的網絡，當您考慮我們的新視頻戰略、我們與 Xumo 的新合資企業以及我們未來以無線方式連接視頻客戶的能力時，我們所有的產品都將通過無線方式交付。

Our next question will come from Bryan Kraft with Deutsche Bank.

我們的下一個問題將來自德意志銀行的 Bryan Kraft。

I was wondering if I could ask you how you're thinking these days about potential acquisitions in the cable business or even other types of assets, whether it's business services or wireless? And maybe in cable specifically, if you could talk about just how you would evaluate a potential deal today?

我想知道我是否可以問您這些天您如何看待有線電視業務甚至其他類型的資產（無論是商業服務還是無線）的潛在收購？也許在有線電視方面，如果你能談談你今天如何評估潛在交易？

Well, we've always said we love cable, which is why we've been buying our own stock back because we haven't been able to buy cable. And that it's a great business. And we think that the future of what these assets can do is significant and a huge opportunity. So nothing about our view on M&A has changed.

好吧，我們一直說我們喜歡有線電視，這就是為什麼我們一直在回購自己的股票，因為我們無法購買有線電視。這是一項偉大的事業。我們認為，這些資產的未來意義重大，也是一個巨大的機會。因此，我們對併購的看法沒有任何改變。

Okay. Go ahead, Jessica, sorry.

好的。繼續，傑西卡，對不起。

No. I mean, I will add to that, that obviously, it has to be cable at attractive prices that will be accretive to the shareholders in the long term. So we are always out there looking for and looking at cable assets, whether they be small cable assets or others. But ultimately, we do think it has to bring value to shareholders. And so we'll be prudent.

不。我的意思是，我要補充一點，很明顯，它必須是具有吸引力的價格的電纜，從長遠來看，這將增加股東的利益。因此，我們一直在尋找和關注有線電視資產，無論它們是小型有線電視資產還是其他資產。但最終，我們確實認為它必須為股東帶來價值。所以我們會很謹慎。

Our next question will come from Phil Cusick with JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題將來自摩根大通的 Phil Cusick。

I wonder if we can go back and talk about the progression of broadband through the quarter, and forgive me if this is just too much. In May, we talked about green shoots. And in mid-June, it looked like broadband would be slightly positive. I assume it's fair to say that June was worse than expected and the July is probably not trending well. I'm curious if June being worse is bigger seasonality in that type of market or was it worse in the other markets or the underlying business? And then second, if I can, sort of a big picture question. How much do you take competitive response into account when you price a product like wireless? As you price wireless at $30, Verizon responds with $25 broadband, and it seems to be cycling down. Is this really the situation you want to create? And do you think you have an advantage in that over time?

我想知道我們是否可以回過頭來談談本季度寬帶的進展情況，如果這太過分了，請原諒我。五月，我們談到了綠芽。而在 6 月中旬，寬帶看起來會略有積極。我認為可以公平地說 6 月份的情況比預期的要差，而 7 月份的趨勢可能並不好。我很好奇 6 月的惡化是否是該類型市場的更大季節性，還是其他市場或基礎業務的情況更糟？其次，如果可以的話，這是一個大問題。在為無線等產品定價時，您會在多大程度上考慮競爭反應？當您將無線定價為 30 美元時，Verizon 以 25 美元的寬帶作為回應，而且它似乎正在下降。這真的是你想要創造的情況嗎？隨著時間的推移，你認為你在這方面有優勢嗎？

So I'll start on that one. I think what you heard us in May and June talking about green shoots. We're talking about additional activity, which wasn't necessarily additional additions at that point. And in June, we did still at that point, expect to report total positive Internet adds, even though -- even with the headwind that was associated with the EBB to ACP transition. I don't think that there was a large deterioration in market conditions or performance in June after that time.

所以我將從那個開始。我想你在 5 月和 6 月聽到我們談論綠芽。我們談論的是額外的活動，當時不一定是額外的添加。並且在 6 月，我們仍然在那個時候，期望報告總的積極互聯網增加，即使 - 即使與 EBB 到 ACP 過渡相關的逆風。我不認為在那之後的 6 月份市場狀況或表現出現大幅惡化。

On a quarterly basis, net adds is an aggregate of more than 1 million connects offset by disconnects. And a very small movement in either side of that equation can lead to sort of small changes in what the ultimate outcome is in net adds, which ultimately to 20,000 or 25,000 subscribers is. So I think that our position on where activity has been through the quarter, it's not that different now from where it was before.

每季度，淨增加量總計超過 100 萬個連接被斷開連接所抵消。而這個等式兩邊的一個非常小的變動都可能導致最終結果的淨增加量發生微小的變化，最終達到 20,000 或 25,000 個訂閱者。因此，我認為我們對本季度活動的立場，現在與以前沒有太大不同。

I'll start off on the pricing and then I suspect Tom will chime in as well. The -- Phil, the question on competitive pricing, of course, we think about not only the moves that we're making but the secondary moves and the market responses. And our pricing for mobile is $29.99 when you take two lines or more. It's very simple. There's no taxes and fees. And so it's long as you have or take broadband of really any kind together with that product. Some of the other offers out in the marketplace mean that on a wireless product, you got to go spend $10, $20 more and then you can get discounted prices on broadband. So when you put the all-in package together, our all-in package of broadband plus wireless service is dramatically cheaper, taxes and fees included, and no upcharge on the core service required. It's really attractive.

我將從定價開始，然後我懷疑湯姆也會加入。 - Phil，關於競爭定價的問題，當然，我們不僅考慮我們正在採取的行動，而且考慮次要行動和市場反應。當您使用兩條或更多線路時，我們的移動定價為 29.99 美元。這很簡單。沒有稅費。因此，只要您擁有或將任何類型的寬帶與該產品一起使用。市場上的其他一些優惠意味著，在無線產品上，你必須多花 10 美元、20 美元，然後才能在寬帶上獲得折扣價。因此，當您將全包套餐放在一起時，我們的寬帶加無線服務全包套餐非常便宜，包括稅費，並且不需要對核心服務收取任何附加費。這真的很有吸引力。

So I think even with some of those responses in the marketplace, which may or may not be related to us, we can be very attractive and save customers thousands of dollars a year with a better product, integrated as a converged broadband product for years to come. The other big benefit is that we have the ability to offer mobile in 100% of our footprint. So we have 54 million passings. We have gigabit service everywhere we operate. We did not red line. We're fully upgraded. We have a path to multi-gig symmetrical services. And in addition to that, we have mobile everywhere we operate at a price point that is very, very competitive with a product that's actually not only the fastest-growing mobile, but the fastest mobile service in the country. If you put all that together, we feel pretty good about our competitive positioning long term.

所以我認為，即使市場上的一些反應可能與我們相關，也可能與我們無關，我們可以非常有吸引力並通過更好的產品每年為客戶節省數千美元，集成為融合寬帶產品多年來。另一大好處是我們有能力在 100% 的足跡中提供移動服務。所以我們有5400萬次傳球。我們在我們經營的任何地方都有千兆服務。我們沒有紅線。我們已經全面升級。我們有一條通往多千兆對稱服務的道路。除此之外，我們在我們運營的任何地方都有移動設備，其價格非常非常具有競爭力，該產品實際上不僅是增長最快的移動設備，而且是該國最快的移動服務。如果你把所有這些放在一起，我們對我們的長期競爭定位感到非常滿意。

Yes. And to your broader question, yes, we think about what it does to how competitors might price against us. And our view is that we can do the pricing we're doing and still be -- create extremely good value for customers and, at the same time, create an extremely good value for us. And the macro situation with regard to us is that we're underpenetrated. We have 4%, 5% of the mobile dollars in our marketplace. And when you just add up all the telecom spend, we have a very small piece of it. And so our opportunity is volume.

是的。對於您更廣泛的問題，是的，我們考慮它對競爭對手如何對我們定價。我們的觀點是，我們可以做我們正在做的定價並且仍然是——為客戶創造極好的價值，同時為我們創造極好的價值。就我們而言，宏觀情況是我們滲透不足。我們在我們的市場中擁有 4%、5% 的移動資金。當你把所有的電信支出加起來時，我們只佔很小的一部分。所以我們的機會就是數量。

You saw that even in the second quarter. So second quarter, seasonal quarter, low volume in the cable side across the entire market. And yet, we still have 344,000 net adds on mobile in a very low cable environment. I think that illustrates the opportunity. When the market comes back, Internet sales will go back up along with the market activity. But mobile in a strange way right now from a line's net adds perspective, it's depressed compared to what it could or should be in a normalized market. So we'll continue to grow.

你甚至在第二季度也看到了這一點。因此，第二季度，季節性季度，整個市場的電纜端低成交量。然而，在非常低的有線電視環境下，我們仍然有 344,000 的移動網絡淨添加量。我認為這說明了機會。當市場恢復時，互聯網銷售將隨著市場活動而回升。但是，從網絡的角度來看，移動設備現在以一種奇怪的方式增加了，與正常化市場中可能或應該出現的情況相比，它是令人沮喪的。所以我們會繼續成長。

Our next question will come from Peter Supino with Wolfe Research.

我們的下一個問題將來自 Wolfe Research 的 Peter Supino。

Two questions on pricing across 2 different products. First on mobile, Chris, I particularly appreciate your comments on the cost structure. And I'm aware that mobile has not historically sold at high rates to new broadband subscribers. And in context of a business with flagging gross adds, I wondered if there's an opportunity in the future to attach more mobile to gross adds and use it as a way to stimulate overall sales of your converged connectivity product. And then in parallel, on broadband pricing, I'd love to know your views on retail price increases at this point?

關於 2 種不同產品定價的兩個問題。首先是移動設備，克里斯，我特別感謝您對成本結構的評論。而且我知道移動設備在歷史上並未以高價出售給新的寬帶用戶。在總增加量下降的業務背景下，我想知道未來是否有機會將更多的移動設備附加到總增加量上，並將其用作刺激融合連接產品整體銷售的一種方式。同時，在寬帶定價方面，我很想知道您對此時零售價格上漲的看法？

So nothing to announce today, Peter, but clearly, we think a lot about mobile and its ability not only to attach to existing Internet customers which has been the predominant path so far, but as the market understands better our product, the fact that it is the fastest mobile product in the country and that it's real, that it really does save customers a lot of money, no contracts, no taxes, no fees, I do think there's a really powerful case that we can use to have mobile actually drive significant Internet net adds and particularly in the market with low volume to be able to kickstart some volume in the marketplace by using mobile to do just that.

所以今天沒有什麼要宣布的，彼得，但很明顯，我們對移動設備及其連接現有互聯網客戶的能力進行了很多思考，這一直是迄今為止的主要途徑，而且隨著市場對我們產品的更好理解，它是該國最快的移動產品，它是真實的，它確實為客戶節省了很多錢，沒有合同，沒有稅收，沒有費用，我確實認為有一個非常強大的案例可以用來讓移動真正驅動顯著的互聯網網絡增加，特別是在交易量較低的市場，能夠通過使用移動設備在市場上啟動一些交易量來做到這一點。

So we're constantly testing different concepts in the marketplace. Economically, it's a no-brainer and it makes a lot of sense, but it is a new package structure for educating customers to get them to think about buying a household service and an individual service together so that they can get those savings and they can get that better product, and that may take a little bit of time for us to find the right connection as well as to educate the marketplace. And then the second question, I should have made a note what the second question was on.

因此，我們不斷在市場上測試不同的概念。從經濟上講，這很容易，也很有意義，但它是一種新的包裝結構，用於教育客戶，讓他們考慮同時購買家庭服務和個人服務，這樣他們就可以節省這些錢，而且他們可以獲得更好的產品，我們可能需要一點時間才能找到正確的聯繫以及教育市場。然後是第二個問題，我應該記下第二個問題的內容。

Retail pricing.

零售定價。

Retail pricing for broadband?

寬帶零售價？

Yes.

是的。

Our goal has always been to have the best pricing in the marketplace. And to the extent that we can withstand some of the inflationary pressures and save customers lots of money with that converged product which includes both Internet as well as mobile, that's going to be our path. It doesn't mean that we're dogmatic about never taking rate increases when we need to. And so that issue is always available, but our preference has always been to be competitive and a value leader in the marketplace.

我們的目標一直是在市場上獲得最優惠的價格。在某種程度上，我們可以承受一些通貨膨脹壓力並通過包括互聯網和移動的融合產品為客戶節省大量資金，這將是我們的道路。這並不意味著我們教條主義地認為在需要時從不加息。所以這個問題總是可用的，但我們的偏好一直是在市場上具有競爭力和價值領導者。

Our final question will come from Kutgun Maral with RBC Capital Markets.

我們的最後一個問題將來自 RBC Capital Markets 的 Kutgun Maral。

A big picture one on broadband. The magnitude of the slowdown in subscriber growth has been fairly meaningful. A lot of the factors like low market activity, comping in the pandemic pull forward and competition are pretty well understood at this point. I know there's been the expectation that we'll get some normalization or stabilization with at least some of these issues, but it's just taking a bit longer than we would have hoped for.

寬帶上的一張大圖。用戶增長放緩的幅度相當大。在這一點上，許多因素，如市場活動低迷、大流行病的推進和競爭都已經很清楚了。我知道有人期望我們至少會在其中一些問題上獲得一些正常化或穩定化，但這只是比我們希望的要長一點。

So I guess with that, is there a sense of greater urgency to reaccelerate that subscriber growth? And based on an answer earlier, it seems like you're satisfied with the current retail playbook. But is there a desire to rethink things like accelerating network investments, the rural build leaning even more into mobile or anything else? Or is the view that the long-term opportunity remains intact and we just need to stay the course and cycle through the current dynamics?

所以我猜想，是否有一種更大的緊迫感來重新加速用戶增長？根據之前的回答，您似乎對當前的零售手冊感到滿意。但是是否有重新思考加速網絡投資、農村建設更傾向於移動或其他任何事情的願望？還是認為長期機會保持不變，我們只需要堅持到底並在當前動態中循環？

I think both of those statements are correct, which is the long term remains intact, and in theory, we could just wait it out. But I think you heard -- and I actually like the way that you described the entire situation. So the long-term outlook is very good. We could wait it out. That's not what we're doing. We're accelerating everywhere. We're again on rural buildout to add to the growth. We're taking a look at mobile opportunities, which I just mentioned on the prior question to Peter. And we're serious about putting multi-gig symmetrical everywhere we operate. And so I think both barbells of what you described are actually true.

我認為這兩種說法都是正確的，即長期保持不變，理論上，我們可以等待。但我想你聽到了——實際上我喜歡你描述整個情況的方式。所以長期前景非常好。我們可以等一下。這不是我們正在做的。我們到處都在加速。我們再次進行農村建設以增加增長。我們正在研究移動機會，我剛剛在對 Peter 的上一個問題中提到了這一點。我們非常重視在我們運營的任何地方都放置多演出對稱。所以我認為你描述的兩個槓鈴都是真的。

And there's some execution opportunity too.

還有一些執行機會。

Yes.

是的。

The pandemic created employment issues for us and operational issues for us that have an impact on our ability to generate orders as well. And so we're aggressively trying to improve our ability to execute.

大流行給我們帶來了就業問題，也給我們帶來了運營問題，這也影響了我們產生訂單的能力。因此，我們正在積極嘗試提高我們的執行能力。

So if you think about the long term, it ties to that too. The -- so we have the ability -- Craig asked about broadband and ARPU and RDOF, and I talked about that. We talked about mobile convergence and how that could kick start. The thing that we haven't talked about is the digitization of our service platform really creates a long-term path to not only enhance customer satisfaction the way they interact with us, but to reduce our cost to serve per customer relationship in a very material way. And as good as that's been over the past few years, it's really the very tip of the iceberg in terms of what we can do with that over time, which has a double impact of increasing customer satisfaction, letting them deal with us the way that they want to, reducing the number of interactions and service issues, getting in front of impairments before the customer even knows they exist. And when they interact with us the way they want, oftentimes, that's without a physical transaction, which has benefits on both sides, both to the customer as well as to our P&L.

因此，如果您考慮長期，它也與此相關。 - 所以我們有能力 - 克雷格詢問了寬帶、ARPU 和 RDOF，我談到了這一點。我們討論了移動融合以及如何開始。我們還沒有談到的是，我們的服務平台的數字化確實創造了一條長期的道路，不僅可以提高客戶與我們互動的方式的滿意度，還可以降低我們為每個客戶關係提供服務的成本。方法。儘管過去幾年的情況很好，但隨著時間的推移，我們可以用它做些什麼，這確實是冰山一角，它具有提高客戶滿意度的雙重影響，讓他們以這樣的方式與我們打交道他們希望減少交互和服務問題的數量，甚至在客戶知道它們存在之前就可以解決這些問題。當他們以他們想要的方式與我們互動時，通常無需進行實物交易，這對雙方都有好處，對客戶和我們的損益都有好處。

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to Stefan Anninger. Please go ahead.

目前沒有其他問題。我現在將電話轉回給 Stefan Anninger。請繼續。

Thanks, everyone, and we will see you next quarter.

謝謝大家，我們下個季度見。

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's event. You may now disconnect.

謝謝你們，女士們，先生們。今天的活動到此結束。您現在可以斷開連接。