Charter Communications Inc (CHTR) 2025 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Hello, and welcome to Charter Communications third quarter 2025 investor conference call. (Operator Instructions). Also, as a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time.

大家好，歡迎參加Charter Communications 2025年第三季投資人電話會議。（操作說明）另外提醒大家，本次會議將在今天進行錄製。如有任何異議，請立即斷開連接。

I will now turn the call over to Stefan Anninger.

現在我將把電話轉給斯特凡·安寧格。

Thanks, Leila, and welcome, everyone. The presentation that accompanies this call can be found on our website, ir.charter.com. I would like to remind you that there are a number of risk factors and other cautionary statements contained in our SEC filings, and 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, which 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.

謝謝萊拉，也歡迎各位。本次電話會議的簡報可在我們的網站ir.charter.com上找到。我想提醒各位，我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中包含一些風險因素和其他警示性聲明，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，這些陳述受到風險和不確定性的影響，可能導致實際結果與歷史或預期結果有所不同。任何前瞻性陳述僅反映管理層目前的觀點，Charter 不承擔修改或更新此類陳述的義務。

As a reminder, all growth rates noted on this call and in the presentation are calculated on a year over year basis, unless otherwise specified. On today's call, we have Chris Winfrey, our President and CEO; and Jessica Fischer, our CFO.

再次提醒，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以年比計算。今天的電話會議上，我們有總裁兼執行長克里斯·溫弗瑞，以及財務長傑西卡·費雪。

With that, let's turn the call over to Chris.

那麼，讓我們把電話交給克里斯吧。

Thanks, Stefan. During the third quarter, we remained the fastest-growing mobile provider in the United States. We added nearly 500,000 Spectrum Mobile lines in the quarter and 2 million lines over the last 12 months, over 20% growth. Our video customer losses continued to improve to 70,000, less than one-fourth of last year's third quarter losses. That was driven by significant product improvements over the past two years. In Internet, competition for new customers remains high, and our third quarter Internet customer losses were in line with last year.

謝謝你，斯特凡。第三季度，我們仍然是美國成長最快的行動營運商。本季我們新增了近 50 萬條 Spectrum Mobile 線路，過去 12 個月新增了 200 萬條線路，成長超過 20%。我們的視訊用戶流失情況持續改善，降至 7 萬，不到去年第三季流失量的四分之一。這主要得益於過去兩年產品的顯著改進。在網路領域，爭取新客戶的競爭依然激烈，我們第三季的網路客戶流失情況與去年同期持平。

Revenue was down about 1% year over year, driven by customer losses and a challenging political advertising comparison. Third quarter EBITDA declined by 1.5% year over year, essentially flat when excluding advertising. The operating environment for new sales, in particular, Internet continues to reflect low move rates and higher mobile substitution, along with both expanded cellphone Internet competition and fiber overlap growth similar to earlier in the year. Collectively, that drove third quarter Internet gross adds lower year over year. Churn improved year over year, as to be expected given last year's ACP-related impacts, and Internet churn, including nonpaid churn, remains at historically low levels.

受客戶流失和政治廣告市場競爭激烈的影響，營收年減約 1%。第三季 EBITDA 年減 1.5%，若不計廣告費用，則基本持平。新銷售的經營環境，特別是網路銷售，繼續反映出較低的用戶遷移率和較高的行動網路替代率，以及與今年稍早類似的手機網路競爭加劇和光纖重疊成長。整體而言，這些因素導致第三季網路新增用戶總數較去年同期下降。正如預期的那樣，考慮到去年與 ACP 相關的影響，客戶流失率同比有所改善，而網路客戶流失率（包括非付費客戶流失）仍處於歷史低點。

From a medium and long-term growth perspective, we know we have the best network, fully capable of where we operate with increasing demand for bandwidth, and we have great products to help us win and the ability to save customers hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. In the short term, with lower selling opportunities and new forms of competition, small changes in sales or churn have an outsized impact on Internet net gains. We're leaving no stone unturned to drive customer and financial growth, including improved customer perception of our brand and products, growing mobile profitability and driving streaming video growth, all with the focus to drive connectivity revenue growth. We're also improving our long-term cost profile through our service and technology investments, including AI.

從中長期成長的角度來看，我們知道我們擁有最好的網絡，完全能夠滿足我們營運所在地區不斷增長的頻寬需求，我們擁有優秀的產品來幫助我們贏得市場，並能夠每年為客戶節省數百甚至數千美元。短期內，由於銷售機會減少和新的競爭形式出現，銷售額或客戶流失率的微小變化都會對網路淨收益產生巨大的影響。我們正在竭盡全力推動客戶和財務成長，包括提高客戶對我們品牌和產品的認知度、提高行動獲利能力和推動串流影片成長，所有這些都是為了推動連結收入成長。我們也透過對服務和技術（包括人工智慧）的投資來改善我們的長期成本狀況。

Beginning with go-to-market, we remain focused on better ways to message our products and value savings, including our marketing and channel mix and testing new offers within our national pricing and packaging structure. The new pricing and packaging we launched in September of last year produces a higher number of total products sold per connect, a gig attach rate that has nearly doubled, more mobile lines per customer connect, and a video sell-in rate that has improved substantially with lower customer churn from bundling. Despite lower selling opportunities given the macro backdrop, our yield on sales opportunities has steadily increased and various new offer expressions in our marketing mix are designed to find audience and drive more traffic to digital and traditional sales channels, saving customers money without sacrificing our revenue or cash flow potential at the household level.

從行銷開始，我們將繼續專注於更好地宣傳我們的產品和節省成本，包括我們的行銷和通路組合，以及在我們全國定價和包裝結構中測試新的優惠。我們去年 9 月推出的新定價和包裝方案，使得每次連接售出的產品總數更高，千兆附加率幾乎翻了一番，每個客戶連接擁有的移動線路更多，視頻銷售率也大幅提高，捆綁銷售降低了客戶流失率。儘管宏觀經濟狀況不利，銷售機會減少，但我們的銷售機會收益率穩步上升，我們在行銷組合中推出的各種新優惠形式旨在尋找受眾，並將更多流量引導至數位和傳統銷售管道，在不犧牲我們在家庭層面的收入或現金流潛力的前提下，為客戶節省資金。

Our marketing efforts, combined with our improving products, promotional and retail pricing and customer service have resulted in significant improvement in consumer perception scores over the past year. Our service is backed by the investment in our 100% US-based sales and service workforce, increasing tenure of those employees and quality for better pay, benefits and technology investment, coupled with our market-leading and industry-first customer commitment across our wireline and wireless services, which we back with service credits, including for outages, or if we can't be at your home or business the same day for service or at least next day for installation.

過去一年，我們的行銷努力，加上我們不斷改進的產品、促銷和零售定價以及客戶服務，使得消費者感知評分顯著提高。我們的服務以對 100% 美國本土銷售和服務人員的投資為後盾，透過提高員工的任期和質量，提供更高的薪酬、福利和技術投資，以及我們在有線和無線服務領域市場領先、行業首創的客戶承諾為後盾，我們提供服務積分作為保障，包括服務中斷，或者如果我們無法在當天為您提供服務，或者至少在第二天為您提供服務，或者至少在第二天安裝服務。

For service visits, we're moving our internal standard to arrive at your doorstep within 2 hours of the service call, and we're now achieving that a large percentage of the time, all of which is helping to drive improved brand perception. In mobile, our broadband growth continues. And for the last six quarters, the majority of our line net adds have come from Unlimited Plus lines, which offer higher customer value and drive lower churn. We've also been selling more mobile lines per connect and additional lines to existing mobile households. Convergence reduces Internet churn and higher mobile lines per customer benefits churn further.

對於上門服務，我們正在提高內部標準，爭取在接到服務電話後 2 小時內到達您家門口，現在我們大部分時間都能做到這一點，所有這些都有助於提升品牌形象。在行動領域，我們的寬頻業務持續成長。在過去的六個季度裡，我們新增用戶的大部分都來自無限流量套餐，這些套餐能為客戶帶來更高的價值，並降低客戶流失率。我們還提高了每個連接點的行動線路銷量，並為現有行動用戶家庭增加了線路數量。融合降低了網路用戶流失率，而每位客戶擁有的行動線路數量增加則進一步降低了用戶流失率。

Increasingly, the line between mobile and wireline connectivity is being blurred as our customers connect seamlessly between the two networks. Over the last 12 months, our total connectivity revenue grew by about 4%, and 21% of our Internet customers are now converged, meaning they buy both our mobile and Internet products. The profitability of our converged customers continues to grow. And we don't treat mobile as a separate product, but if we did, slide 7 shows our fully loaded mobile service margin, excluding acquisition, and that's without the significant churn benefit to Internet.

隨著我們的客戶在行動網路和有線網路之間無縫連接，行動網路和有線網路之間的界線正變得越來越模糊。在過去的 12 個月裡，我們的總連線收入成長了約 4%，目前有 21% 的網路客戶實現了融合，這意味著他們同時購買了我們的行動和網路產品。我們融合型客戶的獲利能力持續成長。我們不把行動業務視為單獨的產品，但如果我們這樣做的話，第 7 張幻燈片顯示了我們完全計入的行動服務利潤率（不包括獲客），而且這還沒有考慮到互聯網業務的顯著客戶流失收益。

Mobile's financial contribution continues to grow with our scale and a 20% reduction in our reliance on macro cell towers over the past three years. We are growing offload to faster networks driven by the development of our Spectrum Mobile network with seamless authentication to nearly 50 million small cell towers through our advanced WiFi, CBRS deployment and partner cable networks. With 88% of Spectrum mobile device traffic now on our own network, the cable operators deliver more facilities-based traffic than the traditional mobile carriers. WiFi is essentially the backbone for all cellular traffic and 5G macro cell towers are really our backup radios with lower speed and higher latency. We continue to evolve our fiber-powered wireline network to deliver Internet service that offers more throughput, even less latency and greater reliability, all at a great value.

隨著公司規模的擴大，行動業務的財務貢獻持續成長，並且在過去三年中，我們對宏基地台的依賴減少了 20%。我們正在透過發展 Spectrum Mobile 網絡，利用先進的 WiFi、CBRS 部署和合作夥伴的有線網絡，將業務卸載到速度更快的網路上，實現與近 5,000 萬個小型基地台的無縫認證。Spectrum 行動裝置流量的 88% 現在都透過我們自己的網路傳輸，有線電視業者提供的基於設施的流量比傳統行動電信商更多。WiFi 基本上是所有蜂巢流量的骨幹網，而 5G 宏基地台實際上是我們的備用無線電，速度較低，延遲較高。我們不斷改進光纖有線網絡，以提供吞吐量更高、延遲更低、可靠性更強的互聯網服務，而且價格實惠。

Our network evolution initiative remains on track to deliver symmetrical and multi-gig speeds across our entire footprint with convergence everywhere we operate. In early 2026, we'll launch our Advanced WiFi Complete product, a tri-band advanced WiFi 7 router that integrates 5G cellular and battery backup to keep customers seamlessly and fully connected during the service disruption or a power outage. We've also announced new B2B partnerships that allow secure auto connection to the Spectrum Mobile network, starting with Amazon and Nexar, and we're exploring a wide range of B2B applications using the network assets highlighted on slide 4, including lower cost and higher performance data transport, authentication services and other consumer-friendly uses of our capabilities.

我們的網路演進計劃仍在按計劃進行，旨在為我們所有營運區域提供對稱的多千兆速度，並在我們運營的每個地方實現整合。2026 年初，我們將推出 Advanced WiFi Complete 產品，這是一款三頻高級 WiFi 7 路由器，整合了 5G 蜂窩網路和電池備用功能，可在服務中斷或停電期間保持客戶無縫和完全的連接。我們還宣布了新的 B2B 合作夥伴關係，可以安全地自動連接到 Spectrum Mobile 網絡，首先是與 Amazon 和 Nexar 的合作，我們正在探索使用幻燈片 4 中重點介紹的網絡資產的各種 B2B 應用，包括更低成本和更高性能的數據傳輸、身份驗證服務以及其他對消費者友好的功能。

Our video product also continues to evolve and improve. Earlier this month, we announced the launch of our Spectrum App Store, a digital marketplace where Spectrum customers can discover, activate, manage and upgrade the apps included with their Spectrum TV video plans, and non-video customers can purchase DTC video apps a la carte. The store is accessible on My Spectrum App and on our website, spectrum.net. It's an important additional step in our effort to bring back utility and value to customers in the video ecosystem really for the benefit of our connectivity services. With the combination of over $125 of included video app value in our video product, unified search and discovery in Xumo and our digital marketplace, we're now more fully marketing our seamless entertainment packaging.

我們的視訊產品也在不斷發展和改進。本月初，我們宣布推出 Spectrum 應用程式商店，這是一個數位市場，Spectrum 用戶可以在這裡發現、啟用、管理和升級 Spectrum TV 視訊套餐中包含的應用，而非視訊用戶可以單獨購買 DTC 視訊應用程式。您可以透過 My Spectrum App 和我們的網站 spectrum.net 造訪該商店。這是我們努力為視訊生態系統中的客戶重新帶來實用性和價值的重要一步，真正造福我們的網路連接服務。結合我們視訊產品中包含的價值超過 125 美元的視訊應用程式、Xumo 中的統一搜尋和發現功能以及我們的數位市場，我們現在可以更全面地推廣我們無縫銜接的娛樂產品組合。

Slide 9 shows our video customers are increasingly streaming customers through the award-winning Spectrum TV app and now included programmer streaming apps. Also earlier this month, we announced that we are partnering with Apple to record and distribute a selection of immersive live Lakers games starting in January. And that will go to Spectrum Internet and video customers in L.A., Nevada and Hawaii using the Spectrum SportsNet immersive app on the Apple Vision Pro. The same will be distributed nationally the next day throughout our footprint and on the NBA immersive app. Experience is amazing, and you can see how immersive content will apply across next-generation devices in the future.

幻燈片 9 顯示，我們的視訊客戶越來越多地透過屢獲殊榮的 Spectrum TV 應用程式和現在包含的節目製作商串流應用程式進行串流播放。本月初，我們也宣布將與蘋果合作，從 1 月開始錄製和分發一系列沉浸式湖人隊比賽直播。洛杉磯、內華達州和夏威夷的 Spectrum Internet 和視訊用戶可以透過 Apple Vision Pro 上的 Spectrum SportsNet 沉浸式應用程式享受這項服務。第二天，我們將透過我們的業務覆蓋範圍和 NBA 沉浸式應用程式在全國範圍內發布相同內容。體驗非常棒，您可以預見沉浸式內容未來將在下一代裝置上應用。

And keep in mind that these immersive video streams filmed in 16K require consistent throughput of 150 megabits per second to the home even when distributed in 8K for the Apple Vision Pro. Our fiber-powered bandwidth-rich network is ideally suited to deliver these kinds of immersive experiences, which require significant throughput and benefit from lower latency.

請記住，即使以 8K 解析度分發給 Apple Vision Pro，這些以 16K 解析度拍攝的沉浸式視訊串流也需要每秒 150 兆位元的穩定吞吐量才能傳輸到家中。我們採用光纖供電、頻寬充足的網路非常適合提供此類沉浸式體驗，此類體驗需要較高的吞吐量，並且能夠受益於較低的延遲。

So we continue to believe a high-quality video product with value and utility to customers and the development of these bandwidth-rich products can be yet another competitive advantage for our seamless connectivity products. Video also remains a significant driver of lower customer churn, and it can help drive acquisition, and the partnerships we're recreating with programmers and the leagues, great benefits for all of us as we, for example, address the problem of where's my game.

因此，我們仍然相信，為客戶帶來價值和實用性的高品質視訊產品，以及這些高頻寬產品的開發，可以為我們的無縫連接產品帶來另一個競爭優勢。影片仍然是降低客戶流失率的重要驅動力，它可以幫助推動客戶獲取，而我們正在與程式設計師和聯賽重建的合作關係，對我們所有人來說都是巨大的好處，例如，當我們解決「我的遊戲在哪裡」的問題時。

Most of what I've discussed this morning really relates to our products and how they'll help drive customer demand and revenue growth. But we're also deploying new technologies, which will transform the quality and economics of our $8 billion annual cost to serve. For years, we've meaningfully improved the quality of our service while reducing service calls and truck rolls, often at a double-digit rate annually. We've reinvested those savings into frontline employee wages and benefits as well as technology and tools to enhance the quality of our service interactions with customers, both of which have meaningfully improved service employee tenure and career progression.

今天早上我討論的大部分內容都與我們的產品有關，以及它們將如何幫助推動客戶需求和收入成長。但我們也正在部署新技術，這將改變我們每年 80 億美元的服務成本的品質和經濟效益。多年來，我們不斷提高服務質量，同時減少服務電話和車輛出動次數，每年通常以兩位數的速度增長。我們將節省下來的資金重新投入到第一線員工的薪資和福利，以及用於提高我們與客戶服務互動品質的技術和工具上，這兩方面都顯著提高了服務員工的任期和職業發展。

Just a few of the currently deployed tools that we have include machine learning and AI for our network and in-home telemetry to identify and address service issues before they ever occur, even more so with the deployment of signal and power transponders, which will occur as part of our network evolution initiative. Another example is our unified front end for agents with real-time call transcription feeding our AI models for what we call next best action presentment to the agent based on hundreds of real-time and historical metrics.

在我們目前部署的工具中，包括用於網路和家庭遙測的機器學習和人工智慧，以便在服務問題發生之前識別和解決它們，尤其是在部署訊號和功率轉發器之後，這將是我們網路演進計畫的一部分。另一個例子是我們為客服人員提供的統一前端，它能即時轉錄通話內容，並將轉錄結果提供給我們的 AI 模型，以便根據數百個即時和歷史指標，向客服人員呈現我們所謂的「最佳行動方案」。

That front end also integrates our Spectrum GPT capabilities for the agent, which will move from current text to conversational prompting. Our AI-based customer sentiment measurement includes supervisor tools to flag real-time agent support and subsequent agent-specific training modules. Our service calls also now have AI call summarization presented on call transfers or subsequent calls and for field techs on job arrival. We're also integrating network telemetry and AI will prompt next best action and coaching for the field of maintenance techs as well. And you can imagine the upcoming positive effects of AI in areas like network monitoring, dispatch and workforce planning. These are just a few isolated examples, often seamless to our employees as it simply improves their job and it improves the service experience.

該前端還整合了我們的 Spectrum GPT 功能，用於代理，使其從當前的文字提示過渡到對話提示。我們基於人工智慧的客戶情緒測量包括主管工具，用於標記即時客服支持，以及後續針對客服人員的培訓模組。現在，我們的服務呼叫還具備人工智慧呼叫摘要功能，可在呼叫轉接或後續呼叫時以及現場技術人員到達工作地點時顯示呼叫摘要。我們也將整合網路遙測和人工智慧技術，為維護技術人員提供最佳行動方案和指導。您可以想像人工智慧在網路監控、調度和勞動力規劃等領域即將產生的正面影響。以上僅列舉幾個個別例子，這些例子對我們的員工來說往往是無縫銜接的，因為它們既能改善員工的工作，又能提升服務體驗。

At Charter, these tools are all supported by the same unified data set and tools development within our centralized operating model. All of that reflects where we are today and in the coming months. But just over the past few months, we've seen rapid investments in Agentic AI technology, such that we're focusing our efforts with a few key partners going into 2026 to integrate our existing capabilities into a more Agentic service. The recent advancements most relevant to us include short- and long-term memory, handling multiple customer issues and prioritization, multimodal and multichannel service, including our internal service channels, and over time, the customer's chosen interface.

在 Charter，所有這些工具都由我們集中式營運模式下的相同統一資料集和工具開發提供支援。所有這些都反映了我們目前所處的境地以及未來幾個月的發展趨勢。但在過去幾個月裡，我們看到了對智慧體人工智慧技術的快速投資，因此，我們將與一些關鍵合作夥伴一起，在 2026 年集中精力，將我們現有的能力整合到一個更具智慧體的服務中。與我們最相關的近期進展包括短期和長期記憶、處理多個客戶問題和優先排序、多模式和多通路服務（包括我們的內部服務管道），以及隨著時間的推移，客戶選擇的介面。

And the goal is, first, to have a better customer experience at every implementation and then to significantly lower operating costs with even higher tenured service employees, because the quality of the job is enhanced, all a virtuous cycle to lower service transactions and cost and improve customer satisfaction, churn and customer growth. The prospect for Agentic AI tools for our back-office employees and software developers has also rapidly increased, and those will be separate work streams within the company. The benefit is still probably 12 to 18 months away, but we believe the impact can be real and material, and we'll plan on updating progress on future calls.

首先，目標是在每次實施過程中提供更好的客戶體驗，然後透過提高服務員工的資歷來大幅降低營運成本，因為工作品質得到了提升，所有這些都形成了一個良性循環，從而降低服務交易量和成本，提高客戶滿意度、客戶流失率和客戶成長。對於我們的後台員工和軟體開發人員來說，使用智慧人工智慧工具的前景也迅速成長，這些將成為公司內部獨立的工作流程。這項措施的益處可能還需要 12 到 18 個月才能顯現，但我們相信其影響將是真實而實質的，我們將在未來的電話會議上更新進展。

So the current operating environment is driving us every day to perform better, and we are, whether it's continued improvement in our network and product capabilities, adapting our marketing strategy to find audience and drive traffic in a temporarily challenging macro and competitive environment, or improving execution of our customer service commitments through all the efforts I mentioned. We're becoming a better operator every day, and consumers are noticing as evidenced by our improving brand perception. All of that effort is in support of our core strategy of offering the best products, including seamless connectivity and seamless entertainment, the most value with unmatched service. And ultimately, those efforts and our differentiated network will drive perpetuity free cash flow growth, which remains our focus for shareholder value creation.

因此，目前的經營環境每天都在促使我們做得更好，而我們也確實做到了，無論是不斷改進我們的網路和產品能力，調整我們的行銷策略以在暫時充滿挑戰的宏觀和競爭環境中尋找受眾並吸引流量，還是透過我提到的所有努力來改進我們對客戶服務的承諾。我們每天都在進步，消費者也注意到了這一點，我們品牌形象的提升就是最好的證明。所有這些努力都是為了支持我們的核心策略，即提供最好的產品，包括無縫連接和無縫娛樂，以及無與倫比的服務，從而帶來最大的價值。最終，這些努力和我們差異化的網路將推動持續的自由現金流成長，這仍然是我們為股東創造價值的重點。

Now I'll pass it over to Jessica.

現在我把麥克風交給潔西卡。

Thanks, Chris. Let's please turn to our customer results on slide 11. Including residential and small business, we lost 109,000 Internet customers in the third quarter, in line with last year's results, but lower when adjusted to remove last year's impact from ACP-related disconnects. In mobile, we added 493,000 lines with higher gross additions year over year, offset by disconnects on a larger base. Video customers declined by 70,000 versus a loss of 294,000 in 3Q of '24, with the improvement primarily driven by better connects year over year resulting from the new pricing and packaging we launched last fall and the various product improvements that Chris covered, and lower churn year over year, driven in part by our programmer app inclusion packaging. Wireline voice customers declined by 200,000.

謝謝你，克里斯。請翻到第 11 頁，查看我們的客戶成果。第三季度，包括住宅用戶和小型企業用戶在內，我們流失了 109,000 名網路用戶，與去年同期的結果一致，但如果剔除去年因 ACP 相關的斷網影響，則流失用戶數量會減少。在行動領域，我們新增了 493,000 條線路，較去年同期成長，但由於基數較大，斷線數量也相應增加。視訊用戶數量減少了 7 萬，而 2024 年第三季減少了 29.4 萬。這項改善主要得益於去年秋季推出的新定價和包裝方案以及 Chris 提到的各種產品改進，使得用戶連接度逐年提高；此外，用戶流失率也逐年降低，部分原因是我們的程式設計師應用程式包含在產品包裝中。固話用戶減少了20萬。

In rural, we continue to see accelerating customer relationship growth. We generated 52,000 net customer additions in our subsidized rural footprint in the quarter. And in the third quarter, we grew our subsidized rural passings by 124,000 and by over 453,000 over the last 12 months. We continue to expect subsidized rural passings growth of approximately 450,000 in 2025, in addition to continued nonrural construction and fill-in activity. The BEAD bidding process is largely complete. We bid in 20 different states and were awarded subsidies associated with approximately 84,000 passings. In total, we expect to spend approximately $230 million of our own capital net of subsidies to build out those passings over the next several years.

在農村地區，我們持續看到客戶關係加速成長。本季度，我們在補貼的農村地區新增了 52,000 名淨客戶。第三季度，我們補貼的農村通行證增加了 12.4 萬張，過去 12 個月增加了 45.3 萬張。我們預計到 2025 年，農村補貼通道將成長約 45 萬條，此外，非農村地區的建設和掩埋活動也將持續進行。BEAD招標流程已基本完成。我們在 20 個不同的州進行了投標，並獲得了與大約 84,000 次通行相關的補貼。預計在未來幾年內，我們將投入約 2.3 億美元的自有資金（扣除補助後）來建造這些通道。

Moving to third quarter revenue results on slide 12. Over the last year, residential customers declined by 2.1%. And while residential revenue per customer relationship grew by 1% year over year, given promotional rate step-ups, rate adjustments and the growth of Spectrum Mobile lines, those factors were partly offset by a higher mix of non-video customers, growth of low-priced video packages within our base and $106 million of costs allocated to programmer streaming apps and netted within video revenue versus $25 million in the prior year period. That allocation should grow over time as more customers authenticate into our streaming application offers, but is neutral to EBITDA. As slide 12 shows, in total, residential revenue declined by 1.1% and by 0.4% when excluding costs allocated to streaming apps and netted within video revenue in both periods.

第 12 頁將介紹第三季營收結果。過去一年，居民用戶數量下降了 2.1%。儘管住宅客戶關係收入同比增長 1%，但由於促銷價格上漲、價格調整以及 Spectrum Mobile 線路的增長，這些因素部分被以下因素抵消：非視頻客戶比例較高、低價視頻套餐在我們客戶群中的增長，以及分配給節目製作商流媒體應用的成本 1.06 億美元，這些成本在視頻收入中淨額比高於500 萬美元的 200 萬美元。隨著越來越多的客戶驗證身份使用我們的串流應用程序，該分配額應該會隨著時間的推移而增加，但對 EBITDA 的影響為中性。如投影片 12 所示，總而言之，住宅收入下降了 1.1%，如果排除分配給串流媒體應用的成本並在視訊收入中扣除，則兩個時期住宅收入均下降了 0.4%。

Turning to commercial revenue. Total commercial revenue grew by 0.9% year over year, with mid-market and large business revenue growth of 3.6%, and when excluding all wholesale revenue, mid-market and large business revenue grew by 4%. Small business revenue declined by 0.9%, reflecting a decline in small business customers with revenue per customer remaining essentially flat year over year. Third quarter advertising revenue declined by 21%, including the impact of less political. Excluding political, advertising revenue decreased by 0.5%, with national and local advertising market challenges, partly offset by our higher advanced advertising and better inventory selling capabilities.

轉向商業收入。商業總收入年增 0.9%，其中中型市場和大型企業收入成長 3.6%，若不計批發收入，中型市場和大型企業收入成長 4%。小型企業收入下降了 0.9%，反映出小型企業客戶數量減少，而每位客戶的收入與去年基本持平。第三季廣告收入下降了 21%，其中包括政治新聞減少的影響。剔除政治廣告收入，廣告收入下降了 0.5%，受到全國和地方廣告市場挑戰的影響，但我們更高的預售廣告收入和更好的庫存銷售能力部分抵消了這一影響。

Other revenue grew by 10.7%, primarily driven by higher mobile device sales. In total, consolidated third quarter revenue was down 0.9% year over year and grew 0.4% when excluding advertising revenue and costs allocated to streaming apps and netted within video revenue in both periods.

其他收入成長了 10.7%，主要得益於行動裝置銷量的成長。整體而言，第三季合併營收年減 0.9%，若不計入廣告收入和分配給串流應用的成本（這兩個時期均已計入視訊收入），則成長 0.4%。

Moving to operating expenses and adjusted EBITDA on slide 13. In the third quarter, total operating expenses decreased by 0.5% year over year. Programming costs declined by 6.5% due to a 3.5% decline in video customers year over year, a higher mix of lighter video packages and $106 million of costs allocated to programmer streaming apps and netted within video revenue, partly offset by higher programming rates. Other cost of revenue increased by 4.6%, primarily driven by higher mobile service direct costs and mobile device sales, partly offset by lower franchise and regulatory fees and lower advertising sales costs given lower political activity.

第 13 頁將介紹營運費用和調整後 EBITDA。第三季度，總營運費用較去年同期下降0.5%。由於視訊用戶年減 3.5%，輕量級視訊套餐佔比增加，以及分配給節目製作商串流應用的 1.06 億美元成本計入視訊收入，導致節目製作成本下降 6.5%，部分被更高的節目製作費率所抵消。其他收入成本增加了 4.6%，主要原因是行動服務直接成本和行動裝置銷售增加，部分被特許經營費和監管費的降低以及由於政治活動減少而導致的廣告銷售成本降低所抵消。

Cost to service customers, which combines field and technology operations and customer operations, decreased 0.7% year over year, primarily due to lower bad debt expense and labor costs, partly offset by higher network utility costs. Excluding bad debt, cost to service customers was essentially flat year over year. Marketing and residential sales expense grew by 5.4% due to some higher marketing spend with dramatically higher impressions at lower cost and continued channel mix shift from lower-cost channels like in-house call centers to digital and affiliates. Finally, other expense increased by 0.7%.

客戶服務成本（包括現場和技術營運以及客戶營運）年減 0.7%，主要原因是壞帳支出和勞動成本降低，但部分被更高的網路公用事業成本所抵銷。剔除壞帳後，客戶服務成本與去年基本持平。由於行銷支出增加，以更低的成本獲得更高的曝光量，以及通路組合持續從成本較低的管道（如內部呼叫中心）轉向數位管道和聯盟行銷，行銷和住宅銷售費用增加了 5.4%。最後，其他費用增加了0.7%。

Adjusted EBITDA declined by 1.5% year over year in the quarter and was essentially flat when excluding advertising. We expect 2025 full year EBITDA growth to be flat or marginally positive year over year with higher underlying growth absent the impact of political advertising. And EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter will be pressured by at least as much as it was in the third quarter, given last year's political advertising strength and the same macro pressures we saw in the third quarter.

本季調整後 EBITDA 年減 1.5%，若不計廣告費用，則基本持平。我們預計 2025 年全年 EBITDA 成長將與上年持平或略有成長，若不計政治廣告的影響，潛在成長將會更高。鑑於去年政治廣告的強勁表現以及我們在第三季看到的同樣的宏觀經濟壓力，第四季的 EBITDA 成長將至少受到與第三季同樣大的壓力。

Turning to net income. We generated $1.1 billion of net income attributable to Charter shareholders in the third quarter compared to $1.3 billion last year, given this quarter's lower adjusted EBITDA and higher other operating expenses, driven by merger and acquisition costs related to the pending Cox transaction and severance costs.

接下來看淨收入。第三季歸屬於Charter股東的淨利為11億美元，去年同期為13億美元。這是由於本季調整後的EBITDA較低，以及其他營運費用較高，而這些費用主要是由於與待決的Cox交易相關的併購成本和遣散費造成的。

Turning to slide 14. Capital expenditures totaled a bit less than $3.1 billion in the third quarter, nearly $500 million higher than last year's third quarter due to CPE spend timing and higher network evolution spend. We continue to expect total 2025 capital expenditures to reach approximately $11.5 billion, lower than our original outlook of $12 billion, primarily as a result of some network evolution capital pushed into 2026.

翻到第14張投影片。第三季資本支出總額略低於 31 億美元，比去年第三季高出近 5 億美元，原因是 CPE 支出時間安排和網路演進支出增加。我們仍預期 2025 年的總資本支出將達到約 115 億美元，低於我們最初預期的 120 億美元，這主要是由於一些網路演進資本被推遲到 2026 年。

Despite that push, our goal is to ensure that 2025 is the peak capital year, even if by a small margin. And aside from the network evolution timing variance, our previous commentary on capital outlook on a stand-alone basis remains the same. Further, even including the impact of the Cox transaction and associated integration capital, we expect total combined company capital expenditures to decline in the first full calendar year post close. All of those statements are inclusive of the BEAD spending I mentioned earlier.

儘管有這樣的推動，我們的目標是確保 2025 年成為資本高峰年，即使優勢不大。除了網路演進時間上的差異之外，我們先前對資本前景的獨立評論仍然保持不變。此外，即使算上 Cox 交易及相關整合資本的影響，我們預期合併後公司的總資本支出在交易完成後的第一個完整日曆年內將會下降。以上所有聲明均包含我之前提到的 BEAD 支出。

Turning to free cash flow on slide 15. Third quarter free cash flow totaled $1.6 billion, in line with prior year, given higher CapEx offset by lower cash taxes and a more favorable change in cable working capital tied to CPE spend, some of which will reverse in 4Q. And we expect full year change in cable working capital to be modestly positive.

第 15 頁將討論自由現金流。第三季自由現金流總計 16 億美元，與上年同期持平，原因是資本支出增加，但現金稅收減少，以及與 CPE 支出相關的有線電視營運資本的更有利變化抵消了這一增加，其中部分變化將在第四季度逆轉。我們預計全年有線電視營運資本的變化將略微向好。

Turning to quarterly and full year 2025 cash taxes. Third quarter cash taxes totaled $53 million, and we expect full year cash tax payments to total approximately $1 billion. We finished the third quarter with $95 billion in debt principal. Our weighted average cost of debt remains at an attractive 5.2%, and our current run rate annualized cash interest is $4.9 billion. During the quarter, we repurchased 7.6 million Charter shares and Charter Holdings common units, totaling $2.2 billion at an average price of $292 per share.

接下來討論 2025 年的季度和全年現金稅。第三季現金稅總額為 5,300 萬美元，我們預計全年現金稅支出總額約為 10 億美元。第三季末，我們的債務本金為950億美元。我們的加權平均債務成本仍維持在極具吸引力的 5.2%，目前的年化現金利息支出為 49 億美元。本季度，我們回購了 760 萬股 Charter 股票和 Charter Holdings 普通股，總計 22 億美元，平均每股價格為 292 美元。

As of the end of the third quarter, our ratio of net debt to last 12-month adjusted EBITDA increased sequentially to 4.15 times and stood at 4.23 times pro forma for the pending Liberty Broadband transaction. As I've noted before, during the pendency of the Cox deal, we plan to be at or slightly under 4.25 times leverage pro forma for the Liberty transaction. Post close, however, we will move our long-term target leverage to 3.5 times to 4.0 times, and we would expect to delever to the middle of that range within two to three years following close.

截至第三季末，我們的淨債務與過去 12 個月調整後 EBITDA 的比率環比上升至 4.15 倍，若計入待決的 Liberty Broadband 交易，則該比率為 4.23 倍。正如我之前提到的，在 Cox 交易進行期間，我們計劃將 Liberty 交易的槓桿率保持在 4.25 倍或略低於 4.25 倍。不過，交易完成後，我們將把長期目標槓桿率調整為 3.5 倍至 4.0 倍，並預計在交易完成後的兩到三年內將槓桿率降至該區間的中位數。

Before moving to Q&A, I wanted to remind everyone that as our capital spending peaks this year and as we begin to benefit from President Trump's new tax legislation, we are poised for rapid free cash flow and free cash flow per share growth over the next several years. slide 16 lays that phenomenon out very clearly. And with the additional upside potential from future EBITDA growth, a declining stand-alone share count and the powerful economic and strategic benefits of our Cox transaction, the pro forma entity will generate higher free cash flow per share in spite of delevering, which will reduce our cost of capital. And as Chris mentioned, sustainable free cash flow is our key focus metric for delivering shareholder value.

在進入問答環節之前，我想提醒大家，隨著我們今年的資本支出達到峰值，並且開始受益於川普總統的新稅改法案，未來幾年我們的自由現金流和每股自由現金流有望實現快速增長。第16張投影片對此現象進行了非常清晰的闡述。加上未來 EBITDA 成長帶來的額外成長潛力、獨立股份數量的下降以及我們 Cox 交易帶來的強大經濟和戰略效益，儘管去槓桿化，但備考實體仍將產生更高的每股自由現金流，這將降低我們的資本成本。正如克里斯所提到的，永續的自由現金流是我們實現股東價值的關鍵指標。

With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for Q&A.

接下來，我將把問答環節交給接線員。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作說明）

Craig Moffett, Moffett Nathanson.

克雷格·莫菲特，莫菲特·納坦森。

Chris, I wonder if you could just sort of help us think about where broadband is getting better, so that we can sort of get our minds around your arguments that things are going to improve on the broadband side. Is it in areas where you've completed your high splits? Can you share some data that suggests that your market share or market retention is improving? You talked about voluntary versus involuntary churn last quarter and your voluntary churn metrics being best ever. I wonder if you could just sort of help us sort of frame why we should be optimistic about improving results.

克里斯，我想請你幫我們思考一下寬頻在哪些方面會得到改善，這樣我們才能更好地理解你關於寬頻方面情況將會改善的論點。是在你完成高分段訓練的區域嗎？能否提供一些數據，證明您的市場佔有率或客戶留存率正在提高？上個季度您談到了自願流失與非自願流失，而您的自願流失指標達到了歷史最佳水平。我想請您幫我們解釋一下，為什麼我們應該對結果的改善保持樂觀。

Sure. Look, just to tackle both of those quickly, and then I think it's probably best to give a more global look. The high split is going well, but we're not actively marketing the capabilities until we get further down the road from a national perspective just to make sure that we're on track there. So there's really nothing to report there. Where churn is definitely better is to the extent that we have a mobile relationship and to the extent we have more lines per mobile relationship, the impact is significant on the churn impact.

當然。好的，我們先快速解決這兩個問題，然後我覺得最好再從更宏觀的角度來看這個問題。高比例產品銷售進展順利，但為了確保我們按計劃進行，從全國範圍來看，我們還沒有積極推廣這些產品的功能，直到我們走得更遠一些。所以這方面真的沒什麼好報告的。如果行動端用戶關係越密切，每個行動端用戶關係對應的線路越多，那麼用戶流失率肯定會降低，這對用戶流失的影響也越大。

And then in addition to that -- which has always been the case in cable to the extent you have a video relationship attached to that. But now what we're seeing is the additional activation of these direct-to-consumer apps, which are included as part of the offer to the extent and when that occurs and it's meaningful, then the churn benefit is pretty significant. So no big secret that bundling different products together, saving customers' money, having them have a unified service with seamless connectivity and seamless entertainment really does that from a churn perspective.

此外，在有線電視領域，只要有與之相關的視訊關係，情況一直如此。但現在我們看到的是，這些直接面向消費者的應用程式得到了進一步的激活，這些應用程式作為優惠的一部分包含在內。當這種情況發生並且具有實際意義時，流失率降低帶來的好處就相當顯著了。因此，將不同的產品捆綁在一起，為客戶省錢，讓他們享受無縫連接和無縫娛樂的統一服務，從客戶流失的角度來看，這確實是一個不為人知的秘密。

The challenge that we're facing right now isn't so much on the churn side, although I think there's real opportunity where that will just continue to get better. The challenge we have is the operating environment remains competitive with new competitors and the macro environment that hasn't gotten better. And I'll start from the top of the funnel. So we have a really muted housing environment. There's slow household formation and low move rates.

我們目前面臨的挑戰並不主要在於客戶流失率，儘管我認為這方面存在著持續改善的真正機會。我們面臨的挑戰是，經營環境依然充滿競爭，不斷有新的競爭對手出現，而宏觀環境卻沒有好轉。那我就從漏斗頂部開始講起。所以我們這裡的住房環境非常安靜。家庭組成速度慢，搬家率低。

We have continued mobile substitution growth. And then you layer on top of that, so you have these kind of macro trends, you layer on top of that, competitively, there's more footprint expansion from cellphone Internet, particularly from AT&T, that's no secret. Some others have varying results on the residential fixed wireless access or cellphone Internet, but AT&T is new to the space with expanding coverage.

我們持續保持著行動端替代率的成長。然後，在此基礎上，你會看到這些宏觀趨勢，在此基礎上，競爭方面，手機互聯網的覆蓋範圍正在不斷擴大，尤其是來自 AT&T 的，這已不是什麼秘密。其他一些營運商在住宅固定無線存取或手機網路方面取得了不同的結果，但 AT&T 是這個領域的新興力量，其覆蓋範圍正在不斷擴大。

And then you take a look at our overlap with 1 gigabit or higher competition. It's grown. The pace of that growth hasn't changed in our fiber overlap areas. And our penetration in mature fiber overlap areas remains well above the competition. But it's new competition in multiple fronts. And in any market, when you have new competition, whether it's fiber or cellphone Internet, there's going to be a short-term impact on us. And that's where we're seeing it right now is at the gross add level.

然後，您可以看看我們與 1 千兆或更高頻寬競爭對手的重疊部分。它長大了。在我們纖維重疊區域，這種成長速度並沒有改變。我們在成熟纖維重疊區域的滲透率仍然遠高於競爭對手。但這是在多個方面面臨的新競爭。在任何市場中，當出現新的競爭對手時，無論是光纖或手機互聯網，都會對我們產生短期影響。而我們現在看到的現象就發生在新增用戶總數層面。

We are seeing that in Q1 and Q2, our gross adds were actually higher year over year. Q3, it was lower year over year. The impact there was most pronounced in the low-income segment. That's not an excuse. I'm not sure if somebody is targeting it or not, but it was pretty notable for us, and that's still very much an important segment for us as well. And so we're trying to pay attention to that. So it's really coming down to, at this stage, competition for a limited number of gross adds that exist in the marketplace because of some of the macro trends.

我們看到，第一季和第二季度，我們的新增毛利實際上比去年同期有所成長。第三季年減。低收入群體受到的影響最為顯著。那不是藉口。我不確定是否有人專門針對它，但這對我們來說相當值得關注，而且這仍然是我們非常重要的一個細分市場。所以我們正在努力關注這一點。因此，在現階段，由於一些宏觀趨勢的影響，市場上的廣告投放量有限，競爭變得異常激烈。

But having said all that, if you think about -- Craig, you and I have spoken about it before, if you look at a bucket of gross adds and a bucket of disconnects, the difference between net loss and net adds is a sliver of gross adds or it's a sliver of disconnects. And in this case, I think over time, when you think about the forward outlook, whether it's household formation, whether it's mobile substitution steadying out, whether it's low move rates, whether it's cellphone Internet getting to its final state of footprint, which is coming, or the slowdown or cessation of new fiber overbuild, all those things, I think, will happen. It's just unclear -- it's very difficult to predict, frankly, the timing of each one of those. But I don't think it takes all of them. So it takes a couple of those, one or a couple of those and you have an outsized impact on our ability to grow.

但話說回來，如果你仔細想想——克雷格，你我以前也談過這個問題，如果你看看新增用戶和流失用戶，淨虧損和淨新增用戶之間的區別，可能只是新增用戶數量的一小部分，或者流失用戶數量的一小部分。在這種情況下，我認為隨著時間的推移，當你展望未來時，無論是家庭的形成，還是行動互聯網的替代趨於穩定，還是低搬家率，還是手機互聯網達到其最終覆蓋範圍（這即將到來），或是新的光纖建設放緩或停止，所有這些事情，我認為都會發生。目前還不清楚——坦白說，很難預測每件事發生的具體時間。但我認為並不需要他們所有人。所以，只需要幾個這樣的因素，或是一兩個這樣的因素，就能對我們的發展能力產生巨大的影響。

In the meantime, we're not standing still. You can hear it. There's a determination on our side and marketing offer expressions, better use of mobile and video. But I think through our own efforts, both short term and long term, as well as a couple of those external and macro variables changing, it would make all the difference, and we'll grow Internet customers again. I think in the meantime, when we take a look, is there a silver lining? The silver lining is that this environment is -- it is pushing us to be a better operator. And I think when we come out the back end with macro or competitive slowdown, which will occur, we'll end up being a better operator with a better brand perception and probably a better cost structure along the way as well.

同時，我們並沒有停滯不前。你可以聽到它。我們這邊有決心，並且會推出更具吸引力的行銷方案，更好地利用行動裝置和影片。但我認為，透過我們自身的短期和長期努力，以及一些外部和宏觀變數的改變，將會帶來巨大的改變，我們將再次發展網路客戶。我認為同時，當我們審視這個問題時，會發現一線希望嗎？好的一面是，這個環境正在促使我們成為更好的經營者。我認為，當宏觀經濟或競爭放緩最終到來時（這種情況一定會發生），我們最終會成為一家更好的運營商，擁有更好的品牌認知度，並且可能在此過程中擁有更好的成本結構。

Ben Swinburne, Morgan Stanley.

本‧斯溫伯恩，摩根士丹利。

Can you hear me okay?

你聽得清楚我說話嗎？

Yeah.

是的。

Great. Great. Two questions. Jessica, I think back in September, you had suggested that the fourth quarter EBITDA decline would be maybe less significant than the third quarter. You can correct me if I got that wrong. It sounds like you're signaling that it will be bigger in Q4 than Q3. I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit about what's changed in the business and if the layoffs are having a positive or negative, maybe there's a charge in there, impact in the fourth quarter.

偉大的。偉大的。兩個問題。傑西卡，我記得你在九月的時候曾表示，第四季 EBITDA 的下降幅度可能不如第三季那麼明顯。如果我說錯了，請糾正我。聽起來你的意思是說，第四季的業績會比第三季更好。我只是想問問您能否談談公司業務發生了哪些變化，以及裁員對第四季度是產生了積極影響還是消極影響，或許會造成一些費用增加。

And then, Chris, I hesitate to ask you about your competition since it's not you, it's them. But this has been an interesting week. Comcast announced that they're not planning a rate increase, normal course on broadband. Verizon talked about the fact that they had leaned too much on price increases. I know Charter has always been, going back to Tom's leadership, more cautious, I guess, for lack of a better term on pricing.

克里斯，我不好意思問你關於你的競爭對手的事，因為對手不是你，而是他們。但這一周過得還挺有意思。康卡斯特宣布他們不打算提高寬頻價格，這是寬頻產業的正常做法。Verizon 談到他們過度依賴提價這一事實。我知道，從湯姆的領導時期開始，Charter 在定價方面一直比較謹慎（姑且這麼說吧）。

But I'm just wondering, when you hear that, do you think it -- does it change your outlook? And do you have to think differently about your ability to grow broadband revenues, convergence revenues, just given what you're hearing from two of the companies, one of which is a major competitor in the marketplace?

但我只是想知道，當你聽到這話時，你會怎麼想——你會改變你的看法嗎？鑑於您從兩家公司（其中一家是市場上的主要競爭對手）那裡聽到的消息，您是否需要重新思考您發展寬頻收入和融合收入的能力？

Got it. So Ben, on the EBITDA side, as we often do, we explored some new offers inside of the third quarter. And a few of those offers impacted ARPU a bit more than we had anticipated without driving the additional sales that we expected. We're pulling them from the market as of the beginning of November, but they're putting a bit of pressure on our ARPU growth in 4Q, which, combined with some sales channel mix pressure in marketing and resi sales, will put us in that place where you did hear it correctly that I think they were a little more pressured in Q4 than we had anticipated that we would be when I spoke about it a few months ago.

知道了。所以本，在 EBITDA 方面，我們像往常一樣，在第三季探索了一些新的方案。其中一些優惠活動對 ARPU 的影響比我們預期的要大一些，但並沒有像我們預期的那樣帶來額外的銷售。從 11 月初開始，我們將把這些產品撤出市場，但它們對我們第四季度的 ARPU 增長造成了一些壓力，再加上市場營銷和住宅銷售方面的一些銷售渠道組合壓力，這將使我們陷入困境——你沒聽錯，我認為它們在第四季度面臨的壓力比我們幾個月前談到時預期的要大一些。

And then Ben, on rate increase. Look, I'd take a step back. Clearly, we've seen, to your point, everything that's been said in the past week or so. But our ARPU today and our promotional pricing and retail pricing, when you take a look at the Spectrum pricing and packaging that we rolled out last year, our ARPU and our pricing is low today versus our peers and competitors. And because of that, we've always had, as you pointed out, probably a little more headroom than others.

然後是本關於利率上漲的問題。聽著，我會退後一步。正如您所說，我們已經看到了過去一周左右所發生的事情。但是，如果您看一下我們去年推出的 Spectrum 定價和套餐，您會發現我們目前的 ARPU 和促銷定價以及零售定價都比我們的同行和競爭對手低。正因如此，正如你所指出的，我們可能總是比其他人擁有更多的迴旋餘地。

And given this macro environment, we're not in a position to not pass through cost increases as they occur. That's particularly the case with video. And I wish that were different, but that's the economic reality, and I think you should expect us to do that. And because of discipline in the past, we're probably in a different spot.

鑑於當前的宏觀環境，我們無法避免成本上漲帶來的不便。影片尤其如此。我希望情況有所不同，但這就是經濟現實，我認為你們應該預料到我們會這樣做。正因為過去我們一直堅持紀律，我們現在的情況可能會有所不同。

I would also say, remember that based on -- because of the Spectrum pricing and packaging that we rolled out last year and other migrations that we've done before, because of the transaction activity over the past year, we've successfully migrated much of our base to Spectrum pricing and packaging. And you haven't seen, in our results, other than that this separate offer that Jessica mentioned, you haven't seen a big ARPU impact of that migration to lower promotional and lower retail pricing over the past year, because we've managed it through putting more value into the package, and that's the case. And so that migration at a product level and ARPU has been invisible externally. That migration has occurred not just through acquisition, but as customers see these offers in the marketplace, there's a proactive migration that they initiate that also occurs through retention and through loyalty offers that we've migrated a big portion of our existing base over as well as reactive migration, as I mentioned inside of retention.

我還要說，請記住，基於我們去年推出的 Spectrum 定價和套餐以及我們之前進行的其他遷移，由於過去一年的交易活動，我們已經成功地將我們的大部分客戶群遷移到 Spectrum 定價和套餐。除了傑西卡提到的這項單獨優惠之外，在我們的結果中，您並沒有看到過去一年來促銷價格和零售價格下降對每用戶平均收入 (ARPU) 產生重大影響，因為我們通過增加套餐價值來應對這種情況，事實就是如此。因此，產品層面和 ARPU 的這種遷移在外部是看不見的。這種遷移不僅透過獲取新用戶來實現，而且當客戶在市場上看到這些優惠時，他們也會主動發起遷移，這種遷移也透過客戶留存和忠誠度優惠來實現，我們已經將很大一部分現有客戶群遷移到了這些優惠中，此外還有被動遷移，正如我在客戶留存部分提到的那樣。

And so we've been able to manage ARPU in a way that continues to create value for customers. So lowering their overall product price, but keeping the household contribution the same, particularly at a margin level. So to wrap it up, I think we're in a slightly different situation. And I don't think that that's where we're at today because of what we've done over the past couple of years.

因此，我們能夠以一種持續為客戶創造價值的方式來管理 ARPU。因此，他們降低了產品的整體價格，但保持家庭的投入不變，尤其是在利潤水平上。總而言之，我認為我們現在的情況略有不同。我不認為我們今天所處的境地是由於過去幾年我們所做的工作所造成的。

Vikash Harlalka, New Street Research.

維卡什·哈拉爾卡，新街研究。

Can you hear me okay?

你聽得清楚我說話嗎？

Yes.

是的。

So Chris, it seems like there's a theme at play here where you flipped the script on how you've marketed your products historically. So at your video event earlier this month, you talked about potentially marketing video to customers where they pay for streaming services and get linear video for free. Similarly, there was a promotion recently where customers receive broadband for nearly free when they buy four lines of mobile. Is this the next sort of step in the evolution in the marketing chain?

所以克里斯，看來你這次的行銷策略和以往截然不同，你徹底顛覆了以往的產品行銷方式。所以，在本月初的視訊活動中，您談到了向付費用戶推廣視訊服務，並免費提供線性視訊服務的可能性。同樣，最近也有一項促銷活動，客戶購買四條手機線幾乎免費獲得寬頻服務。這是行銷鏈演進的下一個階段嗎？

Yeah. I think these are just different marketing offer expressions to get to higher ARPU and higher margin per household, at the same time saving customers lots of money. So trying to create win-win scenarios. Our national pricing and packaging hasn't changed, and I think that's the vast majority of how we go to market. The video expression really is just the way we talk about it.

是的。我認為這些只是不同的行銷策略，目的是為了提高每戶平均收入和每戶利潤，同時為顧客節省大量資金。所以，我們努力創造雙贏局面。我們的全國定價和包裝沒有改變，我認為這就是我們進入市場的主要方式。影片中的表達方式其實就是我們口頭表達的方式。

So if you think about it for -- I'm going to make this up, but an audience over 35 years old, for an audience over 35 years old, it may resonate that here's your video package, it's around $100 and you get over $125 of apps included for free. But for an audience that's younger that may not be that interested at all in linear video, the expression, how about I give you $125-plus of app value for $100? And oh, by the way, your linear video is included. Well, that's the exact same product. So there's no change in economics there for us.

所以，如果你仔細想想——我舉個例子，但對於 35 歲以上的觀眾來說，如果你看到這樣的視頻套餐，大約 100 美元，卻能免費獲得價值超過 125 美元的應用程序，你可能會產生共鳴。但對於可能對線性影片完全不感興趣的年輕觀眾來說，這樣的說法是：我以 100 美元的價格提供價值超過 125 美元的應用程序，怎麼樣？對了，您的線性視訊也包含在內。沒錯，那就是同一款產品。所以對我們來說，經濟方面沒有任何改變。

But depending on the audience, either way, we're saving them lots of money. And it's valuable to them. It's just expressed in a different way. And then you overlay Xumo and the ability to have unified search and discovery. And it's an interesting and compelling way to use video to drive our connectivity services.

但無論哪種方式，根據受眾的不同，我們都能為他們節省很多錢。而且這對他們來說很有價值。只是表達方式不同而已。然後，您可以將 Xumo 與統一搜尋和發現功能疊加使用。這是一種有趣且引人注目的方式，可以利用影片來推動我們的連接服務。

The four line offer, one, I would start by saying, it's a relatively small audience that's willing to convert over four lines in one single fell swoop. But it is a good way to express value to consumers by saying, if you take four lines, we'll give you Internet for free. And when you do the math and think about the economics here, I'm sure Jessica can chime in, but the vast majority of these customers take speed upgrades. They're taking Unlimited Plus. Our ARPU at sell-in over time and our margin over time is higher than any other traditional sale.

對於四行廣告，首先我想說的是，願意一次接受四行廣告的受眾相對較小。但這是一種向消費者表達價值的好方法，例如，如果您購買四條線路，我們將免費贈送您網路服務。當你計算一下，從經濟角度考慮這個問題時（我相信傑西卡也會發表意見），絕大多數客戶都會選擇升級網路速度。他們選擇的是無限享受Plus套餐。隨著時間的推移，我們的每位使用者平均收入 (ARPU) 和利潤率都高於任何其他傳統銷售方式。

And so you can move dollars around. That's the benefit of having multiple products to sell and creating offer expressions that create a really winning situation for different pockets of audience in the marketplace, and you don't have to sacrifice revenue or margin from a company perspective in order to achieve that. Again, that's a twist and offer expression for a relatively small audience. So you're not going to see a lot of volume there. But to the extent it exists, it's incremental to what you would have gotten otherwise, and it's accretive relative to the average acquisition.

這樣你就可以轉移資金了。這就是擁有多種產品可供銷售並創建優惠方案的好處，這些方案可以為市場上的不同受眾群體創造真正的雙贏局面，而且從公司的角度來看，你無需為了實現這一點而犧牲收入或利潤。這又是一種別出心裁的表達方式，但受眾相對較小。所以你不會看到那裡的交易量很大。但即便存在，它也只是在你原本能獲得的東西的基礎上增加，而且相對於平均收購量而言，它是增值的。

And particularly, too, because those customers with four lines of mobile and an Internet line don't -- their churn rates are very low. And so you can end up with very high customer lifetime values, particularly given the combination of the four lines and the upgraded services that people take.

而且尤其值得注意的是，擁有四條手機線路和一條網路線路的客戶不會流失——他們的客戶流失率非常低。因此，您可以獲得非常高的客戶終身價值，特別是考慮到四條線路和人們選擇的升級服務的組合。

Yeah. Even with -- you're totally right. But even without that, it's a slam dunk, as that makes it -- what Jessica said is true. If we get four lines and a free Internet with -- upgraded for an extra $10 or $20 to 500 megs or to 1 gig, plus some Unlimited Plus lines, the value in that package, it's high for both. It's higher than the customer can get anywhere else in the marketplace, and it's higher for us than.

是的。即使——你說的完全正確。但即便沒有這一點，結果也毫無懸念，因為這表明——傑西卡說的是真的。如果我們獲得四條線路和一個免費的網路連線（只需額外支付 10 美元或 20 美元即可升級到 500 兆或 1 千兆），再加上一些無限流量套餐，那麼這個套餐的價值對於雙方來說都很高。它比顧客在市場上其他任何地方能買到的價格都高，對我們來說也更高。

High value asset.

高價值資產。

Yeah. And because of that, the relationship sticks, has low churn, and has high customer lifetime value for both.

是的。正因如此，雙方關係能夠維繫，客戶流失率低，客戶終身價值高。

Jessica Reif Ehrlich, Bank of America.

傑西卡·雷夫·埃爾利希，美國銀行。

I guess three different things. One, can you just give us an update on more color on Cox acquisition, how you're preparing for it? And any -- just timing as well. And then on the video product, you've had such dramatic improvement pretty quickly since you started marketing it in October. Can you give us any detail or color on that in terms of conversion of broker bids only subs, what you're seeing in terms of retention? How many subs are really engaging with us? I mean, obviously, it's working.

我想應該是三種不同的情況。首先，能否詳細介紹 Cox 收購案的最新進展，以及你們為此做了哪些準備？還有一點——時機也很重要。然後是視訊產品方面，自從十月開始推廣以來，你們的產品已經取得了非常顯著的進步，而且進步速度非常快。您能否詳細介紹一下僅接受經紀人報價的訂閱用戶的轉換情況，以及您在用戶留存方面看到的情況？究竟有多少訂閱用戶真正與我們互動？我的意思是，很明顯，它奏效了。

Yeah. So on Cox, there's no real new news there. From a time line perspective, everything we've said in the past remains the same. I don't want to step on my own feet here and say it differently, but I think it was mid next year is what we had said. And so that's still the case.

是的。所以，Cox方面並沒有什麼真正的新消息。從時間軸的角度來看，我們過去所說的一切都保持不變。我不想自相矛盾，所以改口說，但我記得我們之前說過是在明年年中。情況依然如此。

Our focus right now from a Cox perspective is a fewfold. But first and foremost is to work with the regulators at the federal and state level, make sure that we're in a position to answer all their questions properly, make sure they understand the value that exists here for customers, in particular, because we have lower pricing and the ability to bring these type of mobile offers and video at scale, and to save them money across really the entire suite of products as well as for employees and the communities we serve, including adopting some of the great things that Cox does inside of their local communities and create a benefit for not just the Cox footprint, but also inside our existing footprint as well.

從 Cox 的角度來看，我們目前的關注點有以下幾點。但首要任務是與聯邦和州監管機構合作，確保我們能夠妥善回答他們提出的所有問題，確保他們了解這裡對客戶的價值，特別是因為我們擁有更低的價格，並且能夠大規模地提供這類行動優惠和視頻服務，從而真正為他們節省所有產品的費用，同時也能為員工和我們服務的社區節省開支，包括借鑒 Cox 在其當地社區的一些利益，也為我們當地的社區服務，也為現有社區服務，也為我們當地的社區服務，也為現有社區的利益

So that's the biggest focus, but also clearly, as we try to make sure we're preparing ourselves to, as quickly as possible post closing, to put ourselves in a position to launch the Spectrum brand in Cox Markets, to launch our pricing and packaging, to put Xumo in place for video acquisition, and to apply our seamless entertainment and seamless connectivity products. There's a lot of work in preparation for us to do that. We can't do anything in the meantime until we close, but we can do a lot of thinking, we can do a lot of preparation and trying to get ready for that. And so the team is busy on that front as well.

所以這是我們最大的關注點，但顯然，我們也在努力確保做好準備，以便在交易完成後儘快在 Cox Markets 推出 Spectrum 品牌，推出我們的定價和套餐，部署 Xumo 進行視頻採集，並應用我們無縫娛樂和無縫連接產品。為此，我們還有很多準備工作要做。在此期間，直到關門大吉，我們什麼也做不了，但我們可以進行很多思考，進行很多準備，努力為此做好準備。因此，團隊在這方面也十分忙碌。

On video, it's going to sound like Apple pie, but our sales are up, churn is down on video relative to prior periods. And the activation of the apps has really accelerated. It had been growing pretty steadily, but that was absent us really doing anything to advertise or drive it, because we wanted to make sure that the service experience for activation was there in a unified way, that upgrades could work the way that it should with the incremental cost to the customer. And so it had gotten pretty significant. And then when clearly, we had the launch of the new ESPN app, FOX One, as well as Hulu now included for free. And then just in the past few weeks, the launch of the Spectrum app and digital marketplace, there was an accelerated pickup even in the recent weeks.

影片裡聽起來可能像蘋果派一樣簡單，但我們的銷售額上升了，視訊用戶流失率相對於前期有所下降。應用程式的啟動速度確實加快了。它一直在穩步增長，但這並非因為我們沒有真正進行任何宣傳或推廣，而是因為我們希望確保激活服務體驗以統一的方式提供，升級能夠以客戶增加的成本按預期的方式進行。所以這件事已經變得相當重要了。然後，很明顯，我們推出了新的 ESPN 應用程式、FOX One，而且 Hulu 現在也免費包含在內。而就在過去幾週，隨著 Spectrum 應用程式和數位市場的推出，用戶數量在最近幾週更是加速成長。

The benefit from that is what we can clearly see now is when you segment customers based on their tenure with the company, the number of activations of these direct-to-consumer apps that they have, whether that customer is zero to six months tenure, 6 to 12, 12 to 24, 24 and beyond, in each of that A/B testing of whether they activated the apps or not, and how many apps did they activate, the churn reduction is significant. There's clearly a lot of self-fulfilling prophecy that's inside there. Those that activate tend to like us more, I would argue. But it's pretty compelling. And so we're excited about what we're seeing on that front.

這樣做的好處是，我們現在可以清楚地看到，當你根據客戶在公司的停留時間、他們激活的直接面向消費者的應用程式的數量，以及客戶的停留時間（0-6個月、6-12個月、12-24個月、24個月及以上）對客戶進行細分時，在每次A/B測試中，觀察他們是否激活應用程式以及客戶是否激活了多少個流失率的應用程式，觀察他們是否激活應用程式以及客戶降低的應用程式。這裡面顯然有很多自我實現的預言。我認為，那些積極參與的人往往更喜歡我們。但這確實很有說服力。因此，我們對這方面取得的進展感到興奮。

It's been a lot of work. It's not perfect yet. So when you think about the different ways that customers activate, each one of those programmers genuinely has a different activation path and flow that we need to follow. So we still think we can work on that with things like behind the modem, automatic authentication and still get password and credentials to the programmers the way that they want. So there's still things that we can do to make it even better. We're not done, but pretty pleased with where it's at.

這工作量很大。它還不完美。因此，當您考慮客戶啟動的不同方式時，每個程式設計師實際上都有不同的啟動路徑和流程，我們需要遵循這些路徑和流程。所以我們仍然認為我們可以透過諸如調製解調器後面的自動身份驗證之類的方式來實現這一點，並且仍然可以按照程式設計師想要的方式將密碼和憑證提供給他們。所以，我們仍然可以做一些事情來讓它變得更好。我們還沒完成，但對目前的進展相當滿意。

And I said it in the prepared remarks, I just want to be clear, our goal here, it isn't to have positive video ads, and it's not -- unfortunately, it's not to save the video ecosystem, because it's pretty challenged. But our goal is to make sure that we have a unique and differentiated product that we can put in front of our connectivity customers in a way that generates new ways to market and acquire customers and has retained value and it has value and utility for them. And to the extent a broadband customer wants that and values that, we're going to attach that to the relationship. And if they don't, we won't. And we'll just rely on the retained value of Internet and mobile convergence on that front.

我在準備好的發言稿中也說過，我想明確一點，我們的目標不是要投放正面的影片廣告，而且——很遺憾——也不是要拯救視訊生態系統，因為它面臨著相當大的挑戰。但我們的目標是確保我們擁有獨特且差異化的產品，能夠以一種能夠創造新的行銷和客戶獲取方式的方式，將其推向我們的連接客戶，從而保持價值，並為他們帶來價值和實用性。如果寬頻用戶希望並重視這一點，我們將把這一點融入雙方的關係中。如果他們不這樣做，我們也不會這樣做。我們在這方面就只能依靠網路和行動融合所保留的價值了。

So it's going well, but it's still very early days. And the amount of pickup on these inclusion offers is significant. It's great for the programmers, because once that happens, they will have, relative to stand-alone selling of these retail products, they're going to have much lower churn. There's obviously an operating cost to wholesale relationship. It's great economics that exist inside the traditional linear system.

目前進展順利，但現在還處於非常早期的階段。而這些優惠活動的參與人數相當可觀。這對程式設計師來說是件好事，因為一旦這種情況發生，相對於單獨銷售這些零售產品而言，他們的客戶流失率將會低得多。批發關係顯然是有營運成本的。傳統的線性體系內部蘊藏著偉大的經濟學原理。

And then they have the upgrade potential of these apps to an ad-free version, and we'll keep innovating in different ways. Wherever the customer wants to go, that's where we're going to try to meet them together with what I think is a very, very different relationship that we have now with the programmers and even the leagues understanding that the importance of doing from packaging and from utility inside Xumo with the ability to have unified search and discovery across all these apps and really solve what I call where is the game problem.

然後，這些應用程式還有升級到無廣告版本的潛力，我們將繼續以不同的方式進行創新。無論客戶想去哪裡，我們都會努力與他們一起去那裡。我認為，我們將與程式設計師甚至聯賽建立非常非常不同的關係，從而理解從打包和 Xumo 內部的實用性入手的重要性，實現跨所有應用程式的統一搜尋和發現，真正解決我所說的「遊戲在哪裡」的問題。

The one thing that I would add to that, while it's not sort of the focus of investing in the video product, there has been significant financial pressure on video margin with the loss of customers that we've seen over the last several years, and bringing stability to that space, even if it's not that you fully stop it from shrinking, if we can bring the pace of that down, that really allows us to be in a better place to highlight the growth that we see across other areas of the business and to drive financial growth of the company as a whole by having more stability in video.

我想補充一點，雖然投資影片產品並非重點，但過去幾年客戶流失對影片利潤帶來了巨大的財務壓力。即使無法完全阻止視訊業務萎縮，但如果我們能減緩萎縮速度，就能更好地穩定這一領域，從而更好地展現公司其他業務領域的成長，並透過視訊業務的穩定性來推動公司整體的財務成長。

Yeah. So it's actually an important derivative growth lever.

是的。所以它實際上是一個重要的衍生性商品成長槓桿。

Michael Rollins, Citi.

麥可‧羅林斯，花旗集團。

Two topics, if I could. So first, through all the recent efforts to improve efficiency at a lower cost, can you size the future opportunity for savings, including if you have any step function opportunities to take cost out, whether it's migrating customers to IP video off the linear infrastructure, or the automation tools that you're bringing to your customers and employees?

如果可以的話，我想談兩個話題。首先，鑑於最近為提高效率和降低成本所做的所有努力，您能否評估一下未來節省成本的機會，包括是否有任何階躍式成本削減的機會，例如將客戶從線性基礎設施遷移到 IP 視頻，或者向您的客戶和員工引入自動化工具？

And then secondly, and I guess, forgive the expression, but are there any nonlinear ways to expand Charter's addressable market for revenue to introduce new ways to monetize the customer relationship for both the consumer and business segments?

其次，恕我直言，Charter 是否有非線性方法來擴大其潛在收入市場，從而為消費者和企業客戶引入新的客戶關係貨幣化方式？

Look, great questions actually and something both of which we're thinking a lot about. The size of the cost opportunity, I mentioned it in the remarks today. We've been getting, depending on the year, but if you look at a multiyear period, a reduction in cost to serve per customer relationship through quality transactions, which actually came about by investing more. So we invested more in our employees and our systems and tools in order to drive down service transactions and have lower churn. And all of that ultimately reduced our cost to serve over time per customer despite the higher investments.

你看，這兩個問題都很好，也是我們認真思考的問題。我今天在演講中提到了成本機會的規模。根據年份的不同，我們一直在努力降低每個客戶關係的服務成本，但從多年期來看，透過高品質的交易，我們實現了這一目標，而這實際上是透過增加投資來實現的。因此，我們增加了對員工、系統和工具的投入，以減少服務交易量並降低客戶流失率。儘管投入較高，但最終所有這些都降低了我們服務每位客戶的成本。

And more recently, in the past, I'd say, two years, making those tools better, the investments that we've had there has been driven by machine learning and which has migrated into AI-type investments. The backbone of all of that is a unified data and software development structure that we have here at Charter, which may or may not be unique, but it allows us to put these separate AI tools because they're really functioning off the same data spine and development infrastructure. It actually sets us up very well for Agentic AI.

而最近，在過去的兩年裡，我們一直在改進這些工具，我們在這方面的投資是由機器學習所驅動的，並且已經轉向人工智慧類型的投資。這一切的基礎是我們Charter公司統一的數據和軟體開發結構，這或許是獨一無二的，或許不是，但它使我們能夠將這些獨立的AI工具部署在一起，因為它們實際上是在相同的數據主幹和開發基礎設施上運行的。實際上，這為我們實現智能體人工智慧奠定了非常好的基礎。

And I'll be honest, just a few months ago, I kind of rolled my eyes. But when you take a look at the things that I mentioned that have really changed, at least from our perspective, what we've been able to see, whether it's short- and long-term memory, multimodal, the ability for our agent to potentially -- meaning an Agentic AI agent able to interact with the customer's agent over time. There's a real opportunity here for doing, first and foremost, the improvement of quality of customer service based on the knowledge of the significant number of transactions we do every year. There's not millions of different ways to do that transaction in best ways. There's usually one. So the opportunity to meet the customer where they want to be in a digital transaction is big.

說實話，就在幾個月前，我還對此嗤之以鼻。但是，當你仔細觀察我提到的那些真正發生改變的事情時，至少從我們的角度來看，我們所看到的，無論是短期和長期記憶、多模態，還是我們的代理的潛在能力——這意味著一個智能AI代理能夠隨著時間的推移與客戶的代理進行交互。這裡有一個真正的機會，首先也是最重要的，就是利用我們每年進行的大量交易的知識來提高客戶服務品質。完成這筆交易的最佳方法並沒有成千上萬種。通常會有一個。因此，在數位化交易中，有機會在客戶希望的地方滿足他們的需求，這是一個巨大的機會。

I mentioned inside the prepared remarks, just the size of the cost of service for us is $8 billion. A lot of that's physical, but a lot of it's different areas of the business. And what that will do, as we make those investments, it actually -- first is, can you improve the customer service quality? Second is, can you improve the quality of the job for an agent. And when you do those things, you make it better for the customer, but the agent is more satisfied, too, which means that you have a happier employee who develops more tenure with the company, which is actually better for the customer.

我在準備好的演講稿中提到，光是我們的服務成本就高達 80 億美元。其中很多是實體方面的，但也涉及業務的不同領域。而當我們進行這些投資時，它實際上會帶來什麼影響呢？首先，你能提升客戶服務品質嗎？其次，你能否提升經紀人的工作品質？當你這樣做的時候，不僅對客戶更有利，而且代理人也會更滿意，這意味著你會擁有一個更快樂的員工，他在公司的工作年限也會更長，這實際上對客戶更有利。

You get this virtuous cycle, which end up at the back end, you can dramatically lower your cost in environments that have naturally higher attrition to begin with. And so I think the size of that -- the total of it today, you can see it in our P&L is $8 billion. And so I think there's -- without giving -- we don't know yet the exact size, but I think it could be significant, and we're leaning into that pretty heavily.

這樣就形成了一個良性循環，最終可以大幅降低那些本身人員流失率就較高的環境中的成本。所以我認為，就目前而言，總額達到了 80 億美元，您可以在我們的損益表中看到這一點。所以我覺得——雖然我們不能妄下斷言——我們還不知道確切的規模，但我認為它可能意義重大，而且我們正在大力朝著這個方向發展。

The nonlinear ways of growing revenue and developing new products. For the past few quarters, we've included a slide, I don't know if it's slide 4, we can take a look, but whether that's right or not. There's a slide in there that shows the extent of our assets. And part of that slide is meant to demonstrate that we have facilities and we have connectivity capabilities that I think are genuinely of interest to a much broader array of B2B partners and could also create additional, even residential products for us over time.

非線性的收入成長和新產品開發方式。在過去的幾個季度裡，我們都加入了一張投影片，我不知道是不是第 4 張投影片，我們可以查一下，但不知道是不是。裡面有一張幻燈片展示了我們的資產規模。這張投影片的一部分旨在表明，我們擁有設施和連接能力，我認為這對更廣泛的 B2B 合作夥伴來說確實很有吸引力，隨著時間的推移，還可以為我們創造更多產品，甚至是住宅產品。

But I mentioned we have recently signed up with Amazon to do data offloading, saves them money, has better connectivity. We've done the same thing with Nexar, which you'll find in different car rideshare services as video cameras for offload. But you could think about what could we bring to the EV community in terms of offload and the amount of bandwidth that comes into a garage every single night, and save those providers' money, which actually ends up saving customers' money.

但我提到過，我們最近與亞馬遜簽約進行數據卸載，這不僅能幫他們省錢，又能提供更好的連接性。我們對 Nexar 也做了同樣的事情，你會發現它在不同的汽車共享服務中作為卸貨視頻攝像頭使用。但你可以想想，我們能為電動車社群帶來什麼，例如減少每晚進入車庫的頻寬，從而為這些業者節省資金，最終實際上也為客戶節省資金。

You could think about our location-based services behind the modem or with our seamless connectivity abroad in terms of financial transactions and managing cybersecurity risk in a low latency environment in ways that you could monetize that, that facilitates transactions for a B2B provider, but also makes the network safer for financial fraud for our end user customers in a way that could be relatively unique.

您可以考慮我們在調變解調器後面提供的基於位置的服務，或者我們與國外無縫連接的金融交易和在低延遲環境下管理網路安全風險的方式，這不僅可以為 B2B 供應商提供交易便利，還可以以一種相對獨特的方式使我們的終端用戶客戶的網路更安全，防止金融詐欺。

And then you move on and you'll see, on that page, there's 1,000 hubs and localized data centers. These are not hyperscaler data centers. They're generally much smaller. They have a little bit less -- a lot less power. And we're exploring different use cases for what you could do there with respect to edge CDN.

然後你繼續往下看，你會看到，在那一頁上有 1000 個樞紐和本地資料中心。這些並非超大規模資料中心。它們通常要小得多。他們的權力少了很多——少了很多。我們正在探索邊緣 CDN 的各種應用場景。

Could AI inferencing be there? I think there's a huge set of assets that exist in our footprint that are untapped as it relates to new B2B and B2C products. There's nothing here that I can sit here and tell you is material today. But we're pretty active in talking to different people across the country and in fact, globally about different ways that we can make better use of these assets to bring value to consumers and to bring new revenue streams to us. So in some sense, that's the history of cable.

人工智慧推理技術會應用嗎？我認為，在我們現有的業務範圍內，存在著大量尚未開發的資產，這些資產可以用於開發新的 B2B 和 B2C 產品。今天我可以坐在這裡告訴你，沒有什麼是真正有價值的東西。但我們正在積極與全國乃至全球各地的人們交流，探討如何更好地利用這些資產，為消費者創造價值，並為我們帶來新的收入來源。從某種意義上說，這就是有線電視的歷史。

If you step back, broadband was never a product. Voice over IP telephony was never a product. Mobile was never a product. And it all came on the backbone of these assets that we have in providing connectivity services. And while I still firmly believe we're going to grow Internet again for all the reasons that I talked to Craig about earlier, it doesn't mean that this isn't a good opportunity to go take a look and say, what's the next wave. It's always happened.

從本質上講，寬頻從來就不是一種產品。網路電話（VoIP）從來就不是一種產品。行動裝置從來就不是一種產品。這一切都建立在我們擁有的這些提供連結服務的資產基礎上。雖然我仍然堅信，出於我之前和克雷格談到的所有原因，互聯網將會再次發展壯大，但這並不意味著這不是一個好機會，讓我們去看看，看看下一個浪潮是什麼。這種情況一直都有發生。

Thanks, Michael. Leila, we'll take our last question, please.

謝謝你，麥可。萊拉，請回答我們最後一個問題。

Peter Supino, Wolfe Research.

Peter Supino，Wolfe Research。

A financial question. I think you all have done a great job of covering a lot of the operational topics today. Historically, Charter has structured its debt really intelligently so that the maturities are fairly evenly laddered and the rates are fairly fixed. With rates higher today and with growth coming in below where I'm sure all of us expected a few years ago, I wonder what it would take to make it interesting for Charter to start paying down debt maturities over the next few years. Understanding that it is your conviction that cable broadband will grow again. I think we're all wondering what we do if it doesn't.

一個財務問題。我認為你們今天在涵蓋許多操作性議題方面都做得非常出色。從歷史上看，Charter 的債務結構非常巧妙，到期日分佈相當均勻，利率也相當固定。如今利率較高，經濟成長也低於幾年前我們所有人的預期，我想知道，在未來幾年裡，Charter 需要付出怎樣的努力才能開始償還到期債務。理解您堅信有線寬頻將會再次發展壯大。我想我們都在想，如果這種情況沒有發生，我們該怎麼辦。

Yeah. So Peter, we reevaluate our target leverage ratio all the time in spite of the fact that we don't change it very often. And we do that in the context of all of the things you're talking about, whether that's interest rates or growth prospects for the business, sort of how we see the long-term trajectory of the business. And right now, I would say how we see the long-term trajectory of cash flow. And given what we see across the business today and what we think that we will be able to do as we bring together our business and the Cox business and reap substantial benefits out of that transaction, I think we're comfortable with the stand-alone business where it is today at just under 4.25 times when you pro forma in the Liberty debt.

是的。所以彼得，儘管我們並不經常改變目標槓桿率，但我們一直在重新評估它。我們這樣做是在您所說的所有因素的背景下進行的，無論是利率還是業務成長前景，以及我們如何看待業務的長期發展軌跡。現在，我想談談我們對現金流長期走勢的看法。鑑於我們目前在整個業務中看到的情況，以及我們認為將我們的業務與 Cox 的業務合併後能夠從該交易中獲得實質性收益，我認為我們對目前獨立運營的業務狀況感到滿意，其市盈率（按 Liberty 債務計算）略低於 4.25 倍。

And then over time, when we bring in the Cox assets, assuming that the transaction closes, that on its own sort of moving the leverage ratio down a bit and then targeting at the midpoint of a 3.5 times to 4.0 times range over time.

然後隨著時間的推移，當我們收購 Cox 資產時，假設交易完成，槓桿率本身就會略微下降，並最終達到 3.5 倍至 4.0 倍區間的中點。

What that means is that we will do sort of somewhat less borrowing. I mean, I'm sure that you can see we have pretty limited towers over the next couple of years. And on top of that to be in a place where we would be planning to reduce the leverage ratio. The total amount of borrowing that we do does sort of naturally self-limit in that period. But I think it strikes a nice balance between being able to continue to return capital to shareholders, which I think is an important part of our business, keeping leverage on the business at a time when there is dramatic free cash flow growth that's coming in a way that I think will provide significant value to shareholders and managing risk in a way that's appropriate.

這意味著我們將減少一些借貸。我的意思是，我相信您也能看到，未來幾年我們的信號塔數量相當有限。除此之外，我們還要計畫降低槓桿率。在此期間，我們的借款總額自然會受到一定的限制。但我認為，這在以下幾個方面取得了很好的平衡：一方面能夠繼續向股東返還資本（我認為這是我們業務的重要組成部分）；另一方面，在自由現金流大幅增長（我認為這將為股東帶來巨大價值）之際，保持業務槓桿率；以及以適當的方式管理風險。

I mean we still, in the stand-alone business and then even more so in the combined business, generate a substantial amount of cash flow so that if we did need to delever at some point in the future, from a risk perspective, I think we're more than capable of doing so. So I continue to be happy with where we sit in the guidance that we've given today. But it doesn't mean that we won't continue to evaluate. We will. We always have. And if it's prudent for us to make a move, we will.

我的意思是，無論是在獨立營運還是合併營運的情況下，我們仍然能夠產生大量的現金流，因此，如果將來某個時候我們需要降低槓桿率，從風險角度來看，我認為我們完全有能力做到這一點。因此，我對我們今天給予的指導意見仍然感到滿意。但這並不意味著我們將停止評估。我們將。我們一直都是。如果採取行動對我們有利，我們就會採取行動。

I think I'm just going to add to that, and it's probably a great way to end the call today. The free cash flow that we've talked about, it's mechanical. It's because of the massive step down in capital expenditure, it's mechanical, and it happens whether or not there's some or high EBITDA growth rate. So it's happening either way. And I think everybody knows we typically -- because we want to make sure that we can make the right capital allocation decisions dynamically to create value for shareholders, we typically don't give a lot of financial outlook.

我想我還要補充一點，這可能是今天結束通話的絕佳方式了。我們之前討論的自由現金流，是機械性的。這是由於資本支出大幅下降造成的，這是機械性的，無論 EBITDA 成長率是高還是低，這種情況都會發生。所以無論如何，這件事都會發生。我認為大家都知道，我們通常不會給予太多財務展望，因為我們希望確保能夠動態地做出正確的資本配置決策，為股東創造價值。

But to the extent we do, we understand the importance of hitting it. And that includes CapEx, that includes a commitment to EBITDA growth and free cash flow and particularly free cash flow. And so that means that you can delever fast if you needed to or wanted to at any time. So kind of it's a very repetitive to what Jessica just said, but I felt like I wanted to add that in.

但我們如果真的了解這一點，就會明白擊中它的重要性。這包括資本支出，包括對 EBITDA 成長和自由現金流的承諾，尤其是對自由現金流的承諾。這意味著，如果您需要或想要，您可以隨時快速去槓桿化。所以，這其實跟潔西卡剛才說的很重複，但我還是想補充一點。

Yeah. But it's probably important to say, look, we continue to have confidence in the business and in our ability to create the free cash flow growth that we've talked about for shareholders and in the ability in the medium and long term for the broadband asset to deliver the kind of connectivity that people will need to run the products that will come to the marketplace. And so with that confidence, I think we continue to be in a place where we believe that we can continue to create good value for shareholders going forward.

是的。但或許有必要說明的是，我們仍然對公司業務充滿信心，相信我們能夠創造我們之前向股東們承諾的自由現金流增長，並且相信在中長期內，寬頻資產能夠提供人們運行未來市場上產品所需的連接。因此，憑藉這份信心，我認為我們仍然有信心在未來繼續為股東創造良好的價值。

Leila, that ends our call. I'll turn it back to you.

萊拉，通話到此結束。我會把它還給你。

Thank you, everyone, for joining today. The call has concluded, and you may now disconnect.

謝謝大家今天的參與。通話已結束，您可以斷開連線了。