Iridium Communications Inc (IRDM) 2018 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Iridium First Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ken Levy, Vice President of Investor Relations, sir, you may begin.

女士們、先生們，美好的一天，歡迎參加銥星 2018 年第一季度收益電話會議。（操作員說明）謹此提醒，本次電話會議正在錄音。現在我想把會議交給東道主投資者關係副總裁肯·利維 (Ken Levy)，先生，您可以開始了。

Thanks, Shannon. Good morning and welcome to Iridium's First Quarter 2018 Earnings Call. Joining me on today's call are our CEO, Matt Desch and our CFO, Tom Fitzpatrick. Today's call will begin with a discussion of our first quarter results followed by Q&A. I trust you've had an opportunity to review this morning's press release, which is available on the Investor Relations section of Iridium's website. Before I turn things over to Matt, I'd like to caution all participants that our call today may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical fact and include statements about our future expectations, plans and prospects. Such forward-looking statements are based upon our current beliefs and expectations and are subject to risks, which could cause actual results to differ from forward-looking statements. Such risks are more fully discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our remarks today should be considered in light of such risks. Any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and while we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so even if our views or expectations change.

謝謝，香農。早上好，歡迎參加銥星 2018 年第一季度財報電話會議。參加今天電話會議的有我們的首席執行官馬特·德施 (Matt Desch) 和首席財務官湯姆·菲茨帕特里克 (Tom Fitzpatrick)。今天的電話會議將首先討論我們第一季度的業績，然後進行問答。我相信您已經有機會閱讀今天上午的新聞稿，該新聞稿可在銥星網站的投資者關係部分找到。在我將事情交給馬特之前，我想提醒所有參與者，我們今天的電話會議可能包含 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》含義內的前瞻性陳述。前瞻性陳述是非歷史事實的陳述，包括有關我們未來的期望、計劃和前景的陳述。此類前瞻性陳述基於我們當前的信念和期望，並存在風險，可能導致實際結果與前瞻性陳述不同。我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中更全面地討論了此類風險。我們今天的言論應該考慮到此類風險。任何前瞻性陳述僅代表我們今天的觀點，雖然我們可能選擇在未來某個時候更新前瞻性陳述，但我們明確聲明不承擔任何這樣做的義務，即使我們的觀點或期望發生變化。

During the call, we'll also be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are not prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Please refer to today's earnings release in the Investor Relations section of our website for reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. With that, let me turn things over to Matt.

在電話會議中，我們還將提及某些非公認會計準則財務指標。這些非公認會計準則財務指標並非根據公認會計原則制定。請參閱我們網站投資者關係部分今天發布的收益報告，了解這些非 GAAP 財務指標與最直接可比的 GAAP 指標的對賬情況。接下來，讓我把事情交給馬特。

Thanks, Ken. Good morning, everyone. As you saw in our press release this morning, 2018 is off to a great start. Subscriber growth remains robust. In fact, we recently surpassed 1 million subscribers on our network, we continue to attract distribution partners for our new broadband offering, Iridium Certus, and we're getting ever closer to completing our new constellation having launched another 10 Iridium NEXT satellites last month. We're definitely entering the home stretch there.

謝謝，肯。大家，早安。正如您在今天早上的新聞稿中看到的那樣，2018 年有了一個良好的開端。用戶增長依然強勁。事實上，我們的網絡用戶最近超過了 100 萬，我們繼續為我們的新寬帶產品 Iridium Certus 吸引分銷合作夥伴，並且上個月又發射了 10 顆 Iridium NEXT 衛星，我們離完成新星座越來越近了。我們肯定已經進入衝刺階段了。

To start this morning, I thought I'd provide some context for the overall industry competitive environment. This is a question I received frequently during our recent high yield offering road show and I believe it still has relevance. Overall, the satellite industry is in transition with significant changes potentially coming to the competitive landscape. Lower launch costs and a resurgence of interest in low-earth orbit networks have attracted a slew of satellite newcomers seeking to deliver lower cost broadband for consumers and commercial enterprises. This flood of interest and the promise of new investment are already impacting existing FSS providers who are now adjusting their strategies and capital spending. Even investors are worried about overcapacity and pricing sending some of their corporate valuations lower. Some of these new satellite entrants promise to launch satellite constellations into low-earth orbit where Iridium's constellation operates. These projects however are focused on communication services targeting commodity broadband using Ku or Ka-band spectrum rather than the reliable and scarce L-band spectrum we use, it also supports many regulated safety services. These entrants are really looking to compete with existing fixed satellite VSAT companies for broadband connections and must still show viability by completing their funding plans and deploying their constellations in a reasonable time which are not insignificant challenges in themselves.

從今天早上開始，我想我應該為整個行業競爭環境提供一些背景信息。這是我在最近的高收益產品路演中經常收到的一個問題，我相信它仍然具有相關性。總體而言，衛星行業正在轉型，競爭格局可能會發生重大變化。較低的發射成本和人們對近地軌道網絡的興趣重新燃起，吸引了眾多衛星新來者，尋求為消費者和商業企業提供更低成本的寬帶。這種大量的興趣和新投資的承諾已經影響了現有的 FSS 提供商，他們現在正在調整其戰略和資本支出。就連投資者也擔心產能過剩和定價會導致部分企業估值下降。其中一些新加入的衛星承諾將衛星星座發射到銥星星座運行的近地軌道。然而，這些項目的重點是使用 Ku 或 Ka 頻段頻譜的針對商品寬帶的通信服務，而不是我們使用的可靠且稀缺的 L 頻段頻譜，它還支持許多受監管的安全服務。這些進入者確實希望與現有的固定衛星 VSAT 公司競爭寬帶連接，並且仍然必須通過在合理的時間內完成其融資計劃和部署其星座來展示其生存能力，這本身就是一個不小的挑戰。

In any case, this is not the market we play in today and I consider the specialty broadband services we are soon introducing as complementary to their plans, not competitive with them. Closer to home, we find ourselves in actually an improving competitive environment. Some of Iridium's traditional direct competitors in the MSS sector find themselves without a continuity path to replace their aging satellites or a time honored value from their spectrum as they realize they can't compete as well for mobile satellite customers. So as we near the final stages of deploying Iridium NEXT, our view is that we see a great opportunity for continued growth of our unique L-band business. Iridium enjoys a strong differentiated position in mobile satellite services, an industry with high barriers to entry particularly in light of our L-band spectrum and true global coverage. What these proposed networks have done I think is to heighten the awareness of our one of a kind network and bring attention to the many unique features that differentiate Iridium's offering from others.

無論如何，這不是我們今天所涉足的市場，我認為我們即將推出的專業寬帶服務是對他們計劃的補充，而不是與他們競爭。言歸正傳，我們發現自己實際上處於一個不斷改善的競爭環境中。銥星在 MSS 領域的一些傳統直接競爭對手發現自己沒有連續性路徑來更換老化的衛星，也沒有從其頻譜中獲得歷史悠久的價值，因為他們意識到自己無法很好地爭奪移動衛星客戶。因此，當我們接近部署 Iridium NEXT 的最後階段時，我們認為我們看到了我們獨特的 L 波段業務持續增長的絕佳機會。銥星在移動衛星服務領域享有強大的差異化地位，該行業的進入壁壘很高，特別是考慮到我們的 L 波段頻譜和真正的全球覆蓋範圍。我認為這些擬議網絡的作用是提高人們對我們獨一無二的網絡的認識，並引起人們對使銥星產品與其他產品區分開來的許多獨特功能的關注。

Iridium has a premier position in safety services and mobile satellite IoT and will soon add best-in-class L-band broadband capabilities to our portfolio. While the total addressable market in L-Band is not as large as the commodity Ku and Ka-band market, we're excited to finally be able to go after a broadband market with Iridium Certus that offers an incremental addressable revenue opportunity of about $700 million per year according to a top industry analyst. Best of all, this market is excited for choice and the distribution channel is very positive about our potential for success.

Iridium 在安全服務和移動衛星物聯網方面擁有領先地位，並將很快將一流的 L 波段寬帶功能添加到我們的產品組合中。雖然 L 波段的總潛在市場不如商品 Ku 和 Ka 波段市場那麼大，但我們很高興最終能夠通過 Iridium Certus 進入寬帶市場，該市場提供了約 700 美元的增量可尋址收入機會據一位頂級行業分析師稱，每年 100 萬美元。最重要的是，這個市場的選擇令人興奮，而且分銷渠道對我們的成功潛力非常樂觀。

So now in regard to the Iridium NEXT program, we have 50 of the 66 operational Iridium NEXT satellites in orbit and working well. We launched our fifth batch of 10 satellites last month and expect to have all 10 operational in the next 2 weeks. We've come a long way since our first launch early last year and now the majority of the traffic on our network is connecting through Iridium NEXT satellites. This upgrade has improved the performance of our core services and the quality is discernible to our customers. Continued progress on Iridium NEXT deployment is also attracting new companies to our partner ecosystem which bodes well for our future growth. I want to congratulate our engineering and flight teams on their tremendous success to date. I cannot stress enough the Herculean effort they have put forth to integrate the new satellites without disrupting service to our existing customers. They make this stuff look easy even though it really is rocket science.

因此，現在就 Iridium NEXT 計劃而言，我們有 66 顆運行中的 Iridium NEXT 衛星中的 50 顆在軌運行並且運行良好。上個月，我們發射了第五批 10 顆衛星，預計所有 10 顆衛星將在未來兩週內投入運行。自去年初首次發射以來，我們已經取得了長足的進步，現在我們網絡上的大部分流量都是通過 Iridium NEXT 衛星進行連接。此次升級提升了我們核心服務的性能，品質讓客戶有目共睹。Iridium NEXT 部署的持續進展也吸引了新公司加入我們的合作夥伴生態系統，這對我們未來的增長來說是個好兆頭。我要祝賀我們的工程和飛行團隊迄今為止取得的巨大成功。我無法充分強調他們在不中斷對我們現有客戶的服務的情況下整合新衛星所付出的巨大努力。他們讓這些東西看起來很簡單，儘管它確實是火箭科學。

SpaceX has scheduled our sixth launch, a rideshare with the GRACE follow on mission for a little over 3 weeks from today on Saturday, May 19. This launch will place 5 more Iridium NEXT satellites into space bringing the total of 55 of the 75 total we're launching. The launch itself is unique as it will first deploy the 2 GRACE satellites before moving on to release our 5 Iridium NEXT satellites into orbital plane number 6. We expect to finish our remaining launches with SpaceX later this year completing our Iridium NEXT constellation and starting a long, well-deserved CapEx holiday.

SpaceX 已安排我們的第六次發射，即從今天開始的 5 月 19 日星期六，與 GRACE 後續任務一起進行為期 3 週多的發射。此次發射將另外 5 顆 Iridium NEXT 衛星送入太空，使我們發射的 75 顆衛星總數達到 55 顆。此次發射本身很獨特，因為它將首先部署 2 顆 GRACE 衛星，然後繼續將 5 顆 Iridium NEXT 衛星釋放到 6 號軌道平面。我們預計將在今年晚些時候與 SpaceX 完成剩餘的發射，完成我們的 Iridium NEXT 星座並啟動漫長且當之無愧的資本支出假期。

Moving on to our business results, the first quarter provided a good start with year-over-year top line revenue growth of 14%, subscriber growth of 15%, and operational EBITDA growth of 6%. This performance really demonstrates the unique position that Iridium occupies in the satellite industry and highlights the ongoing demand for our services. IoT continues to be a particular source of strength driving 17% revenue growth and more than 100,000 new commercial subscribers to our platform over the last year. This momentum continues to validate the quality of our network offering as well as our strategy of aligning with strong growth-oriented partners who can develop valuable Iridium solutions for their customers and end markets. While commercial growth drove service revenue this quarter, I cannot overstate the importance, strength and potential of our U.S. government relationship. This was a Iridium's first customer and the partnership has driven investment and technical advances over the course of our more than 18-year relationship. Subscriber growth within the U.S. government continues to accelerate with voice and IoT subs growing 21% from last year to a record 104,000 users in the first quarter of 2018. As we work with DISA to complete another renewal of the EMSS contract, we know that Iridium's best days of collaboration with the government lie ahead.

說到我們的業務業績，第一季度取得了良好的開端，營收同比增長 14%，用戶增長 15%，運營 EBITDA 增長 6%。這一業績確實證明了銥星在衛星行業中佔據的獨特地位，並凸顯了對我們服務的持續需求。去年，物聯網仍然是推動我們平台收入增長 17% 和超過 100,000 名新商業用戶的特殊力量來源。這種勢頭繼續驗證了我們網絡產品的質量以及我們與強大的增長型合作夥伴結盟的戰略，這些合作夥伴可以為其客戶和終端市場開發有價值的銥星解決方案。雖然商業增長推動了本季度的服務收入，但我無法誇大我們與美國政府關係的重要性、實力和潛力。這是 Iridium 的第一個客戶，在我們超過 18 年的合作關係中，這種夥伴關係推動了投資和技術進步。美國政府內部用戶增長繼續加速，語音和​​物聯網用戶數量較去年增長 21%，2018 年第一季度達到創紀錄的 104,000 名用戶。當我們與迪砂合作完成 EMSS 合同的另一次續籤時，我們知道銥星與政府合作的最佳日子即將到來。

Turning to Iridium Certus, we've moved quickly since the beginning of the year to finalize the selection of service providers who will sell our broadband service. We have now announced 19 distribution partners across maritime, aviation and land mobile. It's an impressive list already with more to be announced soon. We are going to market with industry leaders and communication, equipment manufacturing and satellite services. The development of Iridium Certus terminals for maritime and land mobile continues to progress well towards commercial availability. Cobham and Thales are close to wrapping up their at-sea trials of their new broadband terminals and we are still expecting to launch commercial service of Iridium Certus this summer.

談到 Iridium Certus，自今年年初以來，我們迅速採取行動，最終確定了將出售我們寬帶服務的服務提供商。我們現已宣佈在海運、航空和陸地移動領域擁有 19 個分銷合作夥伴。這是一個令人印象深刻的列表，更多內容即將公佈。我們將與通信、設備製造和衛星服務領域的行業領導者一起進行市場營銷。用於海上和陸地移動的 Iridium Certus 終端的開發繼續在商業可用性方面取得良好進展。Cobham 和 Thales 即將完成其新型寬帶終端的海上試驗，我們仍預計今年夏天推出 Iridium Certus 的商業服務。

We expect aviation terminals will begin testing later this year and expect activations in this sector to start to ramp in mid-2019. On the maritime GMDSS front, we continue to feel good about our plan for certification with the IMO. The Maritime Safety Committee which recognizes companies and services to provide GMDSS will meet next month to assess Iridium's application. This meeting follows the very successful live testing of our GMDSS capabilities last year. It's clear that the maritime market is seeking a choice for GMDSS and we're looking forward to satisfy that need. To me it's not about whether we will be approved it's just about when and we feel good that certification approval will happen this year.

我們預計航空航站樓將於今年晚些時候開始測試，並預計該領域的激活將於 2019 年中期開始增加。在海事 GMDSS 方面，我們繼續對 IMO 認證計劃感到滿意。認可提供 GMDSS 的公司和服務的海事安全委員會將於下個月召開會議，評估銥星的應用。這次會議是繼去年對我們的 GMDSS 功能進行非常成功的現場測試之後舉行的。顯然，海事市場正在尋求 GMDSS 的選擇，我們期待著滿足這一需求。對我來說，這不是我們是否會獲得批准的問題，而是關於今年何時獲得認證批准的問題，我們對此感到滿意。

Finally, there is a lot of good things happening right now with Aireon. Aireon remains active in discussions to sign up additional new customers, ready its service for commercial launch as the Iridium NEXT constellation completes, and is working to close its financing. We continue to believe the company will be in a position to remit its first hosting payments to Iridium in the coming months.

最後，Aireon 正在發生很多好事。Aireon 仍在積極討論簽約更多新客戶，準備在 Iridium NEXT 星座完成後商業推出其服務，並正在努力完成融資。我們仍然相信該公司將有能力在未來幾個月內向 Iridium 匯出第一筆託管付款。

The first of several civil aviation mandates goes into effect this year and will start the long-anticipated move to improve flight safety to enhanced aircraft tracking. It requires that aircraft outside of radar coverage be able to report their position to air traffic controllers every 15 minutes and by 2021 on a minute-by-minute basis in the event of distress. Aireon and their partner FlightAware have been beta testing the aircraft tracking service called GlobalBeacon with initial airline customers. The Aireon system has already demonstrated the ability to exceed the regulatory requirement with 8-second or better average reporting intervals and will be able to far exceed the aircraft tracking requirements outlined by ICAO all using existing equipment that is mandated to be on every aircraft.

多項民航指令中的第一項將於今年生效，並將啟動人們期待已久的舉措，以提高飛行安全，加強飛機跟踪。它要求雷達覆蓋範圍之外的飛機能夠每 15 分鐘向空中交通管制員報告其位置，並在 2021 年之前在發生遇險時每分鐘報告一次。Aireon 及其合作夥伴 FlightAware 一直在與最初的航空公司客戶一起測試名為 GlobalBeacon 的飛機跟踪服務。Aireon 系統已經證明能夠以 8 秒或更好的平均報告間隔超過監管要求，並且將能夠遠遠超過國際民航組織規定的飛機跟踪要求，所有這些都使用強制安裝在每架飛機上的現有設備。

Before I turn things over to Tom, I want to comment on the high yield offering we completed last month. As we met with a lot of new institutions during the course of our road show, we found widespread enthusiasm for our story and financial outlook. While Tom will recap the details of this transaction, I was pleased that the deal was well oversubscribed and closing the deal allowed us to build new relationships with debt investors who will surely be important as we look to refinance our credit facility in the coming years. This deal was a great success in that it provides us with a solid liquidity position and allows Iridium to confidently complete the full deployment of our new constellation.

在將事情交給湯姆之前，我想對我們上個月完成的高收益產品發表評論。當我們在路演過程中遇到了許多新機構時，我們發現人們對我們的故事和財務前景抱有廣泛的熱情。雖然湯姆將重述這筆交易的細節，但我很高興該交易獲得了超額認購，並且完成交易使我們能夠與債務投資者建立新的關係，當我們希望在未來幾年為我們的信貸安排再融資時，這些投資者無疑將發揮重要作用。這筆交易取得了巨大成功，因為它為我們提供了堅實的流動性狀況，並使銥星能夠自信地完成我們新星座的全面部署。

Realizing the promise of Iridium NEXT remains our focus. We enjoy a strong network of world-class partners and our wholesale model helps ensure that all parties are aligned and incentivized to drive sales and grow subscribers. We are committed to complete the deployment of Iridium NEXT this year and with it reduce our capital spend. I believe our strong financial start and momentum in subscriber growth in recent months is a good harbinger of things to come. We feel very good about the underlying strength of our businesses and the opportunities that Iridium NEXT will bring. This should be increasingly apparent as Iridium Certus launches this summer. So with that, I'll turn it over to Tom. Tom?

實現 Iridium NEXT 的承諾仍然是我們的重點。我們擁有強大的世界級合作夥伴網絡，我們的批發模式有助於確保各方協調一致並受到激勵，以推動銷售和增加訂戶。我們致力於今年完成 Iridium NEXT 的部署，並以此減少我們的資本支出。我相信，我們近幾個月強勁的財務起步和用戶增長勢頭是未來發展的良好預兆。我們對我們業務的潛在實力以及 Iridium NEXT 將帶來的機遇感到非常滿意。隨著 Iridium Certus 今年夏天的推出，這一點應該會越來越明顯。那麼，我會把它交給湯姆。湯姆？

Thanks, Matt and good morning everyone. I'll get started by summarizing our key financial metrics for the first quarter and provide some color on the trends we're seeing in our major business lines. Then I'll recap the 2018 guidance we affirmed this morning and close with a review of our capital structure and the debt offering we completed last month. Iridium generated total revenue of the $119.1 million in the first quarter, which was a 14% increase to last year's comparable quarter. Operational EBITDA was $68.5 million, which was up 6% from the prior year's quarter. This was particularly strong given that last year's first quarter results included a $3.2 million non-recurring gain related to the Boeing Insourcing Agreement.

謝謝馬特，大家早上好。我將首先總結第一季度的主要財務指標，並提供一些我們在主要業務線中看到的趨勢的信息。然後，我將回顧一下我們今天上午確認的 2018 年指引，並以對我們的資本結構和上個月完成的債務發行的審查作為結束。Iridium 第一季度總收入為 1.191 億美元，比去年同期增長 14%。運營 EBITDA 為 6850 萬美元，比上年同期增長 6%。鑑於去年第一季度業績包括與波音內包協議相關的 320 萬美元非經常性收益，這一點尤其強勁。

On the commercial side of our business, we reported service revenue of $67.7 million in the first quarter, which was 13% higher than the prior year's period. This increase reflected growth in both IoT and voice revenues, as well as increases in newer revenue streams from hosted payload and satellite time and location services. During the quarter, we added 23,000 net new commercial subscribers with the gain coming entirely from our IoT business.

在我們業務的商業方面，我們報告第一季度的服務收入為 6770 萬美元，比上年同期增長 13%。這一增長反映了物聯網和語音收入的增長，以及來自託管有效負載和衛星時間和位置服務的新收入流的增長。本季度，我們淨新增 23,000 名商業用戶，增長完全來自我們的物聯網業務。

Commercial IoT data subscribers now represent 60% of billable subscribers, up from 55% in the year ago period. In commercial IoT, we continue to see strong growth from existing partners, including an expanding relationship with Caterpillar and strong subscriber growth from Garmin. Maritime and oil and gas are also sectors that contributed meaningfully to subscriber growth this quarter. As a result, net subscriber activations rose 47% from the year ago period. Voice and data revenue was strong this quarter, rising 5%. This increase was a result of the recording of higher revenue on prepaid cards, as well as from higher usage of our Iridium OpenPort service. Voice and data ARPU reflects this increased usage and rose to $41 from $39 in last year's first quarter.

商業物聯網數據用戶目前佔計費用戶的 60%，高於去年同期的 55%。在商業物聯網領域，我們繼續看到現有合作夥伴的強勁增長，包括與 Caterpillar 不斷擴大的關係以及 Garmin 的用戶強勁增長。海事、石油和天然氣也是對本季度用戶增長做出重大貢獻的行業。結果，淨用戶激活量較去年同期增長了 47%。本季度語音和數據收入強勁，增長 5%。這一增長是由於預付卡收入增加以及銥星開放端口服務使用量增加的結果。語音和數據 ARPU 反映了使用量的增加，從去年第一季度的 39 美元升至 41 美元。

Hosted payload and other data service revenue was $4.2 million in the first quarter compared to $1.2 million a year earlier. The growth came from hosted payload revenue as well as satellite time and location services. With 37 Iridium NEXT satellites operational through the first quarter, hosting and data service revenues contributed $1.9 million to our commercial results, up materially from about $37,000 in the year ago period. This quarter, we received and recognized $1.5 million of data services revenue from Aireon, but did not recognize any hosting revenue from Aireon. We will continue to defer our recognition of Aireon hosting fees until the earlier of either Aireon's debt financing closing in the first installment under this financing being made to Iridium, or upon the FAA making a positive decision on utilizing space-based ADS-B which we expect in the second half of 2018. Aireon still expects to close their financing late in the second quarter this year. We anticipate revenue from hosting and data services will continue to ramp this year as we put the remaining Iridium NEXT satellites into service.

第一季度託管有效負載和其他數據服務收入為 420 萬美元，而去年同期為 120 萬美元。增長來自託管有效負載收入以及衛星時間和位置服務。第一季度有 37 顆 Iridium NEXT 衛星投入運行，託管和數據服務收入為我們的商業業績貢獻了 190 萬美元，遠高於去年同期的約 37,000 美元。本季度，我們收到並確認了來自 Aireon 的 150 萬美元數據服務收入，但沒有確認來自 Aireon 的任何託管收入。我們將繼續推遲對 Aireon 託管費的認可，直到 Aireon 的第一期債務融資完成，以較早者為準，或者 FAA 就使用天基 ADS-B 做出積極決定，以較早者為準。預計2018年下半年。Aireon 仍預計在今年第二季度末完成融資。我們預計，隨著剩餘的 Iridium NEXT 衛星投入使用，今年來自託管和數據服務的收入將繼續增加。

Turning to our government service business, we reported revenue of $22 million this quarter, which reflects the contractual terms of our EMSS contract with this DISA. Government subscribers again grew at a rapid clip rising 21% year-over-year. Total U.S. government customers reached a record 104,000 this quarter driven in part by IoT growth of 24% from the year ago period. We reported better than expected subscriber equipment sales in the first quarter driven by handset sales. We believe this strength is an outgrowth of the multiple hurricanes from last fall, which heightened emergency preparedness. The $25.8 million in revenue generated from equipment sales was a 51% increase from the year ago period. Equipment margin remained at 41%. We had expected equipment sales for the full year 2018 to be lower than 2017, but given the strength of the first quarter, we now expect that 2018 equipment revenue will be in line with 2017. We will evaluate the impact of this improved performance on our full year OEBITDA guidance in the coming quarters. Engineering and support revenue, which is largely episodic and primarily driven by work done in the government gateway was $3.6 million in the first quarter as compared to $5.5 million in the prior year's quarter.

談到我們的政府服務業務，我們報告本季度收入為 2200 萬美元，這反映了我們與 DISA 簽訂的 EMSS 合同的合同條款。政府訂戶再次快速增長，同比增長 21%。本季度美國政府客戶總數達到創紀錄的 104,000 家，部分原因是物聯網同比增長 24%。我們報告稱，在手機銷售的推動下，第一季度用戶設備銷售好於預期。我們相信這種力量是去年秋天多場颶風的結果，加強了應急準備。設備銷售收入為 2580 萬美元，較去年同期增長 51%。設備利潤率維持在41%。我們此前預計 2018 年全年設備銷售額將低於 2017 年，但考慮到第一季度的強勁表現，我們現在預計 2018 年設備收入將與 2017 年持平。我們將在未來幾個季度評估業績改善對全年 OEBITDA 指導的影響。第一季度工程和支持收入為 360 萬美元，主要是間歇性的，主要由政府門戶中完成的工作驅動，而上年同期為 550 萬美元。

Moving on to our financial outlook. This morning we reaffirmed our 2018 full year guidance as well as our long range financial outlook. Our first quarter continued to reflect broadening growth in IoT and our success with OpenPort in maritime. We anticipate that hosting and data services revenue will continue to climb as new Iridium NEXT satellites are placed into service in the coming months. Per our previous guidance, we anticipate revenue from hosting and data services of approximately $25 million this fiscal year, $14 million of which will be attributable to hosting fees from Aireon. Revenue from the government business will remain steady this year keeping with the terms of the EMSS airtime contract. We anticipate subscriber growth from the U.S. government to continue to climb with the government's use of Iridium's voice and IoT services.

繼續我們的財務前景。今天上午，我們重申了 2018 年全年指引以及長期財務前景。我們的第一季度繼續反映了物聯網的不斷增長以及我們在海事領域通過 OpenPort 取得的成功。我們預計，隨著新的 Iridium NEXT 衛星在未來幾個月投入使用，託管和數據服務收入將繼續攀升。根據我們之前的指引，我們預計本財年託管和數據服務收入約為 2500 萬美元，其中 1400 萬美元將來自 Aireon 的託管費。根據 EMSS 通話時間合同的條款，今年政府業務的收入將保持穩定。我們預計，隨著政府對銥星語音和物聯網服務的使用，美國政府的用戶增長將繼續攀升。

Finally, depreciation and amortization expense will be meaningful this year as incremental Iridium NEXT satellites are placed into service. We anticipate depreciation and amortization will ramp each quarter as new satellites become operational. Based upon these inputs, we continue to forecast total service revenue growth of between 10% and 12% in 2018 and OEBITDA between $280 million and $290 million. As we complete the Iridium NEXT program, capital spending this year will be approximately $500 million.

最後，隨著越來越多的 Iridium NEXT 衛星投入使用，今年的折舊和攤銷費用將變得有意義。我們預計，隨著新衛星投入運行，折舊和攤銷將每個季度增加。根據這些投入，我們繼續預測 2018 年總服務收入增長在 10% 到 12% 之間，OEBITDA 在 2.8 億美元到 2.9 億美元之間。當我們完成 Iridium NEXT 計劃時，今年的資本支出將約為 5 億美元。

Moving to our capital position, Iridium completed a number of balance sheet activities in the first quarter to bolster our liquidity and improved capital efficiency. First, we exercised our option to convert our Series A preferred stock on March 20. This action required Iridium to declare and pay all unpaid dividends on its preferred Series A and B shares that accumulated since Iridium's board suspended preferred dividends on May 16, 2017. This dividend payment, which was approved by our credit facility lenders totaled $15.4 million during the first quarter. The conversion results in the discontinuation of $7 million in annual preferred dividend payments on a go-forward basis. We also announced the re-suspension of the Series B dividend as required by the amended credit facility. At a rate of 10.6 common shares for each preferred share, the conversion of the Series A preferred shares had the impact of increasing Iridium's basic share count by 10.6 million shares. These shares however had already been reflected in Iridium's fully diluted share count. Of note, the conversion of the Series A preferred shares into common coincided with the decline in Iridium short interest. It is common for convertible shareholders to hedge their positions by selling common stock short. As a result, we would expect a similar impact on our short position with the conversion of Iridium Series B preferred stock, which is available for conversion as early as May 2019.

談到我們的資本狀況，銥星在第一季度完成了多項資產負債表活動，以增強我們的流動性並提高資本效率。首先，我們於 3 月 20 日行使了轉換 A 系列優先股的選擇權。這一行動要求銥星公司宣布並支付自銥星公司董事會於 2017 年 5 月 16 日暫停派發優先股股息以來累積的 A 輪和 B 輪優先股的所有未支付股息。第一季度由我們的信貸機構批准的股息支付總額為 1540 萬美元。此次轉換將導致不再支付 700 萬美元的年度優先股股息。我們還宣布按照修訂後的信貸安排的要求重新暫停 B 系列股息。按照每股優先股 10.6 股普通股的比例，A 系列優先股的轉換使 Iridium 的基本股數量增加了 1060 萬股。然而，這些股份已經反映在銥星公司完全稀釋後的股份總數中。值得注意的是，A 系列優先股轉換為普通股恰逢銥星空頭權益下降。可轉換股東通過賣空普通股來對沖頭寸是很常見的。因此，我們預計銥星 B 系列優先股的轉換會對我們的空頭頭寸產生類似的影響，該優先股最早將於 2019 年 5 月進行轉換。

Second, Iridium closed its offering of $360 million in aggregate principal senior unsecured notes on March 21. The 5-year notes can be called in 2 years and pay interest semi-annually at a rate of 10.25%. The net proceeds of the notes were used to retire approximately $60 million of bills in exchange issued to Thales Alenia Space and replenished $87 million of the debt service reserve account under the BPI credit facility. The balance of the proceeds are reflected in our cash balance as of March 31, which totaled $450 million and will be used for general corporate purposes including payment when due of about $45 million of milestone payments to Thales that were previously subject to deferral. In conjunction with our $360 million high yield offering, our credit facility lenders agreed to reschedule certain principal repayments. Specifically, $162 million in aggregate principal payments, which were scheduled to be paid in 2018, 2019 and 2020, will now be due in 2023 and 2024. The agreement is also very flexible in that it provides Iridium with access to a portion of the DSRA if required. The net impact of our capital activities in the first quarter was to provide Iridium with ample liquidity into 2022. We have ensured that our liquidity is not reliant on expected payments from Aireon. When those payments are received, they will pay down our BPI credit facility. In light of these activities, we can now complete Iridium NEXT launch program without liquidity concerns.

其次，Iridium 於 3 月 21 日完成了本金總額為 3.6 億美元的高級無抵押票據發行。5年期票據可在2年內贖回，每半年支付一次利息，利率為10.25%。這些票據的淨收益用於償還向 Thales Alenia Space 發行的約 6000 萬美元票據，並補充 BPI 信貸安排下 8700 萬美元的償債準備金賬戶。截至 3 月 31 日，所得款項餘額反映在我們的現金餘額中，現金餘額總計 4.5 億美元，將用於一般公司用途，包括到期時向泰雷茲支付約 4500 萬美元的里程碑付款，這些付款之前被推遲。在我們提供 3.6 億美元的高收益產品的同時，我們的信貸融資機構同意重新安排某些本金償還時間。具體而言，原定於 2018 年、2019 年和 2020 年支付的本金總額為 1.62 億美元，現將於 2023 年和 2024 年到期。該協議也非常靈活，如果需要，它可以讓 Iridium 訪問 DSRA 的一部分。我們第一季度資本活動的淨影響是為 Iridium 提供充足的流動性直至 2022 年。我們已確保我們的流動性不依賴於 Aireon 的預期付款。收到這些付款後，他們將償還我們的 BPI 信貸額度。鑑於這些活動，我們現在可以完成 Iridium NEXT 發射計劃，而無需擔心流動性問題。

I'm very pleased with the progress we've made since the beginning of the year. Our core business is firing on all cylinders and launch execution continues to run smoothly. Our lending partners have been very flexible with all the capital activities we've undertaken. I'm glad that we were able to raise debt and not materially impact our net leverage. The net proceeds of the offering paid down existing debt and increased our cash balance. In closing, Iridium's balance sheet is in good shape. Our team is executing well in the Iridium NEXT constellation and I'm optimistic as I assess the operational trends that continue to drive our financial performance and broaden our subscriber base. With that, I'll turn things back to the operator for the Q&A.

我對今年年初以來我們取得的進展感到非常滿意。我們的核心業務正在全速運轉，發布執行繼續順利進行。我們的貸款合作夥伴對我們開展的所有資本活動都非常靈活。我很高興我們能夠籌集債務，並且不會對我們的淨槓桿率產生重大影響。此次發行的淨收益償還了現有債務並增加了我們的現金餘額。最後，銥星的資產負債表狀況良好。我們的團隊在 Iridium NEXT 星座中表現良好，當我評估繼續推動我們的財務業績並擴大我們的用戶基礎的運營趨勢時，我感到樂觀。這樣，我會將事情轉回給操作員進行問答。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Ric Prentiss with Raymond James.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Ric Prentiss 和 Raymond James。

Couple of questions if I could. First, you mentioned that the Aireon funding think it will come in the coming months late in the quarter. What's the process there and what could cause that to get delayed further and associated the FAA obviously a lot of stuff going in Congress, can you update as far as the privatization maybe not happening with the FAA and what it means for them getting funded and looking at signing on with Aireon?

如果可以的話，有幾個問題。首先，您提到 Aireon 資金預計將在未來幾個月的本季度末到位。那裡的流程是什麼，什麼可能導致進一步延遲，並且顯然與美國聯邦航空局在國會進行的很多事情有關，您能否更新一下聯邦航空局可能不會發生的私有化以及這對他們獲得資金和尋找意味著什麼與 Aireon 簽約時？

Sure, so as we said before, the closing of the Aireon financing, they need to clear some conditions precedent, which they are actively working to do. The loan is substantially documented and it has been -- they have placeholders for the syndication. So it's -- they have the view to the syndication so it's really just clearing the conditions precedent, which they can get done at the cost of closing late in the second quarter.

當然，正如我們之前所說，Aireon 融資結束時，他們需要明確一些先決條件，他們正在積極努力做到這一點。這筆貸款有大量記錄，而且他們已經為銀團提供了佔位符。所以，他們對聯合組織有看法，所以這實際上只是清除先決條件，他們可以以在第二季度末完成交易為代價來完成這一任務。

And as far as the second one, you said in terms of you were asking specifically about privatization. Privatization or whether it would happen or not happen really had no effect whatsoever on -- on Aireon's ability to sell oceanic space-based ADS-B to the FAA. In fact in some ways I was a little concerned if it did privatize that might cause even more confusion in the short-term while they are in their final stages of their evaluation and final decision making process that they're going through in the next few months, which all seem to be going well, you know, to the extent you can get visibility into all that kind of activity. I think what's most important for FAA is sort of funding clarity to their long-term budgets and that sort of thing and I know it as today, I think they're bringing forward their FAA re-authorization which is a multi-year funding package which that's only good for the FAA to have clarity in terms of what their budgets are that was probably much more important than whether or not privatization would go through or not.

至於第二個問題，您說您具體詢問的是私有化問題。私有化或者它是否會發生實際上對 Aireon 向美國聯邦航空局出售海洋天基 ADS-B 的能力沒有任何影響。事實上，在某些方面，我有點擔心，如果私有化確實可能會在短期內造成更多混亂，而他們正處於評估和最終決策過程的最後階段，他們將在接下來的幾年中經歷這一過程幾個月來，一切似乎進展順利，你知道，在某種程度上你可以了解所有此類活動。我認為對美國聯邦航空局來說最重要的是他們的長期預算和類似的資金透明度，我知道今天，我認為他們正在提出聯邦航空局的重新授權，這是一個多年期的資金計劃這對美國聯邦航空局來說只有一個好處，那就是明確他們的預算，這可能比私有化是否會通過更重要。

Okay and then on the cadence for the remaining satellites, you mentioned later this year. Any update to the cadence of what we should expect assuming a successful launch, [6 here in a few weeks, what 7 and 8] might look like timing?

好的，然後關於剩余衛星的節奏，你在今年晚些時候提到過。假設成功發布，我們應該期望的節奏是否有任何更新，[6 幾週後，7 和 8] 可能看起來像是時機？

Yes, I struggle to try to avoid giving a specific date because I do have tentative dates right now for launch 7 and 8 and they're still meeting sort of our expectations here. That would be completed in really the next couple of months here. I've been trying to avoid pointing to a specific date just in case things moved around in the final stages, but it looks like rockets are available, satellites should be available in time and everything else seems to be lining up well to complete it, but I'd say third quarter is pretty safe.

是的，我很難避免給出具體的日期，因為我現在確實有 7 號和 8 號發布的暫定日期，而且它們仍然滿足我們的期望。這實際上將在接下來的幾個月內完成。我一直試圖避免指出具體日期，以防萬一事情在最後階段發生變化，但看起來火箭已經可用，衛星應該及時可用，而且其他一切似乎都在很好地完成它，但我想說第三季度相當安全。

Good, that feels good. And final one for me is you mentioned the maritime and the IMO certification, the meeting coming up in May. Help us understand kind of the process you mentioned also not whether, but when. You feel confident on certifying in '18 but help us make sure we're watching the right dates and the right venues to watch that process for what could be a pretty significant opportunity?

很好，感覺很好。對我來說最後一個問題是您提到的海事和 IMO 認證，會議將於 5 月舉行。幫助我們理解您提到的過程，也不是是否，而是何時。您對 18 年的認證充滿信心，但請幫助我們確保我們正在觀看正確的日期和正確的場所來觀看該過程，這可能是一個非常重要的機會？

Yes, so it's complicated in the sense that the International Maritime Organization is sort of a UN sanctioned body that operates with many countries coming together in very regular meetings and subcommittee meetings and technical subcommittee meetings, et cetera. We've been at this now for I don't know 4 years or 5 years I think. We've gone through sort of the stages of the process, which included last year's technical analysis to a subcommittee that demonstrated, really without reservations, that we met all the requirements of the service. Now, it's an issue of getting a positive vote from the main body. There's some politics probably involved. There's probably some people who'd like to slow us down as you could expect and we're working through those issues. I'm expecting a positive result but unfortunately there's a lot of people involved in sort of a unique environment. So we're doing everything we can to do it in May, but there are other, there are other meetings following that if that one for some reason wouldn't happen, but I'm pretty optimistic that everything is looking constructive towards completing in May. Just sort of a reminder too about GMDSS, I am -- it's important that we be able to do GMDSS because of the choice it will bring because it's another important service that our network will be able to provide maritime customers and so it's important, but it's not in itself a revenue generating opportunity and I think I mentioned this before, it's kind of an important function that our system be able to provide so that our partners who are increasingly trying to separate themselves from the incumbent and not have them on the ships that they are selling into because of their competitive nature in terms of trying to sell other products to their customers that it have. So it's important we get this completed. I'm confident, optimistic that we'll get this completed this year, but, that said it's not completely within our control.

是的，從某種意義上說，這很複雜，因為國際海事組織是一個聯合國認可的機構，與許多國家一起運作，定期舉行會議、小組委員會會議和技術小組委員會會議等。我想我們已經這樣做了四年或五年了。我們已經經歷了該過程的各個階段，其中包括去年向小組委員會進行的技術分析，該分析確實毫無保留地證明了我們滿足了服務的所有要求。現在，是獲得主體投票贊成的問題。可能涉及一些政治。正如您所期望的，可能有些人想要放慢我們的速度，我們正在解決這些問題。我期待一個積極的結果，但不幸的是，有很多人參與了某種獨特的環境。因此，我們正在盡一切努力在五月份做到這一點，但如果由於某種原因這一會議沒有發生，接下來還有其他會議，但我非常樂觀地認為，一切看起來都具有建設性，有望在 5 月份完成。可能。我也想提醒一下 GMDSS，我們能夠進行 GMDSS 很重要，因為它會帶來選擇，因為這是我們的網絡能夠為海事客戶提供的另一項重要服務，所以這很重要，但是它本身並不是一個創收機會，我想我之前提到過這一點，這是我們的系統能夠提供的一種重要功能，以便我們的合作夥伴越來越多地試圖將自己與現任者分開，而不是讓他們上船他們之所以向其銷售產品，是因為他們在嘗試向其擁有的客戶銷售其他產品方面具有競爭性質。所以完成這件事很重要。我對今年完成這項工作充滿信心和樂觀，但這並不完全在我們的控制範圍內。

Sure, but it opens up for some opportunity for other sales as you can get onto to the boat for other purposes then?

當然可以，但是這為其他銷售提供了一些機會，因為您可以上船用於其他目的嗎？

Yes, exactly, I mean it's a very important function that we really look like we're going to be able to complete this year and we'll add to the value of our offerings to our partners through to their customers.

是的，確切地說，我的意思是，這是一項非常重要的功能，我們看起來確實能夠在今年完成，並且我們將增加我們為合作夥伴及其客戶提供的產品的價值。

Our next question comes from Greg Burns with Sidoti & Co.

我們的下一個問題來自 Sidoti & Co 的 Greg Burns。

Matt, at the top of the call you talked about some of the changes in the competitive environment with some new constellations projected to be launched and a lot of that is not going to be directly competitive with what you're offering, but at the recent satellite conference or show we heard some others like Eutelsat kind of stood out as aiming to launch an LEO constellation in the L-band focusing on IoT applications, so that seems to be more potentially directly competitive with what you're offering. So are there other consolations coming down the pike or do you see anything else that might be more directly competitive to you in the next coming years?

馬特，在電話會議的頂部，您談到了競爭環境的一些變化，預計將推出一些新的星座，其中很多不會與您提供的產品直接競爭，但最近在衛星會議或展會上，我們聽說歐洲通信衛星公司等其他一些公司脫穎而出，旨在推出 L 頻段的 LEO 星座，專注於物聯網應用，因此這似乎與您所提供的產品更具潛在的直接競爭性。那麼，是否還會有其他安慰，或者您是否認為在未來幾年內還有其他可能對您更具直接競爭力的事情？

Yes. So I'm glad you brought that up especially because there's confusion a lot of times when people just use the word LEO because they assume that if they're LEO they must be competitive when in fact if you are using Ku or Ka-band spectrum in LEO, you're really competing against GEO-based broadband systems not really against what we're doing, but the other confusing word is IoT because some people everyone loves to use the word IoT because that's a hot space and if they say that they are going to serve it then they must be valuable, but what they're really talking about typically when they say IoT is very different than the IoT market that we're really addressing. We're addressing very highly mobile individual applications. I think it's the largest part of the satellite IoT market. What they're typically talking about is broadband aggregation of unlicensed or licensed sort of IoT systems, systems like LoRa and others they can then provide service to. They're not typically talking about highly mobile applications on individual devices. We're going be able to do that part of the market too, but that's another area where we'll probably complement each other. They can serve that sort of what I would call broadband IoT market and we'll supply the much larger, at least in terms of volume of devices, satellite IoT space. So again, I don't really see that as directly competitive with us. They're not going to be providing devices that Garmin is going to deploy to their consumer customers or even I think that will be valuable for an individual Caterpillar device, or an oil and gas pipeline, or some of the things that we're doing today, or a Walmart container et cetera. I really would be surprised if that is the focal point of many of their networks.

是的。所以我很高興你提出這個問題，特別是因為當人們只使用 LEO 這個詞時，很多時候會產生混淆，因為他們認為如果他們是 LEO，他們一定具有競爭力，而事實上，如果你使用 Ku 或 Ka 波段頻譜在 LEO，你實際上是在與基於 GEO 的寬帶系統競爭，而不是真正與我們正在做的事情競爭，但另一個令人困惑的詞是物聯網，因為有些人每個人都喜歡使用物聯網這個詞，因為這是一個熱門領域，如果他們這麼說他們要提供服務，那麼他們一定有價值，但當他們說物聯網時，他們真正談論的內容與我們真正關注的物聯網市場非常不同。我們正在解決移動性非常高的個人應用程序。我認為這是衛星物聯網市場的最大部分。他們通常談論的是未經許可或許可的物聯網系統、LoRa 等系統以及他們可以提供服務的其他系統的寬帶聚合。他們通常不會談論單個設備上的高度移動應用程序。我們也將能夠做這部分市場，但這是我們可能會互相補充的另一個領域。他們可以服務於我所說的寬帶物聯網市場，我們將提供更大的衛星物聯網空間，至少在設備數量方面是這樣。再說一次，我並不認為這與我們有直接競爭。他們不會提供 Garmin 將部署給其消費者客戶的設備，甚至我認為這對於單個 Caterpillar 設備、石油和天然氣管道或我們正在做的一些事情來說是有價值的今天，或沃爾瑪集裝箱等。如果這是他們許多網絡的焦點，我真的會感到驚訝。

Okay thanks and Tom in terms of thinking about maybe a broader refinancing with the new notes being callable in 2 years, is that kind of the time frame we'd be looking at or would you look to maybe take out the BPI facility prior to that?

好的，謝謝，湯姆正在考慮可能在 2 年內可贖回新票據進行更廣泛的再融資，這就是我們正在考慮的時間範圍，或者您是否會考慮在此之前取出 BPI 設施？

No, I mean we were very focused on the non-call 2, so that it will depend on the state of credit markets at that point in time, but we wanted the optionality and that's why we were focused on the non-call 2.

不，我的意思是我們非常關注非看漲期權 2，因此這將取決於當時信貸市場的狀況，但我們想要選擇性，這就是為什麼我們專注於非看漲期權 2。

Okay and then lastly, you mentioned D&A will be going up as you are launching more satellites, could you maybe put a number on what you expect depreciation and amortization to be this year and the same with interest expense?

好的，最後，您提到，隨著您發射更多衛星，D&A 將會上升，您能否給出一個數字，說明您預計今年的折舊和攤銷以及利息費用是多少？

So, it makes its way, depreciation and amortization makes its way to between 75 and 80 [dollars per quarter] call it in 2020. So just draw a line from where we are now to there that's kind of the steady state.

因此，到 2020 年，折舊和攤銷將達到 75 至 80 美元（每季度）。因此，只需從我們現在所在的位置到穩定狀態的位置畫一條線即可。

Okay and then interest expense, cash interest expenses here. I know you were capitalizing some of those costs, does that in addition to the new notes begin to flow through to the P&L more fully this year?

好吧，然後是利息支出，這裡是現金利息支出。我知道您正在將其中一些成本資本化，除了新票據之外，今年這些成本是否開始更充分地流入損益表？

It does, so as all the satellites get launched, the interest expense will go from being capitalized to making its way onto the P&L and the cash interest is calculable, it's the interest on the [$1.8 billion] BPI facility and then 10.25% on the $360 million, there's your cash interest. There'll literally be a switch thrown once all the birds are in the air and it will all become expensed.

確實如此，所以當所有衛星發射時，利息費用將從資本化轉入損益表，並且現金利息是可以計算的，它是 [18 億美元] BPI 貸款的利息，然後是 10.25% 3.6億美元，這是你的現金利息。一旦所有的鳥都飛到空中，實際上就會有一個開關被拋出，並且所有的鳥都會被消耗掉。

Our next question comes from Louie DiPalma with William Blair.

我們的下一個問題來自路易·迪帕爾瑪和威廉·布萊爾。

Matt, on the competitive environment topic, maritime seems to be the biggest opportunity for Certus and it's not a secret that Inmarsat has a dominant market share of the L-band maritime market. So I was wondering in comparing Inmarsat's FleetBroadband versus the new Iridium Certus, will Certus have certain advantages in terms of throughput, equipment cost and service cost in order to potentially unseat Inmarsat's L-band services?

Matt，在競爭環境話題上，海事似乎是 Certus 最大的機會，Inmarsat 在 L 波段海事市場佔據主導地位已不是什麼秘密。因此，我想知道，在比較 Inmarsat 的 FleetBroadband 與新的 Iridium Certus 時，Certus 在吞吐量、設備成本和服務成本方面是否具有一定的優勢，從而有可能取代 Inmarsat 的 L 波段服務？

Yes, we've really kind of designed Certus to be very extremely competitive to FleetBroadband and to SwiftBroadband and to other current L-band services out there. It will obviously have the best coverage. It will have faster speeds very quickly. In 2019, it will exceed those speeds, it will be in the 700 kilobit per second range where FleetBroadband is in the 432 kilobit per second range today, but importantly it has, it's got some pricing advantages, size of the terminals is smaller because we're LEO so the physics are better. The price of the terminals is going to be a little bit less. The price of the airtime is typically a little bit less because we know we're getting into an established market. So really on just about every category I can envision I think we'll have advantages certainly for the next few years, I know Inmarsat has talked about possibly coming back and eventually delivering an improved version of their service that could be faster and they're welcome to do that. I think what won't be really able to be improved very easily is sort of the competitive dynamic that we're going into, where as I said I think we're being celebrated and encouraged and supported because the distribution channels, the non-Inmarsat distribution channel, really are looking forward to having a supplier that doesn't compete with them - deliver them a superior service. So I think that's going to continue on to the future. They know they can make money and they know that they have a rational competitive market with us. So I think that they're going to be enthusiastically taking us to market. You can see that by the many Certus distributors we've already signed up and the many that we're lined up to announce here in the future.

是的，我們確實將 Certus 設計得相對於 FleetBroadband、SwiftBroadband 以及其他當前的 L 頻段服務具有極高的競爭力。顯然它會有最好的覆蓋範圍。它將很快具有更快的速度。到 2019 年，它將超過這些速度，它將達到 700 kbps 的範圍，而 FleetBroadband 目前的速度為 432 kbps，但重要的是，它有一些價格優勢，終端的尺寸更小，因為我們因為是 LEO，所以物理性能更好。終端的價格將會稍微低一些。播出時間的價格通常會低一些，因為我們知道我們正在進入一個成熟的市場。因此，實際上，在我能想像的幾乎每個類別上，我認為我們在未來幾年肯定會擁有優勢，我知道 Inmarsat 已經談到可能會回來並最終提供其服務的改進版本，該版本可能會更快，而且他們正在歡迎這樣做。我認為真正無法輕易改進的是我們即將進入的競爭動態，正如我所說，我認為我們正在受到慶祝、鼓勵和支持，因為分銷渠道、非- Inmarsat 分銷渠道確實期待有一個不與他們競爭的供應商 - 為他們提供優質的服務。所以我認為這將持續到未來。他們知道他們可以賺錢，他們知道他們與我們有一個理性的競爭市場。所以我認為他們會熱情地將我們推向市場。您可以通過我們已經簽約的眾多 Certus 分銷商以及我們即將在此處宣布的眾多分銷商看到這一點。

Okay and Matt was there anything in the recently signed U.S. Department of Defense budget that makes you less confident that you can negotiate a favorable renewal of the EMSS contract.

好的，馬特最近簽署的美國國防部預算中是否有任何內容讓您對能夠談判有利的 EMSS 合同續簽信心不足。

No, I don't know what you might be referring to, but I would say that if anything the budget is a positive in the sense that sort of the DoD, I think is getting everything they're looking for and more. So they're not in quite the constrained environment perhaps that they've been in the past. Notwithstanding that, we believe we're adding better and better value every year, particularly as they expand their usage of our network and we expand the services and the quality and capabilities that we're delivering to them. So I think we're in a probably a more positive environment frankly right now to complete a contract than we were 5 years ago when we were negotiating the last one.

不，我不知道你可能指的是什麼，但我想說的是，如果預算對國防部來說是積極的，我認為它會得到他們想要的一切，甚至更多。因此，他們現在所處的環境也許不像過去那樣受到限制。儘管如此，我們相信我們每年都會增加越來越好的價值，特別是當他們擴大對我們網絡的使用，而我們擴大我們為他們提供的服務以及質量和能力時。因此，坦率地說，我認為我們現在可能處於一個比 5 年前我們談判上一份合同時更積極的環境來完成合同。

Our next question comes from Paul Penney with Northland Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自 Northland Securities 的 Paul Penney。

This is Greg on for Paul. Thanks for taking my questions. I appreciate the commentary on the regarding Aireon and FAA efforts, but was wondering if you could give an update on any other developments with new ANSPs?

這是保羅的格雷格。感謝您回答我的問題。我很欣賞對 Aireon 和 FAA 工作的評論，但想知道您是否可以提供有關新 ANSP 的任何其他進展的最新信息？

You mean, new customers?

你是說新客戶？

Yes.

是的。

I mean they have, they're still signing up customers. I know they I think announced one here in the last quarter. They have a long list of ones that I think will be closed here in the next few months. I can't get out ahead of them because that's really their thing to call, but it looks like a strong lift. I see nothing, just to step back, I see absolutely nothing on the horizon in any kind of form that doesn't say that Aireon isn't the global surveillance technology for ANSPs going out in the future. There only seems to be growing interest, not in any way declining. The list gets longer in terms of closing. I think that there is a little bit of a waiting for the network to be complete and commercial service to be turned on, after the initial number of ANSPs we signed up , but I don't see enthusiasm doing anything but growing for the service. So I still think it's a very positive environment they're working in.

我的意思是他們已經，他們仍在簽約客戶。我知道他們在上個季度在這裡宣布了一個。他們有一長串的清單，我認為這些清單將在未來幾個月內關閉。我無法在他們之前退出，因為這確實是他們的事，但看起來像是一個強大的提升。我什麼也沒看到，只是退一步說，我絕對沒有看到任何形式的任何形式的 Aireon 不是未來 ANSP 的全球監控技術。人們的興趣似乎只是在增加，而沒有以任何方式下降。就結束而言，清單變得更長。我認為，在我們註冊了最初數量的 ANSP 後，需要等待網絡完成並開啟商業服務，但除了對服務的熱情不斷增長之外，我沒有看到任何其他熱情。所以我仍然認為他們的工作環境非常積極。

Got it. And then secondly, can you give more color on your go-to-market strategy with service. I guess in particular, how are you going be expanding your sales channels with both partners and value-added retailers?

知道了。其次，您能否通過服務為您的市場進入策略提供更多色彩。我特別想，您將如何擴大與合作夥伴和增值零售商的銷售渠道？

So we still are using in general the established distribution channels that have been very successful over the last 20 years at taking L-band products to the market in each of the 3 different main market segments, maritime, aviation and land mobile. We're being selective in the sense that it requires some additional efforts to sell broadband than it does to sell some other services, so not every one of our 300-plus partners is going to become a distributor, it's only going to become the ones that really are investing in making us successful in the market, and you can see by the people we've announced so far and you'll see in the announcements we make in the coming months that we're really talking about the larger successful ones in the broadband space. So they are going to take us to market, they're investing, they are connecting through our gateway. They are adapting their current provisioning and billing systems to accommodate Certus. They are going to be in trials here in the coming literally weeks as they prepare for their launch this summer, at least in the maritime and land mobile segments and the aviation ones will be kind of working on that later this year. So everybody is kind of getting prepared to take us to market and I think we're not going to see big numbers this year because it just takes time, this is a very sophisticated product, it's usually wrapped up with lots of other services on the ships and it's part of a bigger offering, but I think you'll see it ramp in 2019 and 2020 to the goals that we've set ourselves out in 2020.

因此，我們總體上仍在使用已建立的分銷渠道，這些渠道在過去 20 年中在將 L 波段產品推向海運、航空和陸地移動這 3 個不同主要細分市場的市場方面非常成功。我們是有選擇性的，因為與銷售其他服務相比，銷售寬帶需要付出一些額外的努力，因此並非我們 300 多個合作夥伴中的每一個都會成為分銷商，而只會成為分銷商這確實是為了讓我們在市場上取得成功而進行的投資，你可以從我們迄今為止宣布的人員中看到，你會在我們未來幾個月發布的公告中看到，我們真正談論的是更大的成功者在寬帶領域。因此，他們將帶我們進入市場，他們正在投資，他們正在通過我們的網關進行連接。他們正在調整當前的配置和計費系統以適應 Certus。它們將在接下來的幾週內進行試驗，為今年夏天的推出做準備，至少在海上和陸地移動領域，而航空領域將在今年晚些時候進行相關工作。因此，每個人都在準備將我們推向市場，我認為今年我們不會看到大量數字，因為這需要時間，這是一個非常複雜的產品，它通常與市場上的許多其他服務捆綁在一起它是更大產品的一部分，但我認為您會看到它在 2019 年和 2020 年逐步實現我們在 2020 年設定的目標。

Our next question comes from Chris Quilty with Quilty Analytics.

我們的下一個問題來自 Quilty Analytics 的 Chris Quilty。

I guess recently, Inmarsat got their SwiftBroadband safety certification for the aviation market. That was a process that I think took them a couple of years. Can you give us a sense of how you expect that process to progress for you with the Certus product?

我想最近，國際海事衛星組織 (Inmarsat) 獲得了針對航空市場的 SwiftBroadband 安全認證。我認為這個過程花了他們幾年的時間。您能否向我們介紹一下您期望使用 Certus 產品實現該流程的進展情況？

Yes, we've been really in the same environment and process and have been at it really some time as well. We right now expect that we would get certification for Certus aviation products pretty shortly after their introduced in say mid-2019. So it might be later in 2019 or early 2020, but we would fully expect to be safety certified in Iridium Certus products, aviation products as well. And again, there's a lot interest and demand for them because the speeds and capabilities and the coverage of them is superior because we can really serve aircraft more broadly and we're an established player in this space. So aviation safety is a little different than maritime safety where we haven't been certified before, but we are safety certified today and on many, many aircraft today with our narrowband offering. So it's a little different environment getting safety certified for Certus.

是的，我們確實處於相同的環境和流程中，並且也確實有一段時間了。我們現在預計 Certus 航空產品在 2019 年中期推出後不久就會獲得認證。因此，可能會在 2019 年晚些時候或 2020 年初，但我們完全希望 Iridium Certus 產品和航空產品能夠獲得安全認證。再說一次，人們對它們有很大的興趣和需求，因為它們的速度、功能和覆蓋範圍都很優越，因為我們可以真正為更廣泛的飛機提供服務，而且我們是這個領域的老牌參與者。因此，航空安全與海上安全略有不同，我們以​​前從未獲得過認證，但我們今天通過我們的窄帶產品在許多飛機上獲得了安全認證。因此，Certus 獲得安全認證的環境略有不同。

Great and on the commercial IoT market, I think you mentioned both Garmin, Caterpillar, OEM market, can you talk about first of all the consumer market applications a la of what you're doing with Garmin, how that's going and potential for ramp there with either Garmin or other customers?

太棒了，在商業物聯網市場上，我想您提到了 Garmin、Caterpillar、OEM 市場，您能否首先談談消費市場應用，以及您與 Garmin 所做的事情、進展情況以及那裡的增長潛力與 Garmin 或其他客戶合作？

As I said, Garmin seems to be -- has been really successful with their offering. They've expanded their product line and I won't get ahead of them on that but there is some exciting things coming I think in the future from Garmin on products. They have expanded their distribution, carefully and methodically, but they seem to really be very effective when they do that and as a result, they've been really successful expanding and it looks like they've been very happy with the success they're getting in the connectivity space that we helped bring them in their broad base and I still believe we'll see integration of Iridium and other product lines at Garmin as they bring kind of connectivity to other successful SKUs that they have that they offer their customers. So I couldn't be happier with Garmin as a consumer sort of flagship brand taking us to market. I think they've been very, very effective and I think they're only going to grow really in the coming years as they seem to be very happy with the success they're getting out of satellite connectivity to their products.

正如我所說，Garmin 的產品似乎非常成功。他們已經擴展了他們的產品線，我不會在這方面領先於他們，但我認為未來 Garmin 的產品將會帶來一些令人興奮的事情。他們小心翼翼、有條不紊地擴大了分銷範圍，但當他們這樣做時，他們似乎真的非常有效，因此，他們的擴張非常成功，而且看起來他們對自己的成功感到非常高興進入連接領域，我們幫助他們建立了廣泛的基礎，我仍然相信我們會看到銥星和 Garmin 其他產品線的集成，因為他們為他們向客戶提供的其他成功的 SKU 帶來了某種連接。因此，我對 Garmin 作為消費者旗艦品牌將我們帶入市場感到非常高興。我認為他們非常非常有效，而且我認為他們只會在未來幾年真正增長，因為他們似乎對他們的產品通過衛星連接取得的成功感到非常高興。

Good, Tom, question for you, I think you broke out $25 million of hosted payload fees and gave the portion of that associated with Aireon. Is there anything in the balance of the bucket beyond Satelles that constitutes the balance?

很好，湯姆，問你一個問題，我認為你支付了 2500 萬美元的託管有效負載費用，並給出了與 Aireon 相關的部分。水桶的天平中除了Satelles之外還有什麼東西構成了天平嗎？

No, no, Satelles is different. $25 million is hosting. So the breakdown of that is $14 million from Aireon hosting of which we've recognized nothing yet through the first quarter, but that's $14 million and then there's remaining $11 million breaks out $8 million which is Aireon data and $3 million, which is Harris hosting and data.

不，不，薩泰爾斯不一樣。2500 萬美元用於託管。因此，其中的細目是 Aireon 託管的 1400 萬美元，我們在第一季度還沒有意識到這一點，但這是 1400 萬美元，然後剩下的 1100 萬美元突破了 800 萬美元，這是 Aireon 數據，300 萬美元，這是 Harris 託管和數據。

Great and Satelles can you give us a sense of the size of that?

太棒了，Satelles 你能讓我們了解一下它的規模嗎？

It was a $1 million in the quarter, it was $3 million last year. We think that it's up materially from the $3 million we did last year this year.

本季度為 100 萬美元，去年為 300 萬美元。我們認為今年比去年的 300 萬美元有了實質性增長。

Our next question comes from Anthony Klarman with Deutsche Bank.

我們的下一個問題來自德意志銀行的安東尼·卡拉曼。

Hi thanks. Just to go back on the U.S. government, I guess I just wanted to confirm your views on what your thoughts are on the new contract that you're trying to put in place and I guess my assumption is that really what we're talking about is just the scope of what's covered in the existing contracts being put into a new contract and my question I guess is really does Certus represent an incremental opportunity for you at some point in government given that the existing contract really doesn't cover that today?

你好謝謝。回到美國政府，我想我只是想確認一下你對你試圖實施的新合同的看法，我想我的假設就是我們正在談論的事情只是將現有合同中涵蓋的範圍納入新合同中，我想我的問題是，考慮到現有合同今天確實不涵蓋這一點，Certus 是否真的代表了您在政府某個時刻的增量機會？

Yes, so I think your assumptions about the scope of the contract is correct. I think we're still expecting sort of the same structure and possibly the same timeline -- those are still things to be discussed, but Certus is definitely a new revenue stream. Excited about our partner there, Comsat, well established partner to the U.S. government on broadband and already starting to work actually very actively with the government now in terms of installing the necessary equipment to be able to utilize Iridium Certus and to take advantage of it across multiple market segments probably initially in the land mobile segments, but eventually in aviation and maritime as well. So we think the U.S. government's going to be a great customer for Iridium Certus.

是的，所以我認為您對合同範圍的假設是正確的。我認為我們仍然期待相同的結構和可能相同的時間表——這些仍然是有待討論的事情，但 Certus 絕對是一個新的收入來源。我們對在那裡的合作夥伴 Comsat 感到很興奮，Comsat 是美國政府在寬帶方面的成熟合作夥伴，現在已經開始與政府積極合作，安裝必要的設備，以便能夠利用 Iridium Certus 並在全球範圍內利用它多個細分市場最初可能是陸地移動領域，但最終也包括航空和海運領域。因此，我們認為美國政府將成為 Iridium Certus 的重要客戶。

And does your longer-range guidance assume anything from the government outside of what the scope of the current contract is, in other words does the longer range guidance assume that there is some penetration of the Certus product in the government segment?

你們的長期指導是否假設政府提供了當前合同範圍之外的任何內容，換句話說，長期指導是否假設 Certus 產品在政府領域有一定的滲透？

Yes, it does. Anthony, so the numbers we're out there with our existing broadband product is OpenPort. It's sort of a $25 million business. We've sized Certus as a $100 million business as we exit 2021 and the government is included in that sizing. So we have no broadband business today with the government but we do expect that we will penetrate them and that's included in our $100 million sizing in 2021 exit rate.

是的，它確實。安東尼，我們現有的寬帶產品的數據是 OpenPort。這是一項價值 2500 萬美元的業務。到 2021 年退出時，我們將 Certus 的業務規模定為 1 億美元，並且政府也包含在該規模中。因此，我們目前沒有與政府開展寬帶業務，但我們確實預計我們將滲透到它們，這已包含在我們 2021 年退出率 1 億美元的規模中。

Thanks for that and then on, Tom, on you mentioned Aireon and the financing triggering a payment obviously assuming that is successful at some point later this year. Can you remind us what the other milestones are, if there are other milestones that trigger successive hosted payload and other payments from Aireon?

謝謝你，湯姆，你提到了 Aireon 和触發付款的融資，顯然假設這在今年晚些時候的某個時候會成功。您能否提醒我們其他里程碑是什麼，是否還有其他里程碑觸發連續的託管負載和 Aireon 的其他付款？

Right. So the Aireon -- the credit facility that's been arranged anticipates 3 basically installment payments. The first of which is upon the closing of the facility. The second occurs upon the successful completion of the Iridium launch campaign, so that money is funded. It will be funded in the Aireon credit facility, but think of it as a holdback in the unlikely event of a launch anomaly that money stays within Aireon for their own account because they will become operational later as a result of an unexpected launch delay, but once the launch campaign completes, the second installment is sprung and the third installment is sprung when Aireon is operational in early 2020.

正確的。因此，Aireon——已安排的信貸安排預計分三期付款。第一個是在設施關閉時。第二次發生在銥星發射活動成功完成後，以便籌集資金。它將由 Aireon 信貸安排提供資金，但可以將其視為在不太可能發生的啟動異常情況下的一種阻礙，即資金留在 Aireon 中用於自己的賬戶，因為它們將因意外的啟動延遲而稍後投入運營，但是啟動活動完成後，將啟動第二批項目，並在 Aireon 於 2020 年初投入運營時啟動第三批項目。

Great so the first 2 payments actually could wind up being very close together if the timing that Matt described kind of plays out with the financing being completed sort of maybe sometime around the summer or 3Q that would actually trigger - and that's around the time I think that you sort of guided to being substantially complete with the launch campaign the first 2 Aireon payments might wind up being almost on top of each other from that perspective.

太好了，如果馬特描述的時間與融資完成的時間相符，那麼前兩筆付款實際上可能會非常接近，可能會在夏季或第三季度左右的某個時候真正觸發——我認為這就是在這個時間從這個角度來看，您可能會指導基本上完成啟動活動，前兩次 Aireon 付款可能會幾乎相互疊加。

That's right, but for revenue recognition, our analysis we have visibility into the Aireon model and the second payment is really not that significant or important as to revenue recognition. The first payment is the one that we have our eyes on for revenue recognition because it flips the switch to being probable of collection. The second payment as does the first goes both those payments will go to the BPI lenders as a pay-down of the debt. So it's really not impactful liquidity-wise -- also just pays down debt. The first payment is important because it gets us over the hump in terms that collectability is assured.

沒錯，但對於收入確認而言，我們的分析可以了解 Aireon 模型，而第二次付款對於收入確認來說實際上並不那麼重要或重要。第一筆付款是我們關注的收入確認付款，因為它將切換為可能收款。第二筆付款與第一筆付款一樣，這兩筆付款都將支付給 BPI 貸方作為債務的清償。因此，它實際上並沒有在流動性方面產生影響——也只是償還債務。第一次付款很重要，因為它可以幫助我們渡過難關，確保可收回性。

Yes, understood. And on that second payment is that triggered by satellites in service or is that triggered by successful launches, what is the actual trigger for that payment, in terms of being complete with the fleet?

是的，明白了。第二筆付款是由正在使用的衛星觸發的還是由成功發射觸發的，就完成艦隊而言，該筆付款的實際觸發因素是什麼？

I think it's satellite checkout, which is which shortly after launch.

我認為這是衛星檢查，即發射後不久。

It's only about 30 to 40 days really after the final launch. So it's really almost the same thing.

距最終發布僅大約 30 至 40 天。所以這實際上幾乎是同一件事。

(Operator Instructions) And our next question comes from Andrew Spinola with Wells Fargo.

（操作員說明）我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的安德魯·斯皮諾拉（Andrew Spinola）。

The growth in the voice and data segment, commercial voice data in Q1 was stronger than it has been for some time and you referenced prepaid voice as well as OpenPort and I'm just wondering if you could sort of expand on that sort of what of those 2 is maybe sustainable. Is there anything sort of one-time? Why was this quarter so strong and how should we think about modeling as to quarters going forward off of this first quarter result?

語音和數據領域的增長，第一季度的商業語音數據比一段時間以來更加強勁，您提到了預付費語音以及 OpenPort，我只是想知道您是否可以擴展此類內容這兩個也許是可持續的。有沒有一次性的事情？為什麼本季度如此強勁？我們應該如何考慮對第一季度結果的後續季度進行建模？

So in the commercial voice and data, kind of the trend in ARPU has been declining as we said before, that was because there was a subset of our installed base, which were heavy data users, which for some time have been migrating into broadband solutions, creating a headwind in terms of ARPU. As we said previously that trend has run its course and we've indicated that we thought there was stability in commercial voice and data ARPU sort of going as we went into '18 and beyond. So that's the kind of the foundation of the relative strength year-over-year, but then we got a bonus if you will in terms of 2 areas -- in prepaid, so we were the beneficiary of stronger prepaid sales. We think that's kind of hurricane-related and then we also adopted a new accounting standard, which causes under the previous standard the unused minutes on a prepaid voucher could not be recognized into revenue until the expiration of the card. Under the new standard, based on history that usage comes in over the expected life of the card. So the combination of just stronger sales as a result of the hurricane and the adoption of the new standard benefited us in the quarter. Similarly, OpenPort usage was just stronger in the quarter and so we're keeping our eyes on that. Right. I mean, both of them are good developments. It's going to depend on how much of the prepaid sales were hurricane-related and how much does that dissipate in terms of what the run rate is going to be, but we characterize voice and data ARPU as quite firm as we look forward.

因此，在商業語音和數據領域，正如我們之前所說，ARPU 呈下降趨勢，這是因為我們的安裝基礎中有一部分是重度數據用戶，一段時間以來，他們一直在遷移到寬帶解決方案，在 ARPU 方面造成阻力。正如我們之前所說，這種趨勢已經結束，我們已經表示，我們認為進入 18 年及以後，商業語音和數據 ARPU 會保持穩定。這就是逐年相對實力的基礎，但如果你願意的話，我們在兩個領域獲得了獎金——預付費，所以我們是預付費銷售強勁的受益者。我們認為這與颶風有關，然後我們還採用了新的會計標準，這導致在之前的標準下，預付費憑證上未使用的分鐘數在卡到期之前無法確認為收入。根據新標準，根據歷史記錄，使用情況超過了卡的預期壽命。因此，颶風帶來的強勁銷售和新標準的採用相結合，使我們在本季度受益。同樣，本季度 OpenPort 的使用量也有所增加，因此我們正在密切關注這一點。正確的。我的意思是，兩者都是良好的發展。這將取決於有多少預付費銷售與颶風相關，以及在運行率方面會消散多少，但我們認為語音和數據 ARPU 與我們預期的一樣相當穩定。

Makes sense. What was the impact of the accounting change in Q1?

說得通。第一季度會計變更有何影響？

Sub-$1 million.

不到 100 萬美元。

Sub-$1 million okay. Can you just actually expand on the legacy customers that went from the voice solution to broadband, what we talk about, have spoken a lot on this call about alternative options not being competitive, but what sort of solutions are these guys migrating to that you're losing these subs to broadband solutions?

100萬以下還可以。您能否真正擴展從語音解決方案到寬帶的傳統客戶，我們在這次電話會議上談到了很多替代方案沒有競爭力，但是這些人正在遷移到您的哪種解決方案？這些潛艇正在被寬帶解決方案取代嗎？

So what we are talking about there is a specific product we have, which we call the L-Band transceiver. Think of it as the circuit switch of voice and data components that were in a satellite phone sort of packaged into a device that was put on an airplane, that was put in the early days on corporate aircraft for a voice and a low speed fax and data solution, was put on ships for sort of the pay phone on the ships, but also provided a data connection. It was used for some specific data applications for telemetry and kind of SCADA kind of things where you needed more than just a quick packet transmission, you needed to send a picture of something across, but at 2.4 kilobits per second, it wasn't and the pricing for which we cost that it wasn't the optimal solution for a lot of people. So, the people I think a number of those customers saw -- it was installed it was working well, but they were solutions that would provide them data at a lower cost including our own solutions like OpenPort gave them a better experience and a better capability in terms of pricing and so they would move off to that or other solutions. The kind of the numbers that were high ARPU customers in that category really have now transitioned for the most part, not that many left really to transition and we're providing new solutions not just in terms of OpenPort and Certus, we're going to have a whole, we don't talk about it as much but one of the developments are underway is sort of think of it the new LBT that provides at a very low cost basis what we call Certus 100 or Certus 20 service, which are sub 100 kilobits per second, but a very high quality experience that would be good for a lot of those data applications that don't need a broadband connection and are highly mobile and that sort of thing. That's coming next year. So, that's sort of a technical description of --

所以我們正在談論的是我們擁有的一種特定產品，我們稱之為 L 波段收發器。可以將其視為衛星電話中的語音和數據組件的電路交換機，該組件被封裝到安裝在飛機上的設備中，早期安裝在公務機上用於語音和低速傳真，數據解決方案被安裝在船上，用於船上的公用電話，但也提供數據連接。它用於遙測和 SCADA 類型的某些特定數據應用程序，在這些應用程序中，您需要的不僅僅是快速數據包傳輸，還需要發送某物的圖片，但以每秒 2.4 kb 的速度，它不是並且我們的定價對於很多人來說並不是最佳解決方案。因此，我認為許多客戶看到的人 - 安裝後運行良好，但他們的解決方案能夠以較低的成本為他們提供數據，包括我們自己的解決方案（例如 OpenPort），為他們提供了更好的體驗和更好的功能在定價方面，因此他們會轉向該解決方案或其他解決方案。該類別中的高 ARPU 客戶數量現在大部分已經發生轉變，沒有那麼多真正需要轉變的客戶，我們不僅在 OpenPort 和 Certus 方面提供新的解決方案，我們將有一個整體，我們不會談論太多，但正在進行的開發之一是新的 LBT，它以非常低的成本提供我們所說的 Certus 100 或 Certus 20 服務，這些服務是子服務每秒 100 kb，但這是一種非常高質量的體驗，對於許多不需要寬帶連接且高度移動的數據應用程序來說是有好處的。那將在明年到來。所以，這是一種技術描述——

Yes and what I would say is that we have as many L-Band transceiver customers today as we had 3 years ago, what has changed is the very heavy users of data have kind of been prudent men and say, look if I need this much data an L-Band transceiver is not the solution, I either need a FleetBroadband or an OpenPort. I'll pay up for the higher equipment cost because the cost of the data is much less and so those heavy users of data have made that migration. If you went back 3 years ago, the ARPU in the L-band transceiver was probably $70 versus our $45 kind of ARPU. Today, the L-band transceiver ARPU is right on top of that $45 number, so the heavy users of self-selected out and that trend has now run its course and the headwind which it created for the last 3 years has abated.

是的，我想說的是，我們今天的 L 波段收發器客戶數量與 3 年前一樣多，變化的是數據的大量用戶變得謹慎起來，他們說，看看我是否需要這麼多數據 L 波段收發器不是解決方案，我需要 FleetBroadband 或 OpenPort。我將支付更高的設​​備成本，因為數據的成本要低得多，因此那些數據的重度用戶已經進行了遷移。如果你回到 3 年前，L 波段收發器的 ARPU 可能是 70 美元，而我們的 ARPU 是 45 美元。如今，L 波段收發器的 ARPU 已經超過了 45 美元的數字，因此自選的大量用戶已經退出，這種趨勢現在已經結束，過去 3 年造成的阻力已經減弱。

That's very helpful color. Just one last question for me. Clearly very strong equipment revenue results this quarter. I think you were downplaying it saying you feel like it's probably hurricane driven, but why do you conclude that, is it just very heavy on the handset side or why does at least my sense from your comments is that its maybe one-time, why isn't it potentially more than that.

這是非常有用的顏色。我還有最後一個問題。顯然，本季度的設備收入非常強勁。我認為你淡化了它，說你覺得它可能是颶風驅動的，但你為什麼得出這樣的結論，它只是在手機方面非常重，或者為什麼至少我從你的評論中感覺到它可能是一次性的，為什麼是不是可能不止於此。

It's heavy handset for sure and so as we looked at our prospects in 2018, we saw the strength in 2017 In the third and fourth quarters that was hurricane-related and that's why in our initial '18 guidance, we called equipment revenues down because we said, look, we're not going to predict hurricanes in the third and fourth quarter. What we didn't expect was basically the channel refill, if you will of handsets in the first quarter and the strength of that. So we continue to think that in the third and the fourth quarter, we have tough comps from '17 and we don't see ourselves beating them, but the first quarter has been so strong that we, notwithstanding the fact that we see down quarters in the third and fourth, we think we wind up in '18 kind of in line with '17 which was not our expectation and we have our eye on our EBITDA guide kind of in the next couple of quarters with that in mind.

它肯定是重型手機，因此，當我們展望 2018 年的前景時，我們看到了 2017 年第三和第四季度與颶風相關的強勁勢頭，這就是為什麼在我們最初的 18 年指導中，我們下調了設備收入，因為我們說，看，我們不會預測第三和第四季度會有颶風。我們沒想到的是，如果你願意的話，第一季度手機的渠道補充量及其強度。因此，我們仍然認為，在第三和第四季度，我們從 17 年開始就面臨著艱難的競爭，我們認為自己不會擊敗他們，但第一季度的表現非常強勁，儘管我們看到了季度下滑的事實在第三和第四個季度，我們認為我們最終的結果是“18”，與“17”一致，這不是我們的預期，我們將在接下來的幾個季度關注我們的 EBITDA 指南，並牢記這一點。

Thank you and our final question comes from Chris Quilty with Quilty Analytics.

謝謝您，我們的最後一個問題來自 Quilty Analytics 的 Chris Quilty。

Actually just a follow-up on that equipment question, was it your sense that the strength in Q4 was customers buying hardware for things that they need it in real time and Q4 was sort of the follow-on of them realizing oh crap, we need to position toward the future or was there any additional new products that filtered into that mix?

實際上，這只是設備問題的後續，您是否認為第四季度的優勢在於客戶實時購買他們需要的硬件，而第四季度是他們意識到哦，糟糕，我們需要的後續面向未來的定位，或者是否有其他新產品融入到該組合中？

Well, there wasn't, I don't think too many new products per se there. I think it was a broad based, that was led by hurricane, not just the hurricane happened sort of third quarter and into the 4th quarter there has to be sort of a refilling of channels and that sort of thing the way in the fourth quarter. Pleased to see that it's sort of continued in the first quarter not only go beyond handsets were obviously strong but so is IoT and really frankly across the board, we had I'd say it was a good quarter across almost all equipment types, but it was, but I think Tom's right we have tough comps in the second half. So we're, we can call it as flat today, we'll see how it goes in the next quarter or 2 as to where it'll end up in the year, but I think calling it flat to the year is prudent and appropriate for now. [Probably give us] anything special beyond I think overall, we're in a stronger position we've been in the last couple of years and the business is sort of hitting on all cylinders and equipment is tracking that as well.

嗯，沒有，我認為那裡本身沒有太多新產品。我認為這是一個廣泛的基礎，是由颶風主導的，不僅僅是颶風發生在第三季度，進入第四季度必須有某種渠道的重新填充，就像第四季度那樣。很高興看到第一季度的持續發展不僅超出了手機明顯強勁的範圍，而且物聯網也是如此，坦率地說，我們可以說這是幾乎所有設備類型的一個不錯的季度，但它是的，但我認為湯姆是對的，我們下半場的比賽很艱難。所以我們今天可以稱之為持平，我們將看看下一個或兩個季度的情況如何，以及今年的最終結果，但我認為稱其為今年持平是謹慎的，目前適合。[可能給我們]除了我認為總體而言之外的任何特別的東西，我們在過去幾年中處於更有利的地位，業務正在全力以赴，設備也在跟踪這一點。

Thank you, this concludes the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to management for final comments.

謝謝大家，問答環節到此結束。我現在想將電話轉回給管理層以徵求最終意見。

Yes, thanks. I hope you'll join us online on May 19 for another I think very interesting launch. It's another flight proven rocket and will be a particularly interesting launch given its a rideshare and then watch for the Certus roll out as well, but we will see you all in the second quarter call soon. Thank you.

對了謝謝。我希望您能於 5 月 19 日在線加入我們，參加另一場我認為非常有趣的發布會。這是另一枚經過飛行驗證的火箭，考慮到它的拼車功能，這將是一次特別有趣的發射，然後我們也會期待 Certus 的推出，但我們很快就會在第二季度的電話會議上見到大家。謝謝。

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thanks for your participation, have a wonderful day.

女士們、先生們，今天的會議到此結束。感謝您的參與，祝您度過美好的一天。