Lumen Technologies Inc (LUMN) 2021 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to Lumen Technologies' Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, February 9, 2022.

您好，歡迎參加 Lumen Technologies 的 2021 年第四季度收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，本次會議將於 2022 年 2 月 9 日星期三錄製。

It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Mike McCormack, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

現在我很高興將會議轉交給投資者關係高級副總裁 Mike McCormack。請繼續。

Thank you, Franz. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to the Lumen Technologies' Fourth Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. Joining me on the call today are Jeff Storey, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Neel Dev, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝你，弗蘭茲。大家下午好，感謝您參加 Lumen Technologies 的 2021 年第四季度財報電話會議。今天和我一起參加電話會議的是總裁兼首席執行官 Jeff Storey；和 Neel Dev，執行副總裁兼首席財務官。

Before we begin, I need to call your attention to our safe harbor statement on Slide 2 of our fourth quarter 2021 presentation, which notes that this conference call may include forward-looking statements subject to certain risks and uncertainties. All forward-looking statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements on Slide 2 and the risk factors in our SEC filings.

在我們開始之前，我需要提請您注意我們在 2021 年第四季度演示文稿幻燈片 2 中的安全港聲明，其中指出本次電話會議可能包括受某些風險和不確定性影響的前瞻性聲明。所有前瞻性陳述都應與幻燈片 2 中的警示性陳述以及我們提交給美國證券交易委員會的文件中的風險因素一起考慮。

We will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures reconciled to the most comparable GAAP measures that can be found in our earnings press release. In addition, certain metrics discussed today exclude costs for special items as detailed in our earnings materials, all of which can be found on the Investor Relations section of the Lumen website.

我們將提及某些非公認會計原則財務指標，這些指標與我們的收益新聞稿中最具可比性的公認會計原則指標相一致。此外，今天討論的某些指標不包括我們收益材料中詳述的特殊項目的成本，所有這些都可以在 Lumen 網站的投資者關係部分找到。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff.

有了這個，我會把電話轉給傑夫。

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. 2022 brings new beginnings for Lumen. The team is energized for rapid change as we streamline our assets and aggressively invest to drive growth. I want to be clear, our focus is on turning our top line positive with profitable revenue. Every employee in our organization, our sales team, field techs, customer care, support functions is focused on this objective.

大家下午好，感謝您加入我們。 2022 年為 Lumen 帶來了新的開始。隨著我們精簡資產並積極投資以推動增長，團隊為快速變革充滿活力。我想明確一點，我們的重點是通過盈利收入使我們的收入變為正數。我們組織中的每一位員工、我們的銷售團隊、現場技術人員、客戶服務、支持部門都專注於這一目標。

On today's call, I'll provide a few thoughts on our fourth quarter results, an update on our announced transactions, a review of our key capital allocation priorities and a review of our investment plans, which we believe will position the company for long-term sustainable revenue growth. Neel will discuss the fourth quarter in more detail, provide our outlook for 2022 and update expectations for the timing and financial impact of our 2 announced transactions. We'll reserve time after Neel's remarks for your questions.

在今天的電話會議上，我將就我們的第四季度業績、我們宣布的交易的更新、我們的關鍵資本分配優先事項的審查以及我們的投資計劃的審查提供一些想法，我們相信這將使公司長期處於長期可持續的收入增長。 Neel 將更詳細地討論第四季度，提供我們對 2022 年的展望，並更新對我們宣布的兩項交易的時間安排和財務影響的預期。 Neel 發言後，我們會為您的問題預留時間。

Our fourth quarter revenue trend was stable compared to the third quarter and, on an organic basis, our business revenue was unchanged from the third quarter. We said previously we do not expect a straight-line revenue growth, but our forward indicators provide us confidence that we can achieve our stated long-term goals. Quarterly sales were once again strong, and the funnel remains above pre-pandemic levels.

與第三季度相比，我們第四季度的收入趨勢穩定，並且在有機基礎上，我們的業務收入與第三季度相比沒有變化。我們之前說過，我們預計收入不會直線增長，但我們的前瞻性指標讓我們有信心實現我們既定的長期目標。季度銷售再次強勁，漏斗仍高於大流行前的水平。

The Lumen platform is transforming the way businesses approach their technology needs, bringing best-in-class solutions to enable 4th Industrial Revolution use cases and enabling the digital transformation for enterprises. Enterprises are adjusting to new hybrid workloads. And Lumen, as well as our world-class partners, are delivering the expertise necessary for our customers to succeed.

Lumen 平台正在改變企業滿足其技術需求的方式，帶來一流的解決方案以實現第四次工業革命用例並實現企業的數字化轉型。企業正在適應新的混合工作負載。 Lumen 以及我們的世界級合作夥伴正在為我們的客戶提供成功所需的專業知識。

As you can imagine, the excitement within Lumen is high as we position our Quantum Fiber platform for a major acceleration. Our robust, symmetric, all-digital experience is resonating with customers. Quantum will help drive revenue growth and lower the operating costs for our Mass Markets segment, improving the profitability and durability of the business. At the same time, incumbency provides us a meaningful cost advantage as we build and launch new Quantum markets and drive penetration gains.

正如您可以想像的那樣，當我們將我們的 Quantum Fiber 平台定位為大幅加速時，Lumen 內部的興奮度很高。我們強大、對稱、全數字化的體驗正在引起客戶的共鳴。 Quantum 將有助於推動收入增長並降低我們大眾市場部門的運營成本，從而提高業務的盈利能力和持久性。同時，在我們建立和推出新的 Quantum 市場並推動滲透率增長時，在職為我們提供了有意義的成本優勢。

Our expectation for long-term penetration is fully supported by the strength of the product as well as the performance in our existing Quantum markets. Even in our nascent Quantum footprint, we have achieved 29% penetration with limited marketing activities, more than doubling the penetration we have in our legacy copper areas. As we pivot from micro-targeting to a market-based approach, we expect to be able to attract and retain new and existing customers to our superior product capabilities much more aggressively. The opportunity for Quantum is significant. I hope you can feel our excitement for the future of Lumen as we invest to drive Enterprise and Quantum Fiber growth.

產品的實力以及我們現有 Quantum 市場的表現完全支持了我們對長期滲透的期望。即使在我們剛起步的 Quantum 足跡中，我們也通過有限的營銷活動實現了 29% 的滲透率，是我們在傳統銅領域的滲透率的兩倍多。隨著我們從微觀定位轉向基於市場的方法，我們希望能夠更積極地吸引和留住新客戶和現有客戶，以使用我們卓越的產品能力。 Quantum 的機會是巨大的。當我們投資推動企業和量子光纖的增長時，我希望您能感受到我們對 Lumen 未來的興奮。

Let's shift to a few quick thoughts about our previously announced transactions. These transactions allow us to focus on the areas of our business that we believe are best poised for growth. As you think about the pro forma revenue mix, over 1/3 of our mass market exposure to legacy voice and other revenue will be divested. Not only does our revenue mix improve but these transactions also delivered strong valuations, supporting the view that our overall asset portfolio remains deeply discounted by the market.

讓我們快速思考一下我們之前宣布的交易。這些交易使我們能夠專注於我們認為最適合增長的業務領域。當您考慮備考收入組合時，我們超過 1/3 的大眾市場對傳統語音和其他收入的敞口將被剝離。不僅我們的收入組合得到改善，而且這些交易也帶來了強勁的估值，支持了我們的整體資產組合仍然被市場大幅折價的觀點。

While we disagree with our current valuation, there's only one way to realize our true market value: execution. We get it and we're focused on delivering. We're making good progress toward closing both deals, and Neel will provide an update on our expected timing and financial impacts. We're working to be a strong partner to both Stonepeak and Apollo as they onboard our employees and customers and as we help position them for success.

雖然我們不同意我們目前的估值，但只有一種方法可以實現我們的真正市場價值：執行。我們明白了，我們專注於交付。我們在完成這兩項交易方面取得了良好進展，Neel 將提供我們預期的時間安排和財務影響的最新信息。我們正在努力成為 Stonepeak 和 Apollo 的強大合作夥伴，因為他們加入了我們的員工和客戶，我們幫助他們定位成功。

Last quarter, we provided you our top 5 capital allocation priorities as we deploy our significant free cash flow and utilize the proceeds from these valuable transactions. I hope I've been clear that investing in growth is always our highest priority, and we will invest in both CapEx and OpEx to lay the foundation to achieve our goals. I feel we are in a great position entering 2022.

上個季度，我們在部署大量自由現金流並利用這些有價值交易的收益時，為您提供了我們的前 5 大資本配置優先事項。我希望我已經清楚，投資增長始終是我們的首要任務，我們將同時投資資本支出和運營支出，為實現我們的目標奠定基礎。我覺得進入 2022 年我們處於有利位置。

Let me start with Quantum Fiber. There's a tremendous amount of activity here at Lumen as we rev up the Quantum engine. We are readying the platform to deliver on our plan and remain very confident in our opportunity to deliver the terrific experience provided by Quantum to more than 12 million locations over the coming years. Quantum Fiber revenue grew 22% year-over-year, and we look forward to the growth that will come from our much more aggressive Quantum stance. We see a long-term significant and sustainable revenue growth opportunity for our Mass Markets business resulting from our Quantum Fiber investment.

讓我從量子光纖開始。在我們升級 Quantum 引擎時，Lumen 有大量的活動。我們正在準備平台以實現我們的計劃，並對我們有機會在未來幾年向超過 1200 萬個地點提供 Quantum 提供的出色體驗充滿信心。 Quantum Fiber 收入同比增長 22%，我們期待著我們更加積極的 Quantum 立場所帶來的增長。我們認為，由於我們的量子光纖投資，我們的大眾市場業務將獲得長期顯著且可持續的收入增長機會。

As of the end of the fourth quarter, we had approximately 2.6 million enabled locations within the retained 16 states, in line with our expectation outlined last quarter. Our excitement builds as we enter 2022 with our plan to accelerate aggressively and ramp that enablement pace to over 1 million new locations, with a goal of hitting a run rate of 1.5 million to 2 million enablements per year as we exit 2022.

截至第四季度末，我們在保留的 16 個州內啟用了大約 260 萬個地點，符合我們上季度概述的預期。隨著我們進入 2022 年，我們的興奮與日俱增，我們計劃積極加速並將啟用速度提高到超過 100 萬個新地點，目標是在 2022 年退出時達到每年 150 萬至 200 萬次啟用的運行率。

Our fully-funded 2022 Quantum Fiber plan will enable millions of customer locations to experience our best-in-breed Quantum experience and product capability that we believe will drive higher ARPU, lower churn and significant customer lifetime value. We will invest heavily to bring the Quantum experience to our customers, especially in the areas of product development, marketing, brand and go-to-market sales initiatives.

我們全額資助的 2022 年 Quantum Fiber 計劃將使數百萬客戶能夠體驗我們同類最佳的 Quantum 體驗和產品能力，我們相信這將推動更高的 ARPU、更低的客戶流失和顯著的客戶生命週期價值。我們將大力投資，為我們的客戶帶來昆騰體驗，特別是在產品開發、營銷、品牌和上市銷售計劃等領域。

Both enterprise and mass market supply chains are stressed, and we continue working very closely with our diverse and valued suppliers to mitigate risk as we execute on our growth objectives. In addition, we're managing through this inflationary environment and, with some exceptions, do not expect pricing pressures to impede our goals.

企業和大眾市場供應鏈都受到壓力，我們將繼續與我們多元化和有價值的供應商密切合作，以在我們執行增長目標時降低風險。此外，我們正在應對這種通脹環境，除某些例外情況外，預計價格壓力不會阻礙我們的目標。

Our excitement for Quantum Fiber is easy to understand, but we are equally excited about our Enterprise business as we continue to invest aggressively in our edge compute and storage platforms, our managed service offerings, SASE and our security products. Our customers' digital experience across our core networking services is unique and drives success with a customer-first posture. Along those lines, we have successfully launched our fully digital self-service edge compute ordering system, which allows existing and new customers to self-provision services, including bare metal and storage solutions in minutes without the need for human interaction.

我們對 Quantum Fiber 的興奮不言而喻，但我們對企業業務同樣興奮，因為我們將繼續大力投資於我們的邊緣計算和存儲平台、我們的託管服務產品、SASE 和我們的安全產品。我們的客戶在我們的核心網絡服務中的數字體驗是獨一無二的，並以客戶至上的姿態推動成功。沿著這些思路，我們成功推出了我們的全數字自助服務邊緣計算訂購系統，它允許現有和新客戶在幾分鐘內自助提供服務，包括裸機和存儲解決方案，而無需人工交互。

We believe our extensive long-haul and dense metro infrastructure and our ultra-low latency, ultrahigh capacity network, provide cost advantages over many of our competitors and deliver a powerful customer experience. We are seeing early signs that our customers understand that value proposition, and our recently announced $1.2 billion network services contract win for the U.S. Department of Agriculture is a great example.

我們相信，我們廣泛的長途和密集的城域基礎設施以及我們的超低延遲、超高容量網絡，比我們的許多競爭對手提供成本優勢，並提供強大的客戶體驗。我們看到早期跡象表明，我們的客戶理解這一價值主張，我們最近宣佈為美國農業部贏得 12 億美元的網絡服務合同就是一個很好的例子。

As part of this solution, we're delivering secure remote access, managed data, contact center and cloud connectivity solutions to more than 10,000 USDA locations across the country and abroad. Awarded under the $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions, or EIS, program, the 11-year task order is illustrative of the broad range of products and services offered on the Lumen platform. This is a long list but our services to the USDA includes SD-WAN, MTIPS, Zero Trust networking, edge computing, VPN, managed security, UCaaS, voice over IP, Ethernet and wavelengths and related equipment and engineering services.

作為該解決方案的一部分，我們正在為美國農業部全國和國外的 10,000 多個地點提供安全的遠程訪問、託管數據、聯絡中心和雲連接解決方案。根據價值 500 億美元的企業基礎設施解決方案 (EIS) 計劃授予的為期 11 年的任務訂單說明了 Lumen 平台上提供的廣泛產品和服務。這是一個很長的清單，但我們為 USDA 提供的服務包括 SD-WAN、MTIPS、零信任網絡、邊緣計算、VPN、託管安全、UCaaS、IP 語音、以太網和波長以及相關設備和工程服務。

I mentioned earlier that we had another strong sales quarter in 4Q. While the USDA deal highlights our expertise in the public sector, our other sales within North America Enterprise, which do not include public sector, were up both sequentially and year-over-year. In fact, December was the highest sales month we've seen in several years for this area.

我之前提到我們在第四季度有另一個強勁的銷售季度。雖然美國農業部的交易凸顯了我們在公共部門的專業知識，但我們在北美企業（不包括公共部門）的其他銷售額環比和同比均有所增長。事實上，12 月是我們多年來在該地區看到的最高銷售月份。

Beyond driving growth, we believe returning cash to shareholders is a very important part of the Lumen strategy and that the $1 per share level is attractive and sustainable long term. As we said, our payout ratio will likely rise in the near term during the accelerated Quantum build phase which we think should be viewed as a discrete project. The completion of the multiyear build phase, coupled with our expectation for top line growth, should return us to more normalized payout ratios over time.

除了推動增長外，我們認為向股東返還現金是 Lumen 戰略的一個非常重要的部分，每股 1 美元的水平具有吸引力且長期可持續。正如我們所說，在我們認為應該被視為一個離散項目的加速 Quantum 構建階段，我們的派息率可能會在短期內上升。多年建設階段的完成，加上我們對收入增長的預期，應該會讓我們隨著時間的推移恢復到更加正常化的派息率。

We will continue to manage our balance sheet to remain relatively leverage-neutral through our Quantum Fiber deployment plan, but we do expect the time line to reach our target net leverage ratio of 2.75 to 3.25x adjusted EBITDA will be extended. To be clear, relatively leverage-neutral is inclusive of the impact of not only the transactions but also the CAF II to RDOF transition.

我們將繼續通過我們的 Quantum Fiber 部署計劃管理我們的資產負債表以保持相對槓桿中性，但我們確實預計達到 2.75 至 3.25 倍調整後 EBITDA 的目標淨槓桿率的時間線將會延長。需要明確的是，相對槓桿中性不僅包括交易的影響，還包括 CAF II 到 RDOF 過渡的影響。

We will also continue to evaluate our asset portfolio, and I hope our opportunistic but open approach to asset optimization is fully appreciated. Let me be clear, there is no urgency for us to divest additional assets, and we will only pursue opportunities that offer both a compelling valuation and a clear strategic benefit.

我們還將繼續評估我們的資產組合，我希望我們的機會主義但開放的資產優化方法得到充分讚賞。讓我明確一點，我們並不急於剝離額外資產，我們只會尋求既提供令人信服的估值又提供明確戰略利益的機會。

Lastly, I want to emphasize that we continue to believe our shares are deeply discounted and do not reflect the tremendous opportunity we see for Lumen going forward. Our Board remains prepared to authorize further buybacks on short notice if we believe a buyback provides the best and most prudent return for our shareholders.

最後，我想強調的是，我們仍然相信我們的股票大幅打折，並不能反映我們看到的 Lumen 未來的巨大機會。如果我們認為回購為我們的股東提供最佳和最審慎的回報，我們的董事會仍準備在短時間內授權進一步回購。

With that, I'll turn the call over to Neel to discuss our fourth quarter results. Neel?

有了這個，我將把電話轉給尼爾討論我們第四季度的業績。尼爾？

Thank you, Jeff, and good afternoon, everyone. We entered 2022 with a clear focus on closing 2 significant transactions and executing on our plans to drive future growth. I will begin with our financial summary for 2021.

謝謝你，傑夫，大家下午好。進入 2022 年，我們明確專注於完成 2 筆重大交易並執行我們推動未來增長的計劃。我將從 2021 年的財務摘要開始。

We generated adjusted EBITDA of $8.440 billion in 2021 and, on a full year basis, expanded margins by over 100 basis points year-over-year. We continue to make progress on our objective of improving revenue trajectory with fourth quarter down 0.8% sequentially. When adjusted for foreign currency and the sale of our last remaining correctional facilities business, during the quarter, our sequential revenue declined 0.5% in the fourth quarter.

我們在 2021 年產生了 84.40 億美元的調整後 EBITDA，全年利潤率同比增長超過 100 個基點。我們繼續在改善收入軌蹟的目標上取得進展，第四季度環比下降 0.8%。在對外彙和我們最後剩餘的懲教設施業務進行調整後，在本季度，我們的環比收入在第四季度下降了 0.5%。

We again delivered solid free cash flow of $3.742 billion. We returned $2.1 billion to our shareholders during the year through quarterly dividend payments and our stock repurchase program. Additionally, we reduced net debt by $1.5 billion during 2021 and exited the year with leverage at 3.6x. We also announced 2 significant transactions at very attractive multiples with an aggregate value of over $10 billion.

我們再次實現了 37.42 億美元的穩健自由現金流。年內，我們通過季度股息支付和股票回購計劃向股東返還了 21 億美元。此外，我們在 2021 年將淨債務減少了 15 億美元，並以 3.6 倍的槓桿率結束了這一年。我們還以非常有吸引力的倍數宣布了兩項重大交易，總價值超過 100 億美元。

Turning to revenue. In the fourth quarter, total revenue declined 5.4% on a year-over-year basis to $4.847 billion. Year-over-year metrics continued to be impacted by COVID-related demand in 2020. On a sequential basis, total revenue declined 0.8%, in line with the sequential rate of decline in the third quarter. Business revenue in the fourth quarter declined 0.4% sequentially. On a year-over-year basis, revenue declined 4.7% to $3.494 billion. Normalizing for foreign currency headwinds and the sale of our correctional facilities business, sequential revenue was flat and declined 4.3% on a year-over-year basis.

轉向收入。第四季度，總收入同比下降 5.4% 至 48.47 億美元。同比指標繼續受到 2020 年與 COVID 相關的需求的影響。總收入環比下降 0.8%，與第三季度的環比下降率一致。第四季度業務收入環比下降 0.4%。收入同比下降 4.7% 至 34.94 億美元。外匯逆風正常化和我們的懲教設施業務的出售，連續收入持平，同比下降 4.3%。

Within business, IGAM revenue declined 0.2% sequentially and 1.5% on a year-over-year basis. On a constant currency basis, IGAM grew 0.6% sequentially and declined 1% year-over-year. The year-over-year decline was due primarily to the large customer disconnect which I have referenced on previous calls. We saw sequential benefits from compute and application services, which was driven by managed security and cloud services.

在業務方面，IGAM 收入環比下降 0.2%，同比下降 1.5%。按固定匯率計算，IGAM 環比增長 0.6%，同比下降 1%。同比下降主要是由於我在之前的電話中提到的大量客戶斷開連接。我們看到了由託管安全和雲服務驅動的計算和應用服務帶來的連續收益。

Within large enterprise, in the fourth quarter, we sold the remainder of our correctional facilities communication services business. The sale of this business at the end of October impacted revenue by about $7 million in the fourth quarter, and the impact on a full quarter basis would have been about $10 million. Normalizing for this sale, large enterprise declined 0.3% sequentially and declined 5.9% on a year-over-year basis. We had strength sequentially in compute and application services driven by our IT solutions and cloud services. Year-over-year trends were impacted by the surge in COVID-related usage in 2020 and the timing of nonrecurring revenues in our public sector channel.

在大型企業中，第四季度，我們出售了剩餘的懲教設施通信服務業務。 10 月底出售該業務對第四季度收入的影響約為 700 萬美元，整個季度的影響約為 1000 萬美元。此次銷售正常化，大型企業環比下降 0.3%，同比下降 5.9%。在 IT 解決方案和雲服務的推動下，我們在計算和應用服務方面具有連續優勢。同比趨勢受到 2020 年 COVID 相關使用量激增以及我們公共部門渠道中非經常性收入時機的影響。

Mid-market enterprise declined 0.2% sequentially and 7.1% on a year-over-year basis, with both measures showing improvement compared to the third quarter. Wholesale revenue was essentially flat on a sequential basis and, year-over-year, declined 4.3% versus the 7% decline in the third quarter. Wholesale benefited from demand for fiber infrastructure and a few onetime items. We continue to manage this business for cash.

中型市場企業環比下降 0.2%，同比下降 7.1%，與第三季度相比，這兩項指標均有所改善。批發收入環比基本持平，同比下降 4.3%，而第三季度下降 7%。批發受益於對光纖基礎設施和一些一次性物品的需求。我們繼續以現金管理這項業務。

Computer and application services for enterprise channels grew 3.9% sequentially, showing growth across all channels, but declined 2.2% year-over-year. The year-over-year decline is primarily driven by the previously mentioned large IGAM customer disconnect. IP and data services for enterprise channels declined both sequentially and year-over-year due to fewer new VPN network deployments. We saw continued increased demand for IP in the fourth quarter as customers transition to SD-WAN and hybrid work environments.

企業渠道的計算機和應用程序服務環比增長 3.9%，顯示所有渠道的增長，但同比下降 2.2%。同比下降主要是由於前面提到的大型 IGAM 客戶脫節。由於新的 VPN 網絡部署減少，企業渠道的 IP 和數據服務環比和同比均下降。隨著客戶過渡到 SD-WAN 和混合工作環境，我們看到第四季度對 IP 的需求持續增加。

Fiber infrastructure services for enterprise channels declined 2.6% sequentially and 2.4% year-over-year. These products have significant professional services and equipment related to complex network deployments. The sequential and year-over-year revenue variability is driven primarily by these nonrecurring services. The voice and other services, which include our legacy services, declined both sequentially and on a year-over-year basis as we manage these areas for cash. Voice comparisons continued to be impacted by higher COVID-related usage in the year-ago quarter.

企業渠道的光纖基礎設施服務環比下降 2.6%，同比下降 2.4%。這些產品具有與復雜網絡部署相關的重要專業服務和設備。收入的連續和同比變化主要是由這些非經常性服務驅動的。語音和其他服務（包括我們的傳統服務）在我們管理這些領域以獲取現金的情況下，環比和同比均有所下降。語音比較繼續受到去年同期較高的 COVID 相關使用量的影響。

Turning to Mass Markets. Fourth quarter 2021 revenue declined 1.9% sequentially. Our Mass Markets fiber broadband revenue grew 22% year-over-year this quarter. During the quarter, we added 29,000 Quantum Fiber customers, up from 25,000 adds in the prior year fourth quarter.

轉向大眾市場。 2021 年第四季度收入環比下降 1.9%。本季度我們的大眾市場光纖寬帶收入同比增長 22%。在本季度，我們增加了 29,000 家 Quantum Fiber 客戶，高於去年第四季度的 25,000 家。

Turning to adjusted EBITDA. For the fourth quarter of 2021, adjusted EBITDA, excluding special items, was $2.088 billion compared to $2.188 billion in the year-ago quarter. Special items this quarter totaled $19 million and were related primarily to transaction and separation activities. We continued to drive healthy EBITDA margins during the quarter, growing by about 40 basis points year-over-year to 43.1%.

轉向調整後的 EBITDA。 2021 年第四季度，不包括特殊項目的調整後 EBITDA 為 20.88 億美元，而去年同期為 21.88 億美元。本季度的特殊項目總計 1900 萬美元，主要與交易和分離活動有關。我們在本季度繼續推動健康的 EBITDA 利潤率，同比增長約 40 個基點至 43.1%。

Capital expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2021 were $848 million. While we continue to focus on capital efficiencies, capital spending was up both sequentially and year-over-year as we increased success-based spending and invested in the accelerated Quantum Fiber build plan. We expect capital expenditures to increase going forward as our Quantum Fiber build ramps.

2021 年第四季度的資本支出為 8.48 億美元。雖然我們繼續關注資本效率，但隨著我們增加基於成功的支出並投資於加速的量子光纖構建計劃，資本支出環比和同比均有所增長。我們預計隨著我們的 Quantum Fiber 建設的增加，未來資本支出將會增加。

In the fourth quarter of 2021, the company generated free cash flow of $776 million. At the beginning of each year, we evaluate our external reporting and make adjustments to better align our financial reporting with management focus and [driver] of our business. In 2022, we are adjusting our Mass Markets product revenue reporting categories to fiber broadband, other broadband and voice and other. The 2 key reasons for these changes are the increasing importance of our Quantum Fiber platform and the completion of the CAF II program. Given its relatively small impact, the RDOF subsidy revenue will be included in the voice and other category in our new reporting structure. We do not contemplate making any additional changes to our reporting at this time.

2021年第四季度，公司產生了7.76億美元的自由現金流。每年年初，我們都會評估我們的外部報告並進行調整，以更好地使我們的財務報告與管理重點和我們的業務[驅動]保持一致。 2022 年，我們將大眾市場產品收入報告類別調整為光纖寬帶、其他寬帶和語音等。這些變化的兩個關鍵原因是我們的 Quantum Fiber 平台的重要性日益增加以及 CAF II 計劃的完成。鑑於其影響相對較小，RDOF 補貼收入將包含在我們新報告結構中的語音和其他類別中。我們目前不考慮對我們的報告進行任何額外的更改。

Moving on to the business outlook for 2022. As we focus on portfolio rationalization and transforming the business, we will have several moving pieces that will complicate year-over-year comparability. Before I get into financial guidance, I will touch on some of those factors. First of all, as a reminder, the CAF II subsidy ended in 2021, which will impact year-over-year adjusted EBITDA by about $500 million. When combined, the 2 divested assets are expected to generate about $1.7 billion of EBITDA with capital spending of about $450 million in 2022. We now expect the transactions to close in early third quarter of this year. For simplicity of guidance, we have assumed first half results are included in our consolidated results. At this point, we don't expect deal close-related timing variance to be material.

繼續展望 2022 年的業務前景。當我們專注於投資組合合理化和業務轉型時，我們將有幾個變動的部分，這將使年度可比性變得複雜。在我進行財務指導之前，我將討論其中的一些因素。首先，提醒一下，CAF II 補貼於 2021 年結束，這將影響同比調整後的 EBITDA 約 5 億美元。合併後，這兩項剝離的資產預計將在 2022 年產生約 17 億美元的 EBITDA，資本支出約為 4.5 億美元。我們現在預計交易將在今年第三季度初完成。為簡單起見，我們假設上半年業績包含在我們的綜合業績中。在這一點上，我們預計與交易完成相關的時間差異並不重要。

For the full year 2022, we expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $6.5 billion to $6.7 billion. When bridging to our 2022 full year adjusted EBITDA guidance, in addition to the obvious CAF II completion and divested business EBITDA, there are a few other drivers to keep in mind. As Jeff mentioned, we have significantly stepped up our investments in growth initiatives for Enterprise and scaling our Quantum Fiber business. As for the divestitures, we will have separation costs and dissynergies which will impact near-term results. As we prioritize growth initiatives and supporting our divestitures in 2022, we expect our transformation savings to be lower than prior years.

對於 2022 年全年，我們預計調整後的 EBITDA 將在 65 億美元至 67 億美元之間。在過渡到我們 2022 年全年調整後的 EBITDA 指導時，除了明顯的 CAF II 完成和剝離的業務 EBITDA 之外，還有一些其他驅動因素需要牢記。正如 Jeff 所提到的，我們已經顯著加大了對企業增長計劃的投資，並擴大了我們的量子光纖業務。至於資產剝離，我們將產生分離成本和不協同效應，這將影響近期業績。隨著我們在 2022 年優先考慮增長計劃並支持我們的資產剝離，我們預計我們的轉型節省將低於往年。

For the full year 2022, we expect total capital expenditures in the range of $3.2 billion to $3.4 billion. Within that, we expect to spend about $1 billion of capital on Quantum during 2022. We expect to generate free cash flow in the range of $1.6 billion to $1.8 billion for the full year 2022. For 2022, we do not have any required contributions to the pension fund, and our free cash flow guidance does not include any discretionary contributions. As a reminder, our first quarter typically has higher working capital use driven by timing of bonus payments and other prepaid expenses.

對於 2022 年全年，我們預計總資本支出在 32 億美元至 34 億美元之間。其中，我們預計 2022 年將在 Quantum 上花費約 10 億美元的資本。我們預計 2022 年全年將產生 16 億美元至 18 億美元的自由現金流。對於 2022 年，我們沒有任何必要的貢獻養老基金，我們的自由現金流指導不包括任何可自由支配的供款。提醒一下，由於獎金支付和其他預付費用的時間安排，我們的第一季度通常使用更高的營運資金。

We expect net cash interest expense in the range of $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion for 2022. As Jeff mentioned, we expect to stay leverage-neutral as we close the transactions and scale our Quantum Fiber business. In terms of special items for 2022, we expect a significant ramp-up in costs compared to prior years, primarily driven by dedicated third-party costs to support transition services for the divestitures. The reimbursement for these services will be in other income with no material net impact to our cash flows.

我們預計 2022 年的淨現金利息支出在 13 億美元至 14 億美元之間。正如傑夫所說，隨著我們完成交易並擴大我們的量子光纖業務，我們預計將保持槓桿中性。就 2022 年的特殊項目而言，我們預計與往年相比成本將大幅上升，主要是由專門的第三方成本推動，以支持資產剝離的過渡服務。這些服務的報銷將計入其他收入，對我們的現金流沒有重大淨影響。

In closing, 2022 is all about executing on our growth initiatives for the Enterprise Lumen platform and scaling our Quantum Fiber business that fuel our return to growth. As a reminder, in addition to free cash flow generated from the business, we expect about $7 billion in discretionary cash proceeds from the transactions after the transfer of debt and transaction costs. The combination of free cash flow from the business and proceeds from portfolio rationalization efforts support our capital allocation priorities that Jeff highlighted.

最後，2022 年就是執行我們針對 Enterprise Lumen 平台的增長計劃，並擴展我們的量子光纖業務，以推動我們恢復增長。提醒一下，除了業務產生的自由現金流外，我們預計在轉移債務和交易成本後，交易將產生約 70 億美元的可自由支配現金收益。來自業務的自由現金流與投資組合合理化工作的收益相結合，支持了 Jeff 強調的我們的資本配置優先事項。

With that, we are ready for your questions.

有了這個，我們準備好回答你的問題了。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question is from the line of Michael Rollins with Citi.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自花旗的 Michael Rollins。

As you're thinking about the opportunities in 2022 to improve revenue with some of the priorities you mentioned earlier in the call, just curious, as you look at the charts on Page 6 and 7 that kind of lay out the year-over-year changes in revenue versus the sequential changes in revenue, where should investors focus more in trying to think about the evolution of performance? Is the sequential much more relevant? Or is the year-over-year? As sometimes beginning of the year, you have price changes and other annual updates to your customers and your sales. And then just separately, one housekeeping item. I think there was a mention earlier that in wholesale, there were some onetime items. Just curious if you can unpack the amount of those onetime items impacting the wholesale revenues.

當您在考慮 2022 年通過您在電話會議中提到的一些優先事項來提高收入的機會時，只是好奇，當您查看第 6 頁和第 7 頁上的圖表時，這些圖表顯示了同比收入的變化與收入的連續變化相比，投資者應該更多地關注業績的演變？順序更相關嗎？還是年復一年？有時在年初時，您的客戶和銷售額會有價格變化和其他年度更新。然後單獨，一件家務用品。我想前面提到過，在批發中，有一些一次性物品。只是好奇你是否可以解開那些影響批發收入的一次性物品的數量。

Sure. So I'll start with the wholesale onetime. In the wholesale channel, you always have carrier settlements and things like that. So there's always onetime but just stepping back, roughly $10 million, $15 million more than what we typically see, so that's wholesale. In terms of your question on sequential versus year-over-year, in 2020, obviously, we had a fair amount of revenue driven by COVID in our legacy services. So going forward, I think both sequential and year-over-year are going to become more meaningful. Having said that, as you highlighted, the first quarter, we always tend to have some large rerates, et cetera. Nothing specific to highlight, but that's generally when we have some contract rerate pressure, et cetera, and the fourth quarter tends to be seasonally strong. So we'll have a little bit of that seasonality. But other than that, nothing specific to call out.

當然。所以我會從批發開始。在批發渠道中，您總是有承運人結算之類的東西。所以總是有一次，但只是退後一步，大約 1000 萬美元，比我們通常看到的多 1500 萬美元，所以這是批發。就您關於連續與同比的問題而言，顯然，在 2020 年，我們在傳統服務中獲得了由 COVID 驅動的相當數量的收入。因此，展望未來，我認為連續和同比都將變得更有意義。話雖如此，正如你所強調的，第一季度，我們總是傾向於有一些大的重新利率，等等。沒有什麼特別要強調的，但這通常是當我們有一些合同重估壓力等時，第四季度往往是季節性強勁的。所以我們會有一點季節性。但除此之外，沒有什麼特別值得一提的。

The other thing I'll highlight, Jeff touched on that in his remarks, is as we close the transactions, the mix will significantly improve. So there's a fair amount of voice and other legacy revenues that move with the transaction. So that will be a positive impact in terms of the mix going forward.

我要強調的另一件事，傑夫在他的講話中提到，當我們完成交易時，組合將顯著改善。因此，有相當數量的聲音和其他遺留收入隨著交易而變化。因此，這將對未來的組合產生積極影響。

Our next question is from Eric Luebchow with Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Eric Luebchow。

Quickly, I just wanted to talk about the capital allocation priorities. Obviously, your dividend coverage on free cash flow is tightening this year as you ramp up fiber spending. And beyond this year, as you ramp that up even more, wondering if that will even be fully covered. And if it's not, how should we think about the split between onetime 5-year expansion CapEx versus recurring capital intensity in the business and how we should think about that through the investment cycle? And then second, I just wanted to get a sense, Neel, if you could help size up some of the cost dissynergies. I think if you take out the $500 million of CAF II and the divested assets, the half-year contribution, you get to about $7 billion of EBITDA, and your guide is for about $400 million decline from that level for the full year. So I'm just wondering how we should think about how those impact the outlook for the full year.

很快，我只想談談資本配置的優先事項。顯然，隨著您增加光纖支出，今年您對自由現金流的股息覆蓋率正在收緊。今年以後，隨著你進一步增加，想知道這是否會被完全覆蓋。如果不是，我們應該如何考慮一次性 5 年擴張資本支出與業務中經常性資本密集度之間的劃分，以及我們應該如何在整個投資週期中考慮這一點？其次，我只是想了解一下，尼爾，如果你能幫助評估一些成本的不協同效應。我認為，如果你拿出 5 億美元的 CAF II 和剝離的資產，半年的貢獻，你會得到大約 70 億美元的 EBITDA，你的指導是從全年的水平下降大約 4 億美元。所以我只是想知道我們應該如何考慮這些如何影響全年的前景。

Sure. Eric, I'll take the first part and then let Neel take the second question. As we look at the dividend and the payout ratio, and I've said this before, we think that the dividend is an important part of our shareholder value proposition. We think the $1 per share is attractive to investors and it's sustainable, so we're very comfortable with the dividend there. I've also said that in 2022 and the next few years, we are going to be investing in growth. And you mentioned Quantum Fiber, and with the Quantum Fiber build, we think that, that should be viewed as a discrete project that starts already and ends in a few years as we complete the 12 million enablements that we expect over the coming years. We also expect to return to top line revenue growth. While we do see the payout ratio rising in the near term, with those 2 things, we think that it will return to more normal levels over time.

當然。埃里克，我會回答第一部分，然後讓尼爾回答第二個問題。當我們查看股息和派息率時，我之前已經說過，我們認為股息是我們股東價值主張的重要組成部分。我們認為每股 1 美元對投資者俱有吸引力並且是可持續的，因此我們對那裡的股息感到非常滿意。我還說過，在 2022 年和未來幾年，我們將投資於增長。你提到了 Quantum Fiber，我們認為，隨著 Quantum Fiber 的構建，這應該被視為一個獨立的項目，已經開始並在幾年後結束，因為我們完成了我們預計在未來幾年內完成的 1200 萬次啟用。我們還預計將恢復收入增長。雖然我們確實看到派息率在短期內上升，但有了這兩件事，我們認為隨著時間的推移它將恢復到更正常的水平。

So Eric, on your question on dissynergies, I think just to step back a little bit and if you think about the transaction EBITDA, those are deal basis EBITDA, if you will, so we have allocated costs for shared function, et cetera. And so it's a little bit of a moving target in terms of we know what they are going to be, but we're already working on rightsizing those costs and we'll continue to do so as we go forward. And the other thing I'd mentioned is that there is also a little bit of an opportunity cost in 2022. As we focus on the separation of the business and as we focus on all the investments for growth, just think about our IT resources, we are not focused as much on transformation. And so our savings will be a little lighter. And so we factored all of that into the guidance. But the savings don't go away, and so we'll continue to focus on our transformation savings and we'll be able to continue to focus on driving those costs out of the business.

所以埃里克，關於你關於不協同效應的問題，我想退後一步，如果你考慮一下交易 EBITDA，如果你願意的話，這些是基於交易的 EBITDA，所以我們已經為共享功能等分配了成本。因此，就我們知道它們將成為什麼而言，這是一個移動的目標，但我們已經在努力調整這些成本，並且隨著我們的前進，我們將繼續這樣做。我提到的另一件事是，2022 年還有一點機會成本。當我們專注於業務分離和所有投資以促進增長時，想想我們的 IT 資源，我們沒有那麼關注轉型。所以我們的儲蓄會少一些。因此，我們將所有這些因素都納入了指導。但節省不會消失，因此我們將繼續專注於我們的轉型節省，我們將能夠繼續專注於將這些成本排除在業務之外。

Our next question is from Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Simon Flannery。

So good to hear on the Quantum Fiber revenue growth and the build plans. I guess on the build plans, should we think about the -- I think you did 400,000 this year. Should we think about the 1 million this year as being fairly linear? Or is it still very much second half loaded, I guess, to get to that 1.5 million to 2 million? And I guess the question is why not go faster? We've obviously seen the infrastructure bill award a lot of funding. We've seen fixed wireless gain some traction here. So if you see the opportunity here, you've got obviously a lot of homes with potential. So what's keeping you from accelerating that pace? And then, Neel, just one on taxes. I saw you highlighting, I think, $100 million of cash taxes. But what should we be thinking about run rate cash taxes once the transactions are complete in terms of the ongoing -- as a sort of a full taxpayer? Does that go up a few hundred million as we get out of '22 and to '23?

很高興聽到關於 Quantum Fiber 收入增長和建設計劃的消息。我想關於構建計劃，我們是否應該考慮一下——我認為你今年做了 400,000 個。我們是否應該將今年的 100 萬視為相當線性的？或者，我猜它的後半部分仍然很負荷，要達到 150 萬到 200 萬？我想問題是為什麼不走得更快？我們顯然已經看到基礎設施法案授予了大量資金。我們已經看到固定無線在這裡獲得了一些牽引力。因此，如果您在這裡看到機會，那麼您顯然擁有很多具有潛力的房屋。那麼是什麼阻止你加快步伐呢？然後，尼爾，只有一個關於稅收的。我看到你強調，我認為，1 億美元的現金稅。但是，一旦交易完成，作為一個完整的納稅人，我們應該如何考慮運行率現金稅？隨著我們從 22 年到 23 年，這會增加幾億嗎？

So Simon, on the build plan for Quantum Fiber, it's not going to be linear. It takes a while to ramp these capabilities, to do the engineering, to make sure that we've got the construction resources in place. So it's not going to be linear but it's not going to be fully back-end loaded either. We're already at a pace of, call it, 400,000, 500,000 homes and business locations. So there's going to be that as a starting point, but we'll get to the full 1 million toward the end of the year, obviously. So it's a little back-end loaded but not substantially.

所以西蒙，在量子光纖的構建計劃中，它不會是線性的。提升這些能力、進行工程設計、確保我們的建築資源到位需要一段時間。所以它不會是線性的，但也不會完全後端加載。我們已經達到了 400,000、500,000 個家庭和商業地點的速度。所以這將是一個起點，但很明顯，我們將在年底前達到 100 萬。所以它有點後端加載但不是很大。

What keeps us from going faster? This is hard work. It's hard work. There's a lot of things to do. We want to make sure that we do it right. We're exceptionally good at building networks and we will continue to do that with the Quantum Fiber build, but there's hard work. And we also have supply chain challenges. And I mentioned that in the prepared remarks. I don't want to overemphasize it but it's an issue, and we see it with equipment vendors and chips and them getting access to chips. So we'll continue to manage that, but that's also a constraining factor on how to accelerate faster. Now the main point is we want to accelerate to a point of 1.5 million to 2 million homes by the end of the year. So we want to be on that run rate finishing the year and going into 2023. And that's really a large effort to make sure that we do go as fast as we possibly can.

是什麼阻止我們走得更快？這是一項艱苦的工作。這是一項艱苦的工作。有很多事情要做。我們要確保我們做對了。我們非常擅長構建網絡，我們將繼續通過 Quantum Fiber 構建來做到這一點，但工作很艱鉅。我們也面臨供應鏈挑戰。我在準備好的評論中提到了這一點。我不想過分強調它，但這是一個問題，我們在設備供應商和芯片中看到它，他們可以使用芯片。所以我們將繼續管理它，但這也是如何更快加速的限制因素。現在的重點是，我們希望在今年年底前加速到 150 萬到 200 萬戶家庭。因此，我們希望以這樣的速度完成這一年並進入 2023 年。這確實是一項巨大的努力，以確保我們盡可能快地前進。

Neel, do you want to take the cash taxes?

尼爾，你要收現金稅嗎？

Yes. Simon, on cash taxes, as we've mentioned before, we'll use up most of the substantial part of the NOLs this year, a combination of our operating income and the transactions. And you can see that $100 million that we guided to this year is fairly close to what it has been in the past. But going forward, a good assumption is our cash taxes will be fairly close to our GAAP taxes. And at this point, the 26% effective rate is probably a pretty good assumption.

是的。西蒙，關於現金稅，正如我們之前提到的，我們今年將用完大部分 NOL，包括我們的營業收入和交易。你可以看到我們今年指導的 1 億美元與過去相當接近。但展望未來，一個很好的假設是我們的現金稅將相當接近我們的 GAAP 稅。在這一點上，26% 的有效率可能是一個相當不錯的假設。

Our next question is from Phil Cusick with JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Phil Cusick。

Forgive me if we just sort of go back to this, but I wanted to talk about the sort of CapEx pace and that acceleration into the back half. You've talked in the past about other projects, like network transformation, that wouldn't need to be done this year as an offset. And so I wanted to sort of quantify what that reduction might be as we think about the growth in fiber spending this year and the pace that we're going to exit as we start to think about '23 CapEx. Can you help us with that?

如果我們只是回到這個話題，請原諒我，但我想談談資本支出的節奏和後半場的加速。您過去曾談到其他項目，例如網絡轉型，今年不需要作為補償來完成。因此，當我們考慮今年光纖支出的增長以及我們開始考慮 23 年資本支出時我們將退出的步伐時，我想量化這種減少可能是什麼。你能幫助我們嗎？

Yes. Let me take a first pass and then let Neel add to it. I don't want to get into discrete projects that we're funding and not funding, but let me give you a sense of the CapEx and what we fund. There is a certain amount of capital that we call just ongoing operational capital, keep-the-lights-on type stuff. But the majority of our capital funding is success-based or project-based. And the project-based things that we've talked about in 2021, we spent a lot of money on edge computing, building a coverage model for edge computing. We finished the year with more than 95% of our U.S. enterprises within 5 milliseconds of our footprint.

是的。讓我先通過，然後讓 Neel 添加。我不想涉及我們正在資助而不是資助的離散項目，但讓我讓你了解一下資本支出和我們資助的項目。有一定數量的資本，我們稱之為持續運營資本，保持照明類型的東西。但我們的大部分資本資金都是基於成功或基於項目的。而我們在 2021 年談到的基於項目的事情，我們在邊緣計算上花了很多錢，為邊緣計算建立了覆蓋模型。我們在 5 毫秒內完成了 95% 以上的美國企業。

We're not going to spend that money again this year in 2022. What I hope we do is continue to densify the equipment in those locations because that means we're being successful in selling our products and services. So we spend a substantial amount of money on that success-based. Quantum Fiber, we spent money to enable 400,000 homes in 2021. We will spend money to enable 1 million homes and get to the run rate that I talked about in answering Simon's question. We'll continue to spend on that project and really focus there.

到 2022 年，我們今年不會再花這筆錢了。我希望我們做的是繼續增加這些地點的設備密度，因為這意味著我們正在成功地銷售我們的產品和服務。因此，我們在基於成功的基礎上花費了大量資金。 Quantum Fiber，我們花錢在 2021 年啟用了 400,000 個家庭。我們將花錢啟用 100 萬個家庭，並達到我在回答 Simon 的問題時談到的運行率。我們將繼續在該項目上投入資金並真正專注於那裡。

Beyond that, we manage projects in and out. We're not starving anything to do those activities. We are investing heavily in growth. And I say that on CapEx. I also say it on OpEx. We're investing heavily in growth on OpEx to make sure that we have the product capabilities, to make sure that we have the go-to-market strategy, the brand awareness, all of the things that go into effective selling. With the results in the fourth quarter, we're seeing all of that continuing to benefit the company. Neel?

除此之外，我們還管理進出項目。我們不會因為做這些活動而挨餓。我們正在大力投資於增長。我在資本支出上這麼說。我也在 OpEx 上說過。我們正在大力投資於運營支出的增長，以確保我們擁有產品能力，確保我們擁有進入市場的戰略、品牌知名度，以及所有能夠有效銷售的東西。隨著第四季度的結果，我們看到所有這些繼續使公司受益。尼爾？

Yes, Phil, just to underline the point that Jeff made on we're not constraining anything, I mentioned in my prepared remarks that we have about $1 billion for Quantum Fiber in the capital guidance that we provided. And to the extent that we can scale faster, if you look at the combination of our free cash flow and deal proceeds, we can easily ramp up more spending for Quantum Fiber. That won't be the constraint. The constraint really is going to be mundane things like permitting, construction, getting it built. And those are the things that we're focused on scaling. And if we can scale those things and that means we end up spending more, I think we'll lean into it.

是的，菲爾，只是為了強調傑夫關於我們沒有限制任何事情的觀點，我在準備好的評論中提到，在我們提供的資本指導中，我們有大約 10 億美元用於量子纖維。如果我們可以更快地擴展，如果你看看我們的自由現金流和交易收益的結合，我們可以輕鬆地增加對 Quantum Fiber 的更多支出。那不會是約束。約束實際上將是平凡的事情，例如許可，建設，建造。這些是我們專注於擴展的事情。如果我們可以擴展這些東西，這意味著我們最終會花費更多，我認為我們會傾向於它。

And just one other follow-up comment, Phil, then you can ask your follow-up questions. In the meantime, we're focused on our existing 2.6 million enablements that we have and driving penetration in those. We're at about 29% penetration, but that includes homes that we just turned up last month. We want to make sure that we continue to focus on driving the penetration in the existing footprint.

菲爾，只有另一條後續評論，然後您可以提出您的後續問題。與此同時，我們專注於我們現有的 260 萬個支持，並推動其中的滲透。我們的滲透率約為 29%，但這包括我們上個月剛剛出現的房屋。我們希望確保我們繼續專注於推動現有足蹟的滲透。

If I can just follow up quickly, and again, I'm trying to think of the exit run rate this year, you've talked about the exit run rate in builds but also I'm thinking about CapEx. I mean it seems like there could be another $700 million to $1 billion of CapEx next year in fiber, in Quantum. Are there other projects that are still happening this year that we could think about sort of dropping away? Or should we think about next year being sort of the peak of CapEx on Quantum?

如果我可以快速跟進，我再次嘗試考慮今年的退出運行率，你已經談到了構建中的退出運行率，但我也在考慮資本支出。我的意思是，明年 Quantum 的光纖資本支出可能會再增加 7 億到 10 億美元。今年還有其他項目仍在進行，我們可以考慮放棄嗎？還是我們應該考慮明年成為量子資本支出的頂峰？

So Phil, I think the key point there is our plan, like Jeff said, on capital is dynamic. So it's not the same priorities that we support every year. So for example, on edge, a lot of the investments we made, the step-function investments, I would say, were more in 2020. And this year, it's more success-based at a much lower intensity. So without getting into specifics around 2023, I think you're right, Quantum will ramp up. We do view that as a discrete project, but the rest of the plan will be dynamic and will be success-based.

所以菲爾，我認為關鍵是我們的計劃，就像傑夫說的那樣，資本是動態的。因此，我們每年支持的優先事項不同。因此，例如，在邊緣，我們進行的很多投資，我想說的階梯式投資，在 2020 年更多。而今年，它以更低的強度更加成功。因此，無需詳細說明 2023 年左右的細節，我認為您是對的，Quantum 將會加速發展。我們確實認為這是一個獨立的項目，但該計劃的其餘部分將是動態的，並且將以成功為基礎。

Our next question is from David Barden with Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的 David Barden。

I guess the first one would be, Neel, if you could kind of give us any color about the revenue that we need to be taking out of the model when we're thinking about the second half of the year, alongside some of the stuff you shared on the EBITDA, the cash flow side. And then the second question, I guess, Jeff, is if we take that $1.7 billion minus the $450 million CapEx and divide it in half at $625 million and then subtract that from the free cash flow guidance, it says that the kind of second half of the year, the dividend is barely covered, maybe a little covered. You talked about buybacks being in the mix with the Board. I was wondering if you could kind of elaborate on that a little bit about where that money would come from. Would you lever up to buy back stock if it got to that point? That would be helpful.

我想第一個是，尼爾，如果你能給我們任何關於我們在考慮下半年時需要從模型中提取的收入的顏色，以及一些東西您在 EBITDA 上分享了現金流方面。然後第二個問題，我猜，傑夫，如果我們將這 17 億美元減去 4.5 億美元的資本支出，然後將其分成兩半，即 6.25 億美元，然後從自由現金流指導中減去，它表示下半年的那種一年中，股息幾乎沒有覆蓋，也許有點覆蓋。你談到了回購與董事會的混合。我想知道你是否可以詳細說明一下這筆錢的來源。如果到了那個地步，你會用槓桿回購股票嗎？那會很有幫助。

Let me do the second question first. Sorry, this is going to be an unfulfilling answer, David. I'm not going to speculate on what the Board might decide and how we might decide to do it. I am very clear, I hope I'm very clear, on the priorities for our capital allocation, and the first one being investing in growth. So as we look at the CapEx, we are very committed to investing in Quantum Fiber. We are very committed to investing in SASE and IT solutions and edge computing and those types of things where we think significant growth can come from over the next few years.

讓我先做第二個問題。抱歉，這將是一個無法令人滿意的答案，大衛。我不會推測董事會可能會決定什麼以及我們可能會如何決定這樣做。我很清楚，我希望我很清楚，我們資本配置的優先事項，第一個是投資增長。因此，當我們查看資本支出時，我們非常致力於投資量子光纖。我們非常致力於投資 SASE 和 IT 解決方案以及邊緣計算，以及我們認為未來幾年可以實現顯著增長的那些類型的東西。

Secondly, we've talked about the dividend and we want to maintain the dividend. I will point out that our last buyback reduced our dividend obligation by about $81 million a year. So that's not an exclusive issue to just the dividend. That also is factored in by the buybacks. And we want to maintain relatively leverage-neutral, meaning roughly where we are, maybe not exactly where we are but roughly where we are. And then if we think it's appropriate, we will come up with a plan to make additional buybacks. But I'm not going to speculate on what that plan would be or how the Board would view it. I just want you to know that we are open to that.

其次，我們已經談到了股息，我們希望維持股息。我要指出的是，我們上次的回購將我們的股息義務每年減少了約 8100 萬美元。因此，這不僅僅是股息的專屬問題。回購也考慮到了這一點。我們希望保持相對槓桿中性，這意味著我們大致在哪裡，也許不完全是在哪裡，但大致在哪裡。然後，如果我們認為合適，我們將提出進行額外回購的計劃。但我不會推測該計劃將是什麼或董事會將如何看待它。我只是想讓你知道我們對此持開放態度。

And on your first question, David, you know we don't provide revenue guidance so I'm not going to get into providing revenue guidance for divested assets. But like I said, on EBITDA, our expectation is $1.7 billion, and our guidance assumes that we have half year's worth of EBITDA in our consolidated results.

關於你的第一個問題，大衛，你知道我們不提供收入指導，所以我不打算為被剝離的資產提供收入指導。但就像我說的，在 EBITDA 上，我們的預期是 17 億美元，我們的指導假設我們的綜合業績中有半年的 EBITDA。

And one other point, we're getting $10.2 billion for the 2 transactions that we're doing and so there are other sources of funds.

還有一點，我們正在進行的兩筆交易獲得了 102 億美元，因此還有其他資金來源。

Got it. And if I could, maybe just one quick follow-up. Based on kind of some of the revenue mix benefits that you've talked about getting out of this thing, would it be fair to say that the margin on this portfolio, the Apollo portfolio in particular, is going to be a higher margin portfolio than the kind of the business that you'll have, which you're investing to grow?

知道了。如果可以的話，也許只是一個快速的跟進。基於你談到的一些收入組合的好處，可以公平地說這個投資組合的利潤率，特別是阿波羅投資組合，將是一個更高的利潤率投資組合您將擁有什麼樣的業務，您正在投資以發展什麼業務？

Yes, you're right. It's a higher EBITDA margin business. Generally, our legacy revenues are higher margins. So yes, post the transactions, you'll see a dip in our EBITDA margin, which also means we'll have more opportunity to expand margins going forward.

你是對的。這是一項較高的 EBITDA 利潤率業務。一般來說，我們的傳統收入是更高的利潤率。因此，是的，發布交易後，您會看到我們的 EBITDA 利潤率下降，這也意味著我們將有更多機會擴大利潤率。

And we also expect Quantum Fiber to be successful. If you look at the markets that we retain, we have a couple of things going for us. Most of those big markets are growing markets. More people are moving to them. They're higher tech markets. We see a lot of opportunity in those states. And we have incumbency. And incumbency helps us sell. It helps us build. It helps us build at a lower cost, helps us operate and we're moving to the all-digital experience that those customers have. And so we expect good things from our Quantum business.

我們也期待量子光纖取得成功。如果你看看我們保留的市場，我們有幾件事要做。這些大市場中的大多數都是增長中的市場。越來越多的人轉向他們。它們是高科技市場。我們在這些州看到了很多機會。我們有在職。在職幫助我們銷售。它幫助我們建立。它幫助我們以更低的成本構建，幫助我們運營，我們正在轉向這些客戶擁有的全數字體驗。因此，我們期望我們的 Quantum 業務能取得好成績。

Our next question is from Batya Levi with UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀的 Batya Levi。

Can you provide more color and maybe quantify the planned investment for growth specific for this year that could come off next year and how we should think about the pacing through the year? And the second question on subsidies. With CAF gone, can you just remind us how much subsidy dollars are left in the model? And I think you applied for $200 million in subsidies to replace some foreign equipment in the network. To the extent that you get that approved, how would you account for it? And does the guidance include it?

您能否提供更多色彩，並量化今年可能在明年實現的特定增長計劃投資，以及我們應該如何考慮全年的節奏？第二個關於補貼的問題。 CAF 消失後，您能提醒我們模型中還剩下多少補貼資金嗎？而且我認為你申請了 2 億美元的補貼來更換網絡中的一些外國設備。如果您獲得批准，您將如何解釋它？指導是否包括它？

There's a lot packed in there, Batya. So what Quantum Fiber investments are we going to make in 2022 that could come off in 2023, we're not giving guidance for 2023, but we do plan to ramp our Quantum Fiber investments. We've said that. We said that our plan for the year in 2022 is 1 million homes, and then we plan to do 1.5 million to 2 million at a run rate basis by the end of the year. So we're not giving forward-looking guidance, but we have given you an indication of what we expect and how we expect to build.

那裡有很多東西，Batya。因此，我們將在 2022 年進行哪些 Quantum Fiber 投資，而這些投資可能會在 2023 年結束，我們沒有給出 2023 年的指導，但我們確實計劃增加我們的 Quantum Fiber 投資。我們已經說過了。我們說我們2022年的計劃是100萬套，然後我們計劃到年底按開工率做150萬到200萬套。因此，我們沒有提供前瞻性指導，但我們已經向您說明了我們的期望以及我們期望如何構建。

Neel, I'll let you take the question on how do we account for $200 million.

尼爾，我會讓你回答關於我們如何計算 2 億美元的問題。

Yes. I think your other question was CAF II to RDOF. Obviously, CAF II is roughly $500 million. RDOF is about $26 million a year. But just keep in mind, a significant part of that will move with the divested assets, so it's not going to be that material going forward. In terms of the equipment reimbursement, we're still working through the details on that. So that's probably too premature to comment on that.

是的。我認為您的另一個問題是 CAF II 到 RDOF。顯然，CAF II 大約是 5 億美元。 RDOF 每年約為 2600 萬美元。但請記住，其中很大一部分將隨著被剝離的資產而移動，因此不會成為未來的材料。在設備報銷方面，我們仍在研究這方面的細節。因此，對此發表評論可能還為時過早。

Got it. Just one quick follow-up on the investments. I appreciate the CapEx part, but in terms of the OpEx part that could hit this year, is there any way you could provide some color around that?

知道了。只需對投資進行快速跟進。我很欣賞資本支出部分，但就今年可能出現的運營支出部分而言，你有什麼辦法可以提供一些顏色嗎？

Yes. That's all incorporated into our EBITDA guidance. And I think it will start to ramp a little bit but not going to be materially different quarter-over-quarter, maybe a little higher in the second half of the year. But the whole reason we're making those investments, like Jeff mentioned, is improved revenue and EBITDA trajectory in the outer years and we're confident of that.

是的。這一切都納入了我們的 EBITDA 指導。而且我認為它會開始略有上升，但不會出現實質性的季度環比變化，可能在下半年會更高一些。但是，就像 Jeff 提到的那樣，我們進行這些投資的全部原因是在過去幾年中改善了收入和 EBITDA 軌跡，我們對此充滿信心。

Our next question is from Nick Del Deo with MoffettNathanson.

我們的下一個問題來自 Nick Del Deo 和 MoffettNathanson。

One for Jeff and 1 for Neel. Jeff, on the supply chain, you said it's an issue but you didn't want to overstate it. I guess as we think about your 1.5 million to 2 million passings target in the coming years, is that predicated on the supply chain situation improving? Or is that achievable if things stay stressed? And I guess, more generally, what's your outlook on the supply chain? And then for Neel, I was wondering if you could help us better understand what relatively means in the context of staying relatively leverage-neutral? Are you talking about a 1/4 turn, a 1/2 turn? What sort of balance should we think about?

傑夫一個，尼爾一個。傑夫，關於供應鏈，你說這是一個問題，但你不想誇大其詞。我想當我們考慮未來幾年 150 萬到 200 萬的通過目標時，這是基於供應鏈狀況的改善嗎？或者，如果事情保持壓力，這可以實現嗎？我想，更籠統地說，你對供應鏈的看法是什麼？然後對於尼爾，我想知道你是否可以幫助我們更好地理解在保持相對槓桿中性的情況下相對意味著什麼？你說的是1/4轉還是1/2轉？我們應該考慮什麼樣的平衡？

Yes. So let me take the first one, Nick. On supply chain, what's my general attitude towards supply chain, we are monitoring closely and we have vendors on the enterprise side and vendors on the consumer side, the Mass Markets side and vendors on the Fiber side where we are continuing to work closely with them and put in mitigation plans in the event that they're unable to deliver for us. But we see it on all fronts of the business.

是的。所以讓我拿第一個，尼克。在供應鏈方面，我對供應鏈的總體態度是什麼，我們正在密切關注，我們有企業方面的供應商，消費者方面的供應商，大眾市場方面和光纖方面的供應商，我們將繼續與他們密切合作並在他們無法為我們交付的情況下制定緩解計劃。但我們在業務的各個方面都看到了它。

Again, by focusing on this, I don't want to overstate the issue, but it's something that we're really paying attention to and working with vendors. Months ago, we put in full year orders, 9-month orders, for our vendors and making sure that we were in the queue early and often to ensure that we got equipment and that we get the resources that we need. We're starting to see some companies hold off on taking new orders. And as we see that, then we're working to put in our mitigation plans to make sure it's factored into our build plan. But it is an issue that I will highlight as a real one that we have to mitigate. Neel?

同樣，通過關注這一點，我不想誇大這個問題，但這是我們真正關注並與供應商合作的事情。幾個月前，我們為我們的供應商下達了全年訂單，為期 9 個月的訂單，並確保我們儘早並經常排隊，以確保我們獲得設備並獲得所需的資源。我們開始看到一些公司推遲接受新訂單。正如我們所看到的那樣，我們正在努力製定緩解計劃，以確保將其納入我們的構建計劃。但我將強調這是一個我們必須緩解的真實問題。尼爾？

On the leverage, Nick, if you look at 2020, we were at about roughly around 3.6x. 2021, we exited about 3.6x, and we paid down about $6 billion of debt since we announced our deleveraging plans, $7 billion since the close of the Level 3 transaction. The key point is I think we've been pretty good about calibrating our leverage to the business profile. So even though we're divesting a fair amount of legacy revenues, we haven't really levered up.

關於槓桿，尼克，如果你看看 2020 年，我們大約是 3.6 倍左右。到 2021 年，我們退出了約 3.6 倍，自宣布去槓桿計劃以來，我們償還了約 60 億美元的債務，自 3 級交易結束以來償還了 70 億美元。關鍵是我認為我們在根據業務概況校准我們的槓桿率方面做得很好。因此，即使我們剝離了相當數量的遺留收入，我們並沒有真正利用槓桿。

If you think about Quantum Fiber, that's going to be a high-growth business and infrastructure business. So you always have to think about de-averaging our leverage and think about whether that's appropriate going forward. Our view right now is the 3.6x is probably a good assumption. Now we have said that it will be roughly in that zip code. So any quarter-over-quarter, you might see some fluctuations. But until the business profile changes significantly, we don't see the need to change that at this point. And like Jeff has mentioned several times, we're going through an investment cycle. And it truly is a discrete project. It is upgrading our copper network to fiber and it's a long-lived asset. And so as we do that, we're okay with the leverage fluctuating a little bit as we fund that build.

如果您考慮量子光纖，那將是一項高增長的業務和基礎設施業務。因此，您始終必須考慮降低我們的槓桿率，並考慮這是否適合未來。我們現在的觀點是 3.6 倍可能是一個很好的假設。現在我們已經說過它將大致在那個郵政編碼中。因此，任何季度環比，您都可能會看到一些波動。但在業務概況發生重大變化之前，我們認為目前沒有必要進行更改。就像傑夫多次提到的那樣，我們正在經歷一個投資週期。它確實是一個獨立的項目。它正在將我們的銅網絡升級為光纖，這是一項長期資產。因此，當我們這樣做時，我們可以接受槓桿在我們資助該建設時略有波動。

Our next question is from Greg Williams with Cowen.

我們的下一個問題來自 Greg Williams 和 Cowen。

First one is just on rising rates. I mean you have a couple of commitments here, the Fiber to the Home builds and staying leverage-neutral through the build and the dividend. How should we think about your priorities if it's changing your capital allocation and your balance sheet amid escalating rate environment? Second question is just on the penetration goals for your Fiber to the Home plans. I see you're up 29%, and you noted just nascent markets and unlimited marketing. So as you ramp up that marketing engine, what are your longer-term penetration targets or terminal penetration targets as we just think about your revenue inflection and free cash flow growth in the outer years?

第一個只是利率上升。我的意思是你在這裡有幾個承諾，光纖到戶的建設和通過建設和股息保持槓桿中性。如果在不斷升級的利率環境中改變您的資本配置和資產負債表，我們應該如何考慮您的優先事項？第二個問題只是關於您的光纖到戶計劃的滲透目標。我看到你上漲了 29%，而且你注意到的只是新興市場和無限營銷。因此，當您提升營銷引擎時，您的長期滲透目標或終端滲透目標是什麼，因為我們只考慮您在未來幾年的收入拐點和自由現金流增長？

Okay. So rising rates, Neel, I'll let you take penetration. And I'm sorry, Greg, the third one was?

好的。所以提高利率，尼爾，我會讓你滲透。對不起，格雷格，第三個是？

Just the penetration as we think about the revenue inflection and your outer year free cash flow.

只是我們考慮收入拐點和您的外部年度自由現金流時的滲透。

Okay. Well, first of all, we are always focused on free cash flow. We think that is the primary driver of business success, and sustainable long-term free cash flow growth is what we're after. That's why we're investing today. That's why we divested or divesting the properties that we're divesting because we weren't willing to invest to the level that we think they can tolerate. But it's why we're investing in the 16 retained states. It's why we're investing in our growth initiatives on the Enterprise side. It's why we've invested in our relationship with the federal government. That's why we're investing is to drive long-term sustainable free cash flow. Penetration for Quantum Fiber, we're at 29%, but that's always going to be a blended average of new homes, new business locations for Mass Markets that we've just added with ones that we've been marketing at for a while. But we expect when we reach steady state, it will be north of 40%. And every indicator is there supporting it.

好的。嗯，首先，我們始終關注自由現金流。我們認為這是商業成功的主要驅動力，可持續的長期自由現金流增長是我們所追求的。這就是我們今天投資的原因。這就是我們剝離或剝離我們正在剝離的資產的原因，因為我們不願意投資到我們認為他們可以容忍的水平。但這就是我們投資 16 個保留州的原因。這就是為什麼我們在企業方面投資於我們的增長計劃。這就是我們投資與聯邦政府關係的原因。這就是為什麼我們投資是為了推動長期可持續的自由現金流。 Quantum Fiber 的滲透率為 29%，但這始終是新住宅、大眾市場新業務地點的混合平均值，我們剛剛添加了我們已經營銷了一段時間的新業務地點。但我們預計，當我們達到穩定狀態時，它將超過 40%。每個指標都支持它。

If you look at the quality of the product that we have, we have a very effective competitive product. And even with the limited marketing, we're doubling our penetration rates in our traditional copper areas. And the symmetrical nature of our product is far better for work-from-anywhere environment. And the capacity needs continue to expand for consumers just like they are for businesses and business customers. With the abundance of streaming providers, the bundling of video is becoming less relevant. And so we see lots of factors. In addition to our all-digital world-class experience that we're offering to customers, our great NPS scores, we see a lot of factors that give us high confidence in the 40%-plus numbers.

如果您看一下我們擁有的產品質量，我們就有一個非常有效的有競爭力的產品。即使營銷有限，我們在傳統銅礦領域的滲透率也提高了一倍。我們產品的對稱特性更適合在任何地方工作的環境。消費者的容量需求繼續擴大，就像企業和商業客戶一樣。隨著流媒體提供商的增多，視頻捆綁變得不那麼重要了。所以我們看到了很多因素。除了我們為客戶提供的全數字世界級體驗、我們出色的 NPS 分數之外，我們還看到了許多讓我們對 40% 以上的數字充滿信心的因素。

Neel, on the rising rates?

尼爾，關於利率上升？

Yes. So a couple of points. One, about 80% of our debt is fixed. If you combine that with the fact that we refinanced about $20-plus billion in the last 3 years and the fact that we're going to be paying down a significant amount of debt, and you look at our maturity profile, we have very minimal needs in terms of tapping the market. So I think we're very well positioned in terms of our balance sheet to negotiate in a rising rate environment.

是的。所以有幾點。一，我們大約 80% 的債務是固定的。如果您將其與我們在過去 3 年中再融資約 20 多億美元的事實以及我們將償還大量債務的事實相結合，並且您查看我們的到期情況，我們的債務非常少在開拓市場方面的需求。因此，我認為我們在資產負債表方面處於非常有利的位置，可以在利率上升的環境中進行談判。

Our next question is from Frank Louthan with Raymond James.

我們的下一個問題來自 Frank Louthan 和 Raymond James。

I wanted to ask about the longer-term top line growth, and I want to take Quantum Fiber out of it. You've set some aggressive goals there. That's a great opportunity. I'm sure you'll be able to show the growth. But post these deals, you can have close to 80% of your revenue from the Enterprise side, which has struggled for many years to show top line growth for a 12-month period. What's going to change or what are you going to be doing differently over the next 2 to 3 years to hit the overall top line growth goal that will really effect meaningful change in that business?

我想問一下長期的收入增長，我想把 Quantum Fiber 排除在外。你在那裡設定了一些激進的目標。這是一個很好的機會。我相信你將能夠展示成長。但發布這些交易後，您可以從企業方面獲得近 80% 的收入，企業方面多年來一直在努力顯示 12 個月的收入增長。未來 2 到 3 年會發生什麼變化，或者您將採取哪些不同的措施來實現總體營收增長目標，這將真正影響該業務的有意義的變化？

Well, all the things that I've talked about today and some before, edge computing, 95%, 97% of U.S. enterprises are within 5 milliseconds of our network. That makes machine-to-machine control possible for our customers. That makes AI applications and machine learning applications a real possibility for our customers as they enter into the 4th Industrial Revolution and their ability to acquire, analyze and act on their data. It's things like SASE. We'll continue to move SASE, secure access services, it's software-defined networking at the customer premise for connectivity and security capabilities. It's things like Dynamic Connections, which is really network as a service. That's more of an enabling technology, but it enables our customers to use their network that they buy from us to connect to a variety of cloud service providers. It's orchestration of those capabilities and making it easier and more manageable for customers to maintain their connectivity and in a very complex environment, and it's helping them do that with our IT solutions capabilities. So it's kind of a host of things that we're launching and really showing success in.

好吧，我今天和之前談到的所有事情，邊緣計算，95%、97% 的美國企業都在我們網絡的 5 毫秒內。這使我們的客戶可以進行機器對機器的控制。這使得人工智能應用程序和機器學習應用程序成為我們的客戶真正的可能性，因為他們進入了第四次工業革命，並且他們能夠獲取、分析和處理他們的數據。就像 SASE 一樣。我們將繼續推動 SASE、安全訪問服務，它是在客戶前提下的軟件定義網絡，用於連接和安全功能。就像動態連接之類的東西，它實際上是一種網絡即服務。這更像是一種支持技術，但它使我們的客戶能夠使用他們從我們這裡購買的網絡連接到各種雲服務提供商。它是對這些功能的編排，使客戶在非常複雜的環境中保持連接變得更容易和更易於管理，而且它正在幫助他們利用我們的 IT 解決方案功能做到這一點。所以這是我們正在推出並真正展示成功的一系列東西。

So that network proximity has been the case for a while, are you saying there the new salespeople you're hiring or a significant number of new products that you're bringing to market, you're ahead of your competitors? I mean, again, what's sort of different about this opportunity with these new products that's going to change versus the last several years?

因此，網絡鄰近性已經存在一段時間了，您是說您正在招聘的新銷售人員或您正在推向市場的大量新產品，您是否領先於競爭對手？我的意思是，與過去幾年相比，這些將發生變化的新產品的機會有什麼不同？

Well, so all of the above, but the fundamental nature of the products are different. There's nobody else out there. You said network proximity has been there for a while. It's been there for a while for us, but there's nobody else out there that has the network proximity of edge computing facilities within a couple a few milliseconds of the customers. And so those are different capabilities. There's nobody out there that's really been able to provide network as a service or integrate security into access solutions. And so we'll continue to focus on that. And I'd argue there's nobody better in helping people build and manage networks and orchestrate their connectivity needs than Lumen. And so we'll continue to differentiate.

好吧，以上都是，但產品的基本性質是不同的。外面沒有其他人了。你說網絡鄰近性已經存在了一段時間。它對我們來說已經存在了一段時間，但是沒有其他人可以在客戶的幾毫秒內擁有邊緣計算設施的網絡接近度。所以這些是不同的能力。沒有人真正能夠提供網絡即服務或將安全性集成到訪問解決方案中。因此，我們將繼續關注這一點。我認為在幫助人們建立和管理網絡以及協調他們的連接需求方面，沒有比 Lumen 更好的了。所以我們將繼續區分。

I'd also throw in the all-digital experience. Our Lumen platform brings the world's best partners to our customers for different types of applications. Whether it's T-Mobile for wireless or VMware for virtual machines, we have partnered. And I always feel bad when I start listing partners ad hoc because we got some great ones and I don't want to leave anybody out, but I'm not going to go through an exhaustive list. But we've got great partners bringing those capabilities. And so I think it's the total package of solutions. And I don't think you're right in thinking that there are other people out there that have all those capabilities.

我也會投入全數字體驗。我們的 Lumen 平台為我們的客戶帶來了世界上最好的合作夥伴，用於不同類型的應用。無論是用於無線的 T-Mobile 還是用於虛擬機的 VMware，我們都建立了合作夥伴關係。當我開始特別列出合作夥伴時，我總是感到難過，因為我們有一些很棒的合作夥伴，我不想把任何人排除在外，但我不會列出一份詳盡的清單。但我們有出色的合作夥伴帶來這些能力。所以我認為這是一攬子解決方案。而且我認為你認為還有其他人擁有所有這些能力是不對的。

And then our last question will be from the line of Tim Horan with Oppenheimer.

然後我們的最後一個問題將來自蒂姆霍蘭和奧本海默的觀點。

The edge compute product, can you talk about maybe some new use cases? Because I guess a lot of what were predicated on the growth here is for kind of new use cases and uniqueness of the infrastructure. Any color on what you're seeing out there, that would be great.

邊緣計算產品，你能談談一些新的用例嗎？因為我猜這裡的增長預測的很多東西都是為了新的用例和基礎設施的獨特性。你在外面看到的任何顏色都很棒。

Yes. We're seeing a lot of different use cases. First of all, storage. Edge computing and storage capabilities are very important. They want to store their data. Our customers want to store their data close to their in-house compute resources, but they don't want to have to store it within their own facilities. They want the benefit of the cloud and the proximity of their own data center. And that's what our edge does. We see retail customers that are exploring how can they take all their video feeds, all their camera feeds from their store, and process those for watching for shoplifting or looking at shelf restocking, how can they take all of that information and utilize it.

是的。我們看到了很多不同的用例。首先，存儲。邊緣計算和存儲能力非常重要。他們想存儲他們的數據。我們的客戶希望將他們的數據存儲在其內部計算資源附近，但他們不希望將其存儲在自己的設施中。他們希望從雲計算中受益，並希望靠近他們自己的數據中心。這就是我們的優勢。我們看到零售客戶正在探索如何從商店獲取所有視頻源、所有相機源，並處理那些用於觀看入店行竊或查看貨架補貨的信息，他們如何獲取所有這些信息並加以利用。

Now they don't want to haul that traffic thousands of miles to some remote compute resource. They also don't want to build a data center in every one of their stores. So they come to us and looking for us to help them build compute resources to take an entire market, aggregate it within very quick connectivity and very short hauling across the country and so forth. And so those are some of the use cases. If you think about the 4th Industrial Revolution, and I already said this, that the amount of data is exploding. I mean it's just exploding. And the applications to use that data is exploding. And our customers want to acquire that data, they want to analyze that data and they want to be able to act on that data quickly and effectively. And that's what our edge compute applications are all about, is helping them do that.

現在他們不想將數千英里的流量傳輸到某個遠程計算資源。他們也不想在他們的每一家商店都建立一個數據中心。所以他們來找我們，希望我們幫助他們建立計算資源以佔領整個市場，在非常快速的連接和全國范圍內的短途運輸中聚合它等等。這些是一些用例。如果你想想第四次工業革命，我已經說過，數據量正在爆炸式增長。我的意思是它只是在爆炸。使用這些數據的應用程序正在爆炸式增長。我們的客戶想要獲取這些數據，他們想要分析這些數據，並且他們希望能夠快速有效地對這些數據採取行動。這就是我們的邊緣計算應用程序的全部意義所在，正在幫助他們做到這一點。

So we're starting with bare metal. We've moved into storage solutions. We'll continue to augment with the virtual machines and all sorts of other edge computing capabilities. We'll layer on top of that orchestration so that our customers can manage the hybrid cloud environment that they have and really be effective in managing their IT environment, be really agile in their response to IT changes. Hope that helps, Tim.

所以我們從裸機開始。我們已經轉向存儲解決方案。我們將繼續增強虛擬機和各種其他邊緣計算功能。我們將在該編排之上進行分層，以便我們的客戶可以管理他們擁有的混合雲環境，並真正有效地管理他們的 IT 環境，真正靈活地響應 IT 變化。希望有幫助，蒂姆。

On the fiber side, 12 million homes. What percentage of your homes will that be? And does the infrastructure bill enable you maybe to expand that or help get subsidies there for that 12 million homes?

在光纖方面，1200 萬戶家庭。那將是您房屋的百分之幾？基礎設施法案是否能讓你擴大規模或幫助為那 1200 萬戶家庭提供補貼？

Yes, Tim, too early on the infrastructure bill. But the 12 million, I think it's about 21 million we have post the transaction. The 12 million gets to kind of the large urban areas. But that doesn't mean that's the total opportunity. As we continue to build out, we'll continue to evaluate the footprint. And we also look at different technology solutions to kind of reduce the build cost. And so we'll continue to evaluate that aspect of it as well.

是的，蒂姆，基礎設施法案還為時過早。但是 1200 萬，我認為我們已經發布了交易，大約是 2100 萬。 1200萬進入大城市地區。但這並不意味著這是全部機會。隨著我們繼續擴建，我們將繼續評估足跡。我們還研究了不同的技術解決方案以降低構建成本。因此，我們還將繼續評估它的這方面。

So let me wrap up. I hope that you all, on the call today, get a sense of the excitement that we have here at Lumen. We're poised for growth and expect our investments in the business to not only give strong growth in revenue and earnings but also deliver value creation for our stakeholders. So we're excited about what we're doing. We see progress in our results. And we appreciate all of your interest in Lumen.

所以讓我總結一下。我希望你們所有人，在今天的電話會議上，都能感受到我們在 Lumen 的興奮。我們已為增長做好準備，並期望我們對業務的投資不僅能帶來收入和收益的強勁增長，還能為我們的利益相關者創造價值。所以我們對我們正在做的事情感到興奮。我們在結果中看到了進步。我們感謝您對 Lumen 的所有興趣。

With that, I'll end the call. So thank you all for joining today.

說完，我就掛斷電話了。所以感謝大家今天的加入。

We would like to thank everyone for your participation and for using the Lumen conferencing service today. This does conclude the conference call. We ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have a great day, everyone.

我們要感謝大家今天的參與和使用 Lumen 會議服務。這確實結束了電話會議。我們要求您斷開您的線路。祝大家有個美好的一天。