Lumen Technologies Inc (LUMN) 2020 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to Lumen Technologies' Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded today, Wednesday, February 10, 2021. It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Valerie Finberg, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Valerie.

您好，歡迎來到 Lumen Technologies 2020 年第四季度收益電話會議。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，今天，即 2021 年 2 月 10 日，星期三，我們正在錄製這次會議。現在我很高興將會議轉交給投資者關係副總裁 Valerie Finberg。請繼續，瓦萊麗。

Thank you, France. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Lumen Technologies' Fourth Quarter 2020 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，法國。大家下午好，感謝您加入我們的 Lumen Technologies 2020 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； 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 4Q '20 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 20 年第四季度演示文稿的幻燈片 2 上的安全港聲明，其中指出本次電話會議可能包含受某些風險和不確定因素影響的前瞻性聲明。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 transformation costs and other special items as detailed in our earnings materials, all of which can be found on the Investor Relations section of the Lumen website.

我們將參考某些非 GAAP 財務指標，這些指標與我們的收益新聞稿中最具可比性的 GAAP 指標相協調。此外，今天討論的某些指標不包括轉型成本和我們收益材料中詳述的其他特殊項目，所有這些都可以在 Lumen 網站的投資者關係部分找到。

Finally, we are announcing changes to our reporting categories, beginning with first quarter 2021 reporting. These changes can be found in our earnings presentation and press release with additional details and pro forma reporting for prior periods in the earnings supplement on our IR website.

最後，我們宣布從 2021 年第一季度報告開始更改我們的報告類別。這些變化可以在我們的收益介紹和新聞稿中找到，在我們的 IR 網站上的收益補充中包含更多詳細信息和前期的預估報告。

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

有了這個，我會把電話轉給傑夫。

Thanks, Valerie, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. On today's call, I'll provide a summary of 2020 and an overview of our growth priorities for 2021. Neel will then review our fourth quarter financial results, guide you through our new reporting structure and provide our outlook for 2021. After that, we will take your questions.

謝謝瓦萊麗，也謝謝大家今天加入我們。在今天的電話會議上，我將提供 2020 年的總結和 2021 年增長優先事項的概述。然後 Neel 將回顧我們的第四季度財務業績，指導您了解我們的新報告結構並提供我們對 2021 年的展望。之後，我們會回答你的問題。

We delivered solid execution in 2020 as our employees quickly pivoted to a new operating environment and empowered our customers to meet their own rapidly changing environments. It was a challenging year for our customers and our employees, but 2020 also highlighted the power, flexibility and scalability of our fiber-based offerings and the agility of our employees. I'm exceptionally proud of the team's performance during difficult times.

我們在 2020 年實現了穩健的執行，因為我們的員工迅速轉向新的運營環境，並使我們的客戶能夠滿足他們自己快速變化的環境。對於我們的客戶和員工來說，這是充滿挑戰的一年，但 2020 年也凸顯了我們基於光纖的產品的強大功能、靈活性和可擴展性，以及我們員工的敏捷性。我為球隊在困難時期的表現感到非常自豪。

I'd like to cover a few highlights from the year, and this is on Slide 4 in the presentation. For the last 3 years, you've heard me talk about the integration of Level 3 and the digital transformation of our company. Many of our efforts have culminated last fall with the introduction of the Lumen platform. I'll discuss the details in a moment. But for now, let's say that we see the launch of the platform as a key milestone, and I'm excited about the growth it can enable.

我想介紹今年的一些亮點，這是在演示文稿的幻燈片 4 上。在過去的 3 年裡，您已經聽過我談論 Level 3 的整合和我們公司的數字化轉型。去年秋天，隨著 Lumen 平台的推出，我們的許多努力都達到了頂峰。稍後我會討論細節。但就目前而言，假設我們將該平台的發布視為一個重要的里程碑，我對它可以實現的增長感到興奮。

The primary purpose of digital transformation is to improve the customer experience. But when done right, improving customer experience also enables cost savings. Our results reflect the dual benefit of our transformation efforts. In 2019, we announced $800 million to $1 billion in cost improvement associated with our transformation initiatives. Through a combination of digitalization, simplification and other transformation programs, we achieved $830 million in savings as of the fourth quarter of 2020, a year ahead of our original schedule.

數字化轉型的主要目的是改善客戶體驗。但如果做得好，改善客戶體驗也可以節省成本。我們的結果反映了我們轉型努力的雙重好處。 2019 年，我們宣布了 8 億至 10 億美元的成本改進，與我們的轉型計劃相關。通過結合數字化、簡化和其他轉型計劃，截至 2020 年第四季度，我們實現了 8.3 億美元的節省，比原定計劃提前一年。

The benefits of that work are seen in the fact that we grew both adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin in the fourth quarter. These efforts, to enable more efficient digital interactions, also drove improvement in our Net Promoter Scores particularly in those areas where we've invested for growth in fiber-based services for enterprise and consumers. You can also see the benefit of the better customer experience in our improving revenue trajectory, which is up 150 basis points compared to 2019. While I know we have more to do, I'm encouraged by that improvement. We are turning to growth in those parts of the business in which we are investing and are managing our declining businesses with disciplined focused on preserving the free cash flow they generate.

這項工作的好處體現在我們在第四季度增加了調整後的 EBITDA 和調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率。為了實現更高效的數字交互，這些努力也推動了我們淨推薦值的提高，特別是在我們投資為企業和消費者提供基於光纖的服務增長的那些領域。您還可以在我們改善的收入軌跡中看到更好的客戶體驗的好處，與 2019 年相比增加了 150 個基點。雖然我知道我們還有更多工作要做，但我對這種改善感到鼓舞。我們正在轉向我們正在投資的那些業務部門的增長，並以紀律嚴明的方式管理我們衰退的業務，重點是保持它們產生的自由現金流。

Our foundation for future growth comes from our investments in the Lumen edge cloud infrastructure, expanding fiber for enterprises and deploying new in-building technology for greater security, service resilience and speed of delivery and increasing the number of gigabit-enabled consumer customers. In 2020, we added 400,000 homes passed to our fiber to the home footprint. We now reach more than 2.4 million homes and are very excited about the digital customer experience we are providing through our Quantum Fiber brand.

我們未來增長的基礎來自我們對 Lumen 邊緣雲基礎設施的投資，為企業擴展光纖，部署新的室內技術以提高安全性、服務彈性和交付速度，並增加千兆消費者客戶的數量。 2020 年，我們將 400,000 個家庭通過我們的光纖傳輸到家庭足跡。我們現在覆蓋了超過 240 萬個家庭，並且對我們通過我們的 Quantum Fiber 品牌提供的數字客戶體驗感到非常興奮。

We also continue to pay down debt and refinance maturities, reducing interest expense and strengthening our balance sheet. Lastly, we've expanded our commitment to ESG initiatives and recently issued our first sustainability-linked bond. Additionally, over the last year, we increased our focus on diversity and inclusion, adding a number of new programs, naming a Chief Diversity Officer to spearhead our efforts and expanding the leadership team's accountability and engagement in our diversity and inclusion goals. We remain committed to continually improving our approach to ESG, and I encourage you to review our annual ESG report.

我們還繼續償還債務和再融資到期，減少利息支出並加強我們的資產負債表。最後，我們擴大了對 ESG 舉措的承諾，並且最近發行了我們的第一隻與可持續發展相關的債券。此外，在過去的一年裡，我們更加關注多元化和包容性，增加了一些新計劃，任命了一名首席多元化官來領導我們的工作，並擴大了領導團隊對我們多元化和包容性目標的問責制和參與度。我們仍然致力於不斷改進我們的 ESG 方法，我鼓勵您查看我們的年度 ESG 報告。

Looking forward, we believe the launch of the Lumen platform sets a strong foundation for growth. Slide 5 gives you a sense of how we view the progression of the business. Over the last several years, we've been focused on integrating, transforming and operationalizing the capabilities we bring to market. With much of that work behind us, 2021 is about revenue growth and expanding adoption of our platform.

展望未來，我們相信 Lumen 平台的推出為增長奠定了堅實的基礎。幻燈片 5 讓您了解我們如何看待業務的進展。在過去的幾年裡，我們一直專注於整合、轉換和運營我們推向市場的能力。由於我們已經完成了大部分工作，2021 年將是收入增長和我們平台的擴大採用。

More customers in more areas accessing more services in a seamless, automated and real-time basis is the vision for the Lumen platform. Of course, given the pandemic and macroeconomic implications, uncertainties remain in 2021. And we're keeping an eye on that, but we are excited about the coming year. We feel good about our sales funnel and customer engagement for both IGAM and enterprise, but we do see lengthening sales cycles as companies continue to evaluate their new infrastructure needs.

Lumen 平台的願景是讓更多地區的更多客戶以無縫、自動化和實時的方式訪問更多服務。當然，考慮到大流行病和宏觀經濟影響，2021 年仍存在不確定性。我們正在密切關注這一點，但我們對來年感到興奮。我們對 IGAM 和企業的銷售渠道和客戶參與度感到滿意，但隨著公司繼續評估其新的基礎設施需求，我們確實看到銷售週期正在延長。

Turning to Slide 6. The onset of the fourth industrial revolution creates market demands for more capacity, more distributed computing resources, lower latency and higher resilience than ever before. Lumen and the Lumen platform are purpose-built to meet those needs. I'll start at the bottom of the slide with the physical infrastructure layer.

轉到幻燈片 6。第四次工業革命的開始創造了比以往任何時候都更大的容量、更多的分佈式計算資源、更低的延遲和更高的彈性的市場需求。 Lumen 和 Lumen 平台專為滿足這些需求而構建。我將從幻燈片底部的物理基礎設施層開始。

The physical infrastructure is obviously the foundational requirement for everything driving our economy today. I believe Lumen has the best local and long-haul fiber infrastructure in the world. Let me touch on a few points as to what that means for our customers.

物理基礎設施顯然是當今推動我們經濟的一切的基本要求。我相信 Lumen 擁有世界上最好的本地和長途光纖基礎設施。讓我談談這對我們的客戶意味著什麼。

First of all, we connect customers in more than 180,000 on-net buildings directly to our infrastructure with secure and reliable fiber. We have deep and robust interconnection and peering facilities to the world's eyeball networks and ISPs, acquiring and distributing traffic to and from millions of end points. We have direct fiber connectivity to cloud service providers, hyperscalers and more than 2,200 global data centers with tremendously scalable capacity.

首先，我們通過安全可靠的光纖將 180,000 多座聯網建築中的客戶直接連接到我們的基礎設施。我們擁有面向全球眼球網絡和 ISP 的深入而強大的互連和對等設施，獲取和分配進出數百萬端點的流量。我們通過光纖直接連接到雲服務提供商、超大規模提供商和 2,200 多個具有極大可擴展容量的全球數據中心。

Over our global fiber network, we operate one of the world's largest Internet backbones and carry a significant portion of the Earth's Internet traffic each and every day. The role we play in enabling the global Internet uniquely positions our Black Lotus Labs team to quickly gain visibility and insight into emerging cyber threats, which we then use to secure and protect our customers' networks and applications. As the team likes to say, "We see more, so we can stop more." In a nutshell, the Lumen platform has the scale, security, ubiquity and resilience necessary to meet the needs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

通過我們的全球光纖網絡，我們運營著世界上最大的互聯網骨幹網之一，每天承載地球互聯網流量的很大一部分。我們在支持全球互聯網方面所扮演的角色使我們的 Black Lotus Labs 團隊能夠快速獲得對新興網絡威脅的可見性和洞察力，然後我們使用這些威脅來保護和保護我們客戶的網絡和應用程序。正如團隊喜歡說的那樣，“我們看到的更多，所以我們可以停止更多。”簡而言之，Lumen 平台具有滿足第四次工業革命需求所需的規模、安全性、普遍性和彈性。

Moving up one layer in the slide, Lumen Dynamic Connections is the result of recognizing that our customers needed software-based agility to consume and interact with our infrastructure. We meet this need by utilizing software-defined networking to allow customers to consume on the fly everything from basic network connectivity to more advanced services like SD-WAN, Hyper WAN and Hyper DDoS. With this network as a service approach, our customers can add capacity and reconfigure destinations for that capacity as needed, enabling instantaneous consumption of additional network services. This contrast with the old model of interacting with a salesperson scheduling the service delivery time line and rolling trucks. Our platform approach not only improves the velocity with which customers can respond to their application need but also the velocity we experience in capturing and converting opportunity to revenue.

在幻燈片中向上移動一層，Lumen Dynamic Connections 是認識到我們的客戶需要基於軟件的敏捷性來使用我們的基礎架構並與之交互的結果。我們通過利用軟件定義的網絡來滿足這一需求，使客戶能夠即時使用從基本網絡連接到更高級服務（如 SD-WAN、Hyper WAN 和 Hyper DDoS）的一切內容。通過這種網絡即服務方法，我們的客戶可以根據需要增加容量並為該容量重新配置目的地，從而實現額外網絡服務的即時消費。這與與安排服務交付時間線和滾動卡車的銷售人員互動的舊模型形成對比。我們的平台方法不僅提高了客戶響應其應用程序需求的速度，還提高了我們捕捉機會並將其轉化為收入的速度。

Moving beyond the dynamic network, the next layer highlights the capabilities of the Lumen hybrid cloud. Access to multiple clouds over an agile, seamless and secure communications fabric is as critical to our customers as the physical layer network connectivity. They operate in dynamic environments that requires the ability to adapt to the daily minute-by-minute or even second-by-second shifting of their workloads from one compute resource to another.

超越動態網絡，下一層突出了 Lumen 混合雲的功能。通過敏捷、無縫和安全的通信結構訪問多個雲對我們的客戶來說與物理層網絡連接一樣重要。它們在動態環境中運行，需要能夠適應每天每分鐘甚至每秒將工作負載從一種計算資源轉移到另一種計算資源的能力。

The Lumen hybrid cloud, combined with our Dynamic Connections capability, allows customers to locate compute resources in their on-premises data centers, Lumen private and public cloud offerings or within one of the major cloud service providers, all with full control. The thousands of SaaS providers are a specific use case. The Lumen hybrid cloud capabilities allow them to leverage our peering networks and our own ISP to enhance their application performance by locating compute resources in our edge cloud facilities and bypassing much of the [best efforts] Internet. You saw an example of this with our recent SAP announcement. SAP is working with Lumen to take advantage of these capabilities and other aspects of our platform to improve their customer experience, reduce their cost and enhance their service offerings.

Lumen 混合雲與我們的動態連接功能相結合，使客戶能夠在其本地數據中心、Lumen 私有和公共雲產品或主要雲服務提供商之一內定位計算資源，所有這些都具有完全控制權。數以千計的 SaaS 提供商是一個特定的用例。 Lumen 混合雲功能使他們能夠利用我們的對等網絡和我們自己的 ISP，通過在我們的邊緣雲設施中定位計算資源並繞過大部分 [best effort] Internet 來提高他們的應用程序性能。您在我們最近的 SAP 公告中看到了這方面的一個例子。 SAP 正在與 Lumen 合作，利用我們平台的這些功能和其他方面來改善他們的客戶體驗，降低他們的成本並增強他們的服務產品。

I've discussed the Lumen edge initiatives on previous calls. As of today, we have fully enabled edge facilities covering roughly 60% of U.S. enterprise locations within 5 milliseconds of latency. Combining our unique fiber capabilities with our widespread edge infrastructure, by year-end, we expect to have more than 95% of U.S. enterprises within that same latency performance. We believe the Lumen edge cloud offers a compelling solution for many of our customers' latency-sensitive applications and are encouraged that it will contribute to our improving revenue trends as it is more fully deployed and adopted.

我在之前的電話會議上討論過 Lumen 邊緣計劃。截至今天，我們已經完全啟用了邊緣設施，在 5 毫秒的延遲內覆蓋了大約 60% 的美國企業位置。將我們獨特的光纖功能與我們廣泛的邊緣基礎設施相結合，到年底，我們預計將有超過 95% 的美國企業具有相同的延遲性能。我們相信 Lumen 邊緣雲為我們的許多客戶的延遲敏感型應用程序提供了一個引人注目的解決方案，並且很高興它將有助於我們改善收入趨勢，因為它被更充分地部署和採用。

The final layer, the Lumen orchestrator, is a set of software tools that orchestrate all of these capabilities to give our customers greater control, a simpler operating model and a lower cost of ownership in an increasingly complex environment. We recently announced a partnership with VMware, which combines their orchestration capabilities and secure work-from-anywhere solutions with an increasingly dynamic, robust and automated Lumen platform. We're excited about this partnership and expect to work with VMware to bring new services to market through our joint innovation lab initiatives.

最後一層，Lumen 編排器，是一組軟件工具，可以編排所有這些功能，以便在日益複雜的環境中為我們的客戶提供更好的控制、更簡單的操作模型和更低的擁有成本。我們最近宣布與 VMware 建立合作夥伴關係，將其編排功能和安全的隨處工作解決方案與日益動態、強大和自動化的 Lumen 平台相結合。我們對這一合作夥伴關係感到興奮，並期待與 VMware 合作，通過我們的聯合創新實驗室計劃將新服務推向市場。

Both SAP and VMware are tremendous companies. We look forward to these relationships and believe they can be an important part of driving growth for Lumen. We expect to announce additional strategic relationships in the coming months.

SAP 和 VMware 都是偉大的公司。我們期待這些關係，並相信它們可以成為推動 Lumen 增長的重要組成部分。我們希望在未來幾個月內宣布更多的戰略合作關係。

I'll now take a moment to walk you through our 2021 priorities outlined on Slide 8. The first priority is to drive growth over the Lumen platform. Simply put, the Lumen platform combines the control flexibility, latency and performance of on-premises solutions with the efficiency, economics and simplicity of cloud-based solutions. We will continue to expand the digital marketplace we've developed and the products and services available to customers. To that end, we anticipate new products like Lumen edge bare metal, Lumen edge private cloud, Lumen edge VM and an expansion of locations where customers can leverage the Lumen capabilities to enhance their applications with low latency. Together, these capabilities are unique to Lumen and would be difficult to replicate.

現在，我將花點時間向您介紹幻燈片 8 中概述的 2021 年優先事項。首要任務是推動 Lumen 平台的增長。簡而言之，Lumen 平台將本地解決方案的控制靈活性、延遲性和性能與基於雲的解決方案的效率、經濟性和簡單性相結合。我們將繼續擴大我們開發的數字市場以及提供給客戶的產品和服務。為此，我們預計會有新產品，如 Lumen edge 裸機、Lumen edge 私有云、Lumen edge VM 以及客戶可以利用 Lumen 功能以低延遲增強其應用程序的位置擴展。總之，這些功能是 Lumen 獨有的，很難復制。

Let me give you a couple of examples to tie this all together. We're working with a major auto company on their autonomous vehicle program, helping them train their machine learning systems by building an accelerated data access network that decreases data transfer times between the metro areas they are testing with their headquarters. We're also working with a financial services company to update their computing architecture to meet exacting specifications for performance with financial counterparties around the world. We're managing the computing and storage infrastructure along with the network connectivity to their broad digital distribution footprint for market data. The benefit to the customer is the standardization of centralized computing for efficiency and flexibility, and simplifying their long-term digital distribution across the software-defined network.

讓我舉幾個例子把這一切聯繫起來。我們正在與一家大型汽車公司合作開展他們的自動駕駛汽車計劃，通過構建加速數據訪問網絡來幫助他們訓練機器學習系統，從而減少他們正在測試的都市區與其總部之間的數據傳輸時間。我們還與一家金融服務公司合作，更新他們的計算架構，以滿足全球金融交易對手對性能的嚴格規範。我們正在管理計算和存儲基礎設施以及網絡連接到他們廣泛的市場數據數字分佈足跡。對客戶的好處是集中計算的標準化以提高效率和靈活性，並簡化他們在軟件定義網絡中的長期數字分發。

Our second priority is to improve the penetration of our robust product portfolio on our existing assets. Over the last few years, we have invested in adding new on-net buildings, deploying the latest in fiber technology in our long-haul network and expanding our fiber to the home footprint. We have begun to grow where those investments have been made, but we believe we can do better. In short, as customers return a portion of their workforce to the office, we are well positioned to provide their work-from-anywhere solutions. As employees and students continue to work and learn remotely, we are excited about our symmetrical broadband solutions for the home. Increasing our customer base and gaining wallet share with existing customers is a key priority for 2021.

我們的第二個優先事項是提高我們強大的產品組合對我們現有資產的滲透率。在過去的幾年裡，我們投資增加了新的網上建築，在我們的長途網絡中部署了最新的光纖技術，並將我們的光纖擴展到家庭足跡。我們已經開始在進行這些投資的地方發展壯大，但我們相信我們可以做得更好。簡而言之，隨著客戶將部分員工返回辦公室，我們可以很好地為他們提供隨時隨地工作的解決方案。隨著員工和學生繼續遠程工作和學習，我們對家庭對稱寬帶解決方案感到興奮。增加我們的客戶群並獲得現有客戶的錢包份額是 2021 年的首要任務。

Our third priority is our ongoing transformation to make it easier and easier for customers to consume our services and for our employees to support them. Expanding our digital marketplace and increasing the number of digital interactions are key goals. We believe this allows Lumen to continue to improve the velocity at which we move from opportunity to revenue and further enables our ability to improve customer experience and reduce operating costs.

我們的第三個優先事項是我們正在進行的轉型，讓客戶越來越容易使用我們的服務，並讓我們的員工為他們提供支持。擴大我們的數字市場和增加數字交互的數量是關鍵目標。我們相信，這使 Lumen 能夠繼續提高我們從機會到收入的速度，並進一步使我們能夠改善客戶體驗和降低運營成本。

Fourth is the continuation of our balanced approach to capital allocation, we remain committed to our capital allocation strategy to create shareholder value through investment in growth, returning value to shareholders through our dividend and reducing debt. Neel will provide the details, but we believe the changes we are making in our reporting categories properly reflect the evolution of our products and services and our focus on growth. We hope these changes will provide better visibility into how we are performing where we are investing for growth as well as how we're doing in managing voice and other declining businesses for cash.

第四是繼續我們平衡的資本配置方法，我們繼續致力於我們的資本配置戰略，通過投資增長創造股東價值，通過股息和減少債務回報股東價值。 Neel 將提供詳細信息，但我們相信我們在報告類別中所做的更改正確反映了我們產品和服務的演變以及我們對增長的關注。我們希望這些變化能夠讓我們更好地了解我們在投資增長方面的表現，以及我們在管理語音和其他現金業務下滑方面的表現。

I'll wrap up by saying that I'm encouraged by the progress we've made and fully focused on the work that lies ahead. We leave 2020 with improving revenue trends, better EBITDA margins and a strengthened balance sheet. I believe we have demonstrated that we can take out costs to meet the pressure of legacy revenue loss. Going forward, we will continue to implement customer-centric operational improvements, but our future isn't about EBITDA stability through cost management. Rather, it is about EBITDA growth driven by revenue growth. I believe the Lumen platform is the right solution for our customers and will help us drive revenue, customer experience and ongoing operating efficiencies.

最後我要說的是，我對我們取得的進展感到鼓舞，並完全專注於未來的工作。我們在 2020 年留下了改善的收入趨勢、更好的 EBITDA 利潤率和更強大的資產負債表。我相信我們已經證明我們可以扣除成本來應對遺留收入損失的壓力。展望未來，我們將繼續實施以客戶為中心的運營改進，但我們的未來與通過成本管理實現 EBITDA 穩定性無關。相反，它是由收入增長驅動的 EBITDA 增長。我相信 Lumen 平台是我們客戶的正確解決方案，將幫助我們增加收入、客戶體驗和持續的運營效率。

We are excited about the opportunities ahead, but an earnings call doesn't allow us enough time to discuss the numerous programs we have underway. We intend to host a virtual Analyst Day in late spring. During that event, we will share in greater depth our go-to-market strategies, exciting alliances and new solutions we bring to the market. Stay tuned for the detailed information about this event, and I look forward to providing you additional insight on our road map to future growth.

我們對未來的機會感到興奮，但收益電話會議不允許我們有足夠的時間來討論我們正在進行的眾多計劃。我們打算在晚春舉辦虛擬分析師日。在那次活動中，我們將更深入地分享我們的上市戰略、激動人心的聯盟以及我們為市場帶來的新解決方案。請繼續關注有關此活動的詳細信息，我期待著為您提供有關我們未來發展路線圖的更多見解。

With that, I'll turn it over to Neel.

有了這個，我會把它交給尼爾。

Thank you, Jeff, and good afternoon, everyone. We have a lot to cover, so I'll start with a few highlights.

謝謝你，傑夫，大家下午好。我們有很多內容要介紹，所以我將從一些要點開始。

Turning to Slide 10. Despite the macro environment, we delivered solid results. For the full year, we improved the total revenue trajectory by 150 basis points, generated $8.9 billion in adjusted EBITDA, expanded our adjusted EBITDA margins and generated $3.1 billion of free cash flow. We continued to invest in the business with capital expenditures of $3.7 billion. Over the course of 2020, we reduced net debt by approximately $1.6 billion and refinanced approximately $13 billion in long-term debt, further reducing interest expense, extending maturities and strengthening our balance sheet. Finally, as of the end of 2020, we achieved approximately $830 million of annualized run rate adjusted EBITDA cost transformation savings, reaching our targeted savings range more than a year ahead of our expected time line.

轉到幻燈片 10。儘管存在宏觀環境，但我們取得了可觀的成果。全年，我們將總收入軌跡提高了 150 個基點，產生了 89 億美元的調整後 EBITDA，擴大了調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率並產生了 31 億美元的自由現金流。我們繼續投資該業務，資本支出為 37 億美元。在 2020 年期間，我們將淨債務減少了約 16 億美元，並為約 130 億美元的長期債務進行了再融資，進一步減少了利息支出，延長了到期日並加強了我們的資產負債表。最後，截至 2020 年底，我們實現了約 8.3 億美元的年化運行率調整後 EBITDA 成本轉型節省，比我們預期的時間線提前一年多達到了我們的目標節省範圍。

Moving to revenue. For the full year 2020, total revenue declined 3.5% to $20.712 billion. As I mentioned in our highlights, this is a 150 basis point improvement from the 5% year-over-year decline in total revenue from 2018 to 2019.

轉向收入。 2020 年全年總收入下降 3.5% 至 207.12 億美元。正如我在要點中提到的那樣，這比 2018 年至 2019 年總收入同比下降 5% 提高了 150 個基點。

Turning to Slide 11. Total revenue in the fourth quarter declined 3.4% to $5.125 billion. Moving now to our business segment. On a year-over-year basis, International and Global Accounts, or IGAM, revenue decreased 1.6% or 0.7% on a constant currency basis. Moving to our Enterprise segment. On a year-over-year basis, revenue decreased 0.3%. We continue to feel good about our growth prospects in IGAM and Enterprise, but during the quarter, we did see some lengthening of sales cycles.

轉到幻燈片 11。第四季度總收入下降 3.4% 至 51.25 億美元。現在轉到我們的業務部門。與去年同期相比，國際和全球賬戶 (IGAM) 的收入按固定匯率計算下降 1.6% 或 0.7%。轉到我們的企業部門。與去年同期相比，收入下降了 0.3%。我們繼續對 IGAM 和 Enterprise 的增長前景感到樂觀，但在本季度，我們確實看到銷售週期有所延長。

SMB revenue decreased 7.1% year-over-year. As a reminder, during the third quarter of 2020, we sold a significant portion of our legacy correctional facility communications business. The sale of this business impacted revenue by about $15 million in the fourth quarter on a year-over-year basis. Excluding this business from prior results, year-over-year revenue would have declined 4.9%. Wholesale revenue decreased 6.2% year-over-year.

SMB 收入同比下降 7.1%。提醒一下，在 2020 年第三季度，我們出售了很大一部分遺留懲教設施通信業務。與去年同期相比，出售該業務對第四季度的收入產生了約 1500 萬美元的影響。從先前的結果中排除該業務，收入同比下降 4.9%。批發收入同比下降 6.2%。

In summary, for the full year 2020, IGAM and Enterprise, which on a combined basis represents 59% of business revenue, grew slightly on a constant currency basis. In a year of macro uncertainty facing most enterprise customers, this highlights the relevance of the products and services we offer. Our turnaround plans for SMB were impacted by the pandemic, but relatively low churn and improving macro conditions gives us confidence that SMB represents a growth opportunity for us over the long term. Wholesale will continue to decline. Overall, we remain focused on improving the revenue trajectory across all channels.

總之，在 2020 年全年，IGAM 和 Enterprise 合計佔業務收入的 59%，按固定匯率計算略有增長。在大多數企業客戶面臨宏觀不確定性的一年中，這凸顯了我們提供的產品和服務的相關性。我們針對 SMB 的周轉計劃受到大流行的影響，但相對較低的流失率和不斷改善的宏觀環境讓我們相信，從長遠來看，SMB 對我們來說是一個增長機會。批發將繼續下降。總體而言，我們仍然專注於改善所有渠道的收入軌跡。

Turning to Consumer on Slide 12. For the fourth quarter 2020, revenue declined 4.1% year-over-year. Broadband revenue for the fourth quarter of 2020 grew 1.8% year-over-year. The revenue performance has been driven by our micro-targeting efforts, our ongoing focus to improve customer experience and driving up penetration of our competitive assets. For the fourth quarter, in speeds of 100 meg and above, we added 54,000 subs. From a mix perspective, 14% of our total broadband subs now have greater than 100-meg speeds compared to 5% at the beginning of last year. Ending the year, we now have approximately 2.4 million homes passed with fiber compared to about 2 million at year-end 2019.

轉向幻燈片 12 上的消費者。2020 年第四季度，收入同比下降 4.1%。 2020 年第四季度寬帶收入同比增長 1.8%。收入表現是由我們的微觀目標努力推動的，我們持續關注改善客戶體驗並推動我們競爭資產的滲透。第四季度，我們以 100 兆及以上的速度增加了 54,000 個訂閱者。從混合的角度來看，我們寬帶用戶總數中有 14% 現在的速度超過 100 兆，而去年初這一比例為 5%。到今年年底，我們現在有大約 240 萬戶家庭使用了光纖，而 2019 年年底這一數字約為 200 萬戶。

Turning to adjusted EBITDA on Slide 13. For the full year 2020, adjusted EBITDA was $8.888 billion, which compares to $9.070 billion for 2019. For the fourth quarter 2020, adjusted EBITDA was $2.281 billion compared to $2.278 billion from the year ago quarter. Given the difficult macro conditions, we are pleased with the year-over-year EBITDA growth in the fourth quarter, along with the sequential improvement in adjusted EBITDA in both third and fourth quarter of 2020.

轉到幻燈片 13 上的調整後 EBITDA。2020 年全年，調整後的 EBITDA 為 88.88 億美元，而 2019 年為 90.70 億美元。2020 年第四季度，調整後的 EBITDA 為 22.81 億美元，而去年同期為 22.78 億美元。鑑於艱難的宏觀環境，我們對第四季度的 EBITDA 同比增長以及 2020 年第三和第四季度調整後 EBITDA 的環比改善感到滿意。

We expanded our full year adjusted EBITDA margin to 42.9% compared to 42.3% for the full year 2019. For 2020, capital expenditures were $3.729 billion. And for the fourth quarter 2020, capital expenditures were $758 million. We continue to lean in and invest in the products and services that support the Lumen platform. We also continue to invest in expanding our fiber footprint and our digital customer and employee experience.

我們將全年調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率從 2019 年全年的 42.3% 擴大到 42.9%。2020 年的資本支出為 37.29 億美元。 2020 年第四季度，資本支出為 7.58 億美元。我們將繼續關注和投資支持 Lumen 平台的產品和服務。我們還繼續投資擴大我們的光纖足跡以及我們的數字客戶和員工體驗。

For the full year 2020, we generated free cash flow of $3.131 billion and $1.004 billion for the fourth quarter 2020. For the full year, we reduced net debt by approximately $1.6 billion and refinanced more than $13 billion. For the fourth quarter 2020, we reduced net debt by more than $650 million and refinanced $1 billion of debt at lower rates. We exited 2020, having materially improved our maturity profile, further strengthening our balance sheet, lowering our cost of debt, enhancing our ability to invest in the business, our net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio is now at 3.6x.

2020 年全年，我們在 2020 年第四季度產生了 31.31 億美元和 10.04 億美元的自由現金流。全年，我們減少了約 16 億美元的淨債務，並進行了超過 130 億美元的再融資。 2020 年第四季度，我們減少了超過 6.5 億美元的淨債務，並以較低的利率為 10 億美元的債務再融資。我們退出了 2020 年，在顯著改善了我們的到期狀況、進一步加強了我們的資產負債表、降低了我們的債務成本、增強了我們對業務的投資能力之後，我們的淨債務與調整後的 EBITDA 槓桿比率現在為 3.6 倍。

As of the end of the fourth quarter, we have achieved approximately $830 million of annualized run rate adjusted EBITDA transformation savings, putting us in our targeted range a year earlier than planned. We will continue to lean into transformation efforts in the future. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate cost transformation initiatives with most of our initiatives now focused on improving revenue performance while delivering significant cost savings. As such, we will not report transformation savings in 2021. However, we do have line of sight and expect significant cost savings for the next several years.

截至第四季度末，我們已實現約 8.3 億美元的年化運行率調整後 EBITDA 轉型節省，使我們比計劃提前一年達到目標範圍。我們將在未來繼續致力於轉型工作。但是，將成本轉型計劃分開變得越來越困難，因為我們的大多數計劃現在都專注於提高收入績效，同時實現顯著的成本節約。因此，我們不會在 2021 年報告轉型節省的費用。但是，我們確實有預期，並預計未來幾年會節省大量成本。

Transitioning to 2021 reporting on Slide 15. The changes we're making better reflect our go-to-market strategy and where we are investing for growth. Our 2 segments going forward are business and mass markets. I'll focus on business segment first. We will continue to serve our business customers through 4 customer-facing sales channels: IGAM, large enterprise, mid-market and wholesale. IGAM is now our largest business sales channel. For the global accounts, or GAM, portion of this channel, we evaluated customer buying behavior and expanded the customer list with customers that we deem as high potential. As a result, some customers that have been in the enterprise channel have now moved into IGAM.

過渡到幻燈片 15 上的 2021 年報告。我們所做的更改更好地反映了我們的上市戰略以及我們為增長而投資的領域。我們未來的兩個細分市場是商業和大眾市場。我將首先關注業務部門。我們將繼續通過 4 個面向客戶的銷售渠道為我們的企業客戶提供服務：IGAM、大型企業、中端市場和批發。 IGAM 現在是我們最大的業務銷售渠道。對於該渠道的全球客戶或 GAM 部分，我們評估了客戶的購買行為，並擴大了我們認為具有高潛力的客戶的客戶名單。因此，一些一直在企業渠道的客戶現在已經轉移到 IGAM。

Our enterprise channel narrows its focus and becomes large enterprise, and we now have a sales channel focused specifically on midsized customers, which we are calling the mid-market channel. Based on buying patterns and support requirements, some smaller customers previously included in the enterprise channel have moved to our mid-market channel. Within our wholesale channel, changes were limited to realignment of a few customer accounts.

我們的企業渠道縮小了重點，變成了大型企業，我們現在有一個專門針對中型客戶的銷售渠道，我們稱之為中端市場渠道。根據購買模式和支持要求，之前包含在企業渠道中的一些較小客戶已轉移到我們的中端市場渠道。在我們的批發渠道中，更改僅限於重新調整一些客戶帳戶。

Slide 16 describes the segment changes in more detail. Over the long term, we are optimistic about the growth potential for IGAM, large enterprise and mid-markets.

幻燈片 16 更詳細地描述了細分市場的變化。從長遠來看，我們看好 IGAM、大型企業和中端市場的增長潛力。

Moving now to Slide 17 in our product categories by business segment. Compute and application services includes many of the solutions that Jeff referenced in his remarks. In addition, products like edge cloud services, CDN, data center and security are an integral part of our success with the Lumen edge. This category will also include revenue from our increased focus on ecosystem partnerships, leveraging the Lumen platform.

現在按業務部門轉到我們產品類別中的幻燈片 17。計算和應用程序服務包括 Jeff 在他的評論中提到的許多解決方案。此外，邊緣雲服務、CDN、數據中心和安全等產品是我們在 Lumen 邊緣取得成功不可或缺的一部分。這一類別還將包括我們利用 Lumen 平台更加關註生態系統合作夥伴關係而產生的收入。

IP and data services include products that are core to providing enterprises with hybrid networking capabilities and include products like high-speed IP, VPN, SD-WAN and our Dynamic Connections capabilities. Fiber infrastructure service is largely our dark fiber and optical services business. Our voice and other category represents the bulk of our legacy and primarily TDM services.

IP 和數據服務包括為企業提供混合網絡功能的核心產品，包括高速 IP、VPN、SD-WAN 和我們的動態連接功能等產品。光纖基礎設施服務主要是我們的暗光纖和光學服務業務。我們的語音和其他類別代表了我們大部分的傳統服務，主要是 TDM 服務。

We continue to invest and expect growth from compute and application, IP and data and fiber infrastructure services. Together, these 3 categories represent over 70% of business revenue. As you think about the intersection of channels and products for our business segment, excluding wholesale, these 3 product categories in aggregate grew slightly year-over-year on a constant currency basis for the fourth quarter. Mid-market, which currently is a headwind, represents a turnaround and eventually, a growth opportunity.

我們繼續投資並期待計算和應用、IP 和數據以及光纖基礎設施服務的增長。這 3 個類別加起來佔業務收入的 70% 以上。當你考慮我們業務部門的渠道和產品的交叉點時，不包括批發，這 3 個產品類別在第四季度按固定匯率計算總體同比略有增長。中端市場目前是一個逆風，代表著一個轉機，最終是一個增長機會。

Turning to Slide 18. The mass markets segment is a combination of the consumer customers plus the addition of small business customers we had in the former SMB channel. We are now calling these customers the small business group, or SBG. As we looked at the buying patterns, support model and product needs for both our SBG and residential customers, we believe that combining the go-to-market approach provides efficiencies and potentially, improvements in revenue trajectory. Within the mass markets segment, we will report revenue in 4 categories: consumer broadband, SBG broadband, voice and other and CAF II revenue. Additionally, we are updating our product reporting and enhancing our disclosure around our Quantum Fiber business and brand.

轉到幻燈片 18。大眾市場部分是消費者客戶加上我們在以前的 SMB 渠道中增加的小型企業客戶的組合。我們現在將這些客戶稱為小型企業集團或 SBG。當我們研究 SBG 和住宅客戶的購買模式、支持模式和產品需求時，我們認為結合進入市場的方法可以提高效率，並有可能改善收入軌跡。在大眾市場部分，我們將報告 4 個類別的收入：消費者寬帶、SBG 寬帶、語音和其他以及 CAF II 收入。此外，我們正在更新我們的產品報告並加強我們對量子纖維業務和品牌的披露。

In addition to fiber-enabled locations, we are now reporting fiber subs and ARPU. Quantum Fiber represents a growth opportunity for us along several fronts. Fiber-enabled homes are less than 15% of our footprint, and we continue to invest with our micro-targeting strategy. Given that a significant number of enabled units were added in the past couple of years, driving up penetration represents a near-term addressable market opportunity. Moreover, we have deemphasized low-speed offerings over fiber, and our typical new sales ARPU now is generally higher than our base, representing another potential opportunity to improve the business. Finally, we are breaking out SBG broadband, which until now hasn't been a large focus for us, and we expect to improve the trajectory like we have for consumer broadband.

除了支持光纖的位置，我們現在還報告了光纖用戶和 ARPU。量子纖維代表了我們在幾個方面的增長機會。支持光纖的家庭不到我們足蹟的 15%，我們將繼續投資於我們的微目標戰略。鑑於在過去幾年中增加了大量啟用的設備，提高滲透率代表了近期可尋址的市場機會。此外，我們不再強調光纖上的低速產品，現在我們典型的新銷售 ARPU 通常高於我們的基數，這代表了另一個改善業務的潛在機會。最後，我們正在突破 SBG 寬帶，直到現在這還不是我們的重點，我們希望像我們對消費者寬帶那樣改善軌跡。

I'd like to take a moment to summarize the transition from CAF II to the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, or RDOF. As most of you are aware, our subsidy revenue will step down from about $500 million a year to roughly $26 million in 2022. These changes do not impact 2021 results. We took a very disciplined and ROI-based approach to RDOF. In fact, even after factoring in the subsidy, we see better returns from the fiber to the home investments we are making with our micro-targeting strategy. As we wrap up CAF II, we intend to further accelerate that strategy by shifting resources and organizational capabilities now focused on CAF II.

我想花點時間總結一下從 CAF II 到農村數字機會基金 (RDOF) 的過渡。正如你們大多數人所知，我們的補貼收入將從每年約 5 億美元減少到 2022 年的約 2600 萬美元。這些變化不會影響 2021 年的結果。我們對 RDOF 採取了非常嚴格且基於 ROI 的方法。事實上，即使考慮到補貼因素，我們也看到了從光纖到我們通過微觀目標策略進行的家庭投資的更好回報。在我們結束 CAF II 時，我們打算通過轉移目前專注於 CAF II 的資源和組織能力來進一步加速該戰略。

Moving to Slide 19. As I mentioned earlier, we are no longer reporting transformation costs. However, we will continue to transform the business going forward and expect similar levels of expense, which are incorporated into our 2021 guidance. We will continue to report special items which include expenses such as severance, material legal settlements or other unforeseen material expenses that are onetime or unusual in nature. With this adjustment, full year 2020 adjusted EBITDA would have been $8.664 billion and free cash flow would have been $2.979 billion.

轉到幻燈片 19。正如我之前提到的，我們不再報告轉型成本。但是，我們將繼續推進業務轉型，並期望類似水平的費用，這已納入我們的 2021 年指導方針。我們將繼續報告特殊項目，包括一次性或不尋常的費用，例如遣散費、重大法律和解或其他不可預見的重大費用。通過這一調整，2020 年全年調整後的 EBITDA 為 86.64 億美元，自由現金流為 29.79 億美元。

So turning to Slide 20 and an overview of our financial outlook. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $8.4 billion to $8.6 billion for 2021 compared to $8.664 billion in 2020. As I just mentioned, our EBITDA now includes cost to continue to transform the business. Our guidance also incorporates significant success-based investments focused on continuing to improve our revenue trajectory. These incremental investments are primarily in the areas of product development, marketing, brand and go-to-market sales initiatives. For the full year 2021, we expect capital expenditures in the range of $3.5 billion to $3.8 billion. We expect to generate free cash flow in the range of $2.8 billion to $3 billion for the full year 2021 compared to $2.979 billion in 2020.

所以轉向幻燈片 20 和我們的財務前景概述。我們預計 2021 年調整後的 EBITDA 將在 84 億美元至 86 億美元之間，而 2020 年為 86.64 億美元。正如我剛才提到的，我們的 EBITDA 現在包括繼續轉型業務的成本。我們的指導意見還納入了以成功為基礎的重大投資，重點是繼續改善我們的收入軌跡。這些增量投資主要集中在產品開發、營銷、品牌和上市銷售計劃領域。對於 2021 年全年，我們預計資本支出在 35 億美元至 38 億美元之間。我們預計 2021 年全年將產生 28 億至 30 億美元的自由現金流，而 2020 年為 29.79 億美元。

As you bridge from 2020 to 2021, keep in mind, we had about $175 million working capital benefit from the CARES Act that reverses in 2021 and 2022. For 2021, we do not have any required contributions to the pension fund, and our free cash flow guidance does not include any discretionary contributions. Given strong market performance, our funding status at the end of the year was 86%. We will continue to monitor and may make contributions in 2021. Also, as a reminder, our first quarter has typically high working capital use driven by timing of bonus payments and other prepaid expenses.

當您從 2020 年過渡到 2021 年時，請記住，我們從 2021 年和 2022 年逆轉的 CARES 法案中獲得了約 1.75 億美元的營運資金收益。2021 年，我們不需要向養老基金和我們的自由現金繳款流量指南不包括任何酌情供款。鑑於強勁的市場表現，我們在年底的資金狀況為 86%。我們將繼續監測並可能在 2021 年做出貢獻。另外，提醒一下，由於獎金支付和其他預付費用的時間安排，我們第一季度的營運資金使用率通常很高。

We expect net cash interest expense in the range of $1.525 billion to $1.575 billion for 2021. The midpoint of guidance represents almost $600 million in lower net cash interest compared to 2018. We are pleased with this outcome enabled by our aggressive delevering plan that we embarked on in 2019. We have significantly strengthened our balance sheet, improved our credit profile and our coverage ratios and remain committed to getting to our 2.75 to 3.25 net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage target. Consistent with our execution in 2020, we will continue with a balanced approach to paying down debt and investing in the business focused on improving our revenue trajectory.

我們預計 2021 年的淨現金利息支出在 15.25 億美元至 15.75 億美元之間。指導的中點代表與 2018 年相比減少近 6 億美元的淨現金利息。我們對我們實施的積極去槓桿計劃所帶來的這一結果感到滿意2019 年。我們顯著加強了資產負債表，改善了信用狀況和覆蓋率，並繼續致力於實現 2.75 至 3.25 的淨債務與調整後 EBITDA 槓桿率的目標。與我們在 2020 年的執行一致，我們將繼續採用平衡的方法來償還債務和投資專注於改善我們收入軌蹟的業務。

In summary, despite the uncertainty and challenges faced by our customers and our company, we delivered solid full year results. With our continued success-based investments in the business, our focus on profitable growth, focus on new and growing addressable markets and ongoing digital transformation initiatives, we are well positioned for 2021.

總而言之，儘管我們的客戶和公司面臨著不確定性和挑戰，但我們全年取得了穩健的業績。憑藉我們對業務的持續成功投資、我們對盈利增長的關注、對新的和不斷增長的潛在市場的關注以及持續的數字化轉型計劃，我們為 2021 年做好了準備。

With that, we'll open it up for your questions. France, would you please explain the process?

有了這個，我們將打開它來回答您的問題。法國，你能解釋一下這個過程嗎？

(Operator Instructions) And our first question will be from the line of Batya Levi with UBS.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題將來自瑞銀集團的 Batya Levi。

Maybe starting off with your EBITDA guidance for '21. It looks like you're expecting it to be flat to down. Can you help us maybe quantify how much you're planning to spend on the transformation side of it? And with the outlook for potentially improving revenue trends and continued cost-cutting efforts, why would we still see a decline in EBITDA?

也許從 21 年的 EBITDA 指南開始。看起來您希望它是平坦的。您能否幫助我們量化您計劃在轉型方面花費多少？鑑於收入趨勢可能改善和持續削減成本的前景，為什麼我們仍會看到 EBITDA 下降？

And maybe finally, you did mention that your -- one of your focus will remain to lower leverage. I believe with this guidance, you will still be above your leverage target at year-end. Can you help us think about your capital allocation policy going forward?

也許最後，你確實提到你的——你的重點之一仍然是降低杠桿率。我相信有了這個指導，您在年底仍將高於您的槓桿目標。你能幫我們考慮一下你們未來的資本配置政策嗎？

Batya, so I'll start with your question on EBITDA. So on EBITDA, I think there's a page in our earnings presentation that lays out the pro forma view. So from the starting point of $8.664 billion, our guidance is $8.4 billion to $8.6 billion. Like you alluded to, I think, the guidance includes the cost to continue to transform the business. So we're not going to be slowing down. So we expect similar amount of cost in 2021 like we did in 2020. So you'll see there, excluding severance, in 2020, we had about $224 million in costs. So we expect about a similar amount of cost in 2021.

Batya，所以我將從你關於 EBITDA 的問題開始。所以在 EBITDA 上，我認為我們的收益演示中有一頁列出了備考視圖。因此，從 86.64 億美元的起點來看，我們的指導是 84 億美元至 86 億美元。正如您提到的，我認為該指南包括繼續轉型業務的成本。所以我們不會放慢腳步。因此，我們預計 2021 年的成本與 2020 年相似。所以你會看到，不包括遣散費，2020 年我們的成本約為 2.24 億美元。因此，我們預計 2021 年的成本將達到類似水平。

The other thing impacting EBITDA in 2021 really are the investments we're making in growth and really changing the revenue trajectory of the business. So if you think about all the things that Jeff mentioned, those investments are just not capital. They are both capital and operating expense, so some of the product initiatives we're working on, product development cost. There is ecosystem initiatives with partners, additional marketing, brand expenses, sales training, sales overlay, IT initiatives from quote-to-cash. So all of those things are incorporated into our EBITDA guidance. So we're really focused on long-term EBITDA growth, and a big part of our focus in 2021 is really improving the revenue trajectory over the long term with all the investments that we're making.

影響 2021 年 EBITDA 的另一件事實際上是我們在增長方面所做的投資，並真正改變了業務的收入軌跡。所以如果你考慮傑夫提到的所有事情，這些投資就不是資本。它們既是資本支出又是運營支出，因此我們正在進行的一些產品計劃是產品開發成本。有與合作夥伴的生態系統計劃、額外的營銷、品牌費用、銷售培訓、銷售覆蓋、從報價到現金的 IT 計劃。因此，所有這些都納入了我們的 EBITDA 指南。因此，我們真正專注於長期的 EBITDA 增長，而我們在 2021 年的很大一部分重點是通過我們正在進行的所有投資來改善長期的收入軌跡。

So your second question was around leverage, leverage target. So we're already at 3.6x. And so if you look at our guidance, we are still committed to paying down debt. And our target ratio is -- our target leverage ratio is still 2.75 to 3.25. We'll likely exit the year somewhere around 3.5 or slightly better. And within a quarter, [turnover] our target range. So we're committed to it. Like you've seen us do in 2020, we will balance between paying down debt and investing in growth. And so that will be the balanced approach going forward.

所以你的第二個問題是關於槓桿，槓桿目標。所以我們已經達到了 3.6 倍。因此，如果您查看我們的指導意見，我們仍然致力於償還債務。我們的目標比率是——我們的目標槓桿比率仍然是 2.75 到 3.25。我們可能會在 3.5 左右或略好一些的地方退出這一年。在一個季度內，[營業額]達到我們的目標範圍。所以我們致力於此。就像您看到我們在 2020 年所做的那樣，我們將在償還債務和投資於增長之間取得平衡。因此，這將是未來的平衡方法。

Our next question, from the line of 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 2, first, for Neel. Within the CapEx guidance that you've given, could you kind of carve out how much of that is going to be related to the CAF II commitments such that we would assume that, that would then disappear in 2022? And then I guess following up on Batya's question a little bit, Jeff, Slide 5, you've got this kind of aspirational trajectory towards growth. But then on Slide 11, we're looking at declines in almost every business unit. So what are the biggest moving parts, both headwinds and tailwinds, that are going to get us from turning Slide 11 from a lot of negatives to looking more like Slide 5, which is this trajectory towards growth in the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

我猜 2，首先，對於 Neel。在您提供的資本支出指南中，您能否算出其中有多少與 CAF II 承諾相關，以便我們假設該承諾將在 2022 年消失？然後我想稍微跟進 Batya 的問題，Jeff，Slide 5，你有這種通往增長的理想軌跡。但在幻燈片 11 上，我們看到幾乎每個業務部門都在下滑。那麼，什麼是最大的移動部分，包括逆風和順風，它們將使我們從很多負面的幻燈片 11 轉變為看起來更像幻燈片 5，這是第四次工業革命的增長軌跡？

Sure, David. So on capital guidance for CAF II, just to give you a sense of CAF II capital. Over the last 3 years, we've averaged over $300 million of spending against CAF II. And this year, we're working on a series of initiatives to actually bring it down. So we don't know exactly where that's going to end up, but it will likely be less. In terms of headwinds and tailwinds, the way I would think about it is if you look at our new reporting, for the business segment, the top 3 product categories, compute and applications, IP and data and fiber infrastructure, those are the ones that we're really investing for growth and voice and other will really manage for cash.

當然，大衛。那麼關於CAF II的資本指導，就是讓大家感受一下CAF II的資本。在過去 3 年中，我們平均花費超過 3 億美元用於 CAF II。今年，我們正在開展一系列舉措，以真正降低它。所以我們不知道最終會發生什麼，但可能會更少。就逆風和順風而言，我的想法是，如果您查看我們的新報告，對於業務部門，前 3 大產品類別、計算和應用程序、IP 和數據以及光纖基礎設施，這些是我們真的是在為增長和話語權而投資，而其他人真的會為現金而管理。

Now when you look at the channel lens, there is some challenge with SMB, and we're working on that turnaround and eventually grow that at some point. So if you look at it from a product lens, 70-plus percent of the business, we're focused on driving growth for the business segment. And if you look at even from a channel lens perspective, excluding wholesale, the business is about 75%. So that just kind of gives you a sense of the part of the business that we're focused on driving growth. And in terms of mass markets, it really is about broadband and our focus on investing in fiber and driving up penetration, and that's what we'll be focused on.

現在，當您查看渠道鏡頭時，SMB 面臨一些挑戰，我們正在努力扭轉局面，並最終在某個時候實現增長。因此，如果你從產品的角度來看，70% 以上的業務，我們專注於推動業務部門的增長。如果你甚至從渠道鏡頭的角度來看，不包括批發，該業務約為 75%。因此，這只是讓您了解我們專注於推動增長的業務部分。就大眾市場而言，這實際上是關於寬帶和我們對投資光纖和提高普及率的關注，這就是我們將關注的重點。

And David, how we accomplish that is by our investments, by our focus. And where we're leaning in over the last couple of years, you've seen us invest heavily in improving our customer experience and our digital interactions with customers and the way that our employees support them. But at the same time, we've been building and investing in the Lumen platform and the capabilities that we want to deliver to the market. Neel talked about the 3 big product categories that are growing. But if you look inside some of those, things like edge computing, we announced last year that we were going to invest heavily in edge. Today, we have about 60% of U.S. enterprises within 5 milliseconds.

大衛，我們如何通過我們的投資和我們的專注來實現這一目標。在過去的幾年裡，我們一直在努力，你已經看到我們投入了大量資金來改善我們的客戶體驗和我們與客戶的數字互動以及我們的員工支持他們的方式。但與此同時，我們一直在構建和投資 Lumen 平台以及我們希望向市場提供的功能。尼爾談到了正在增長的三大產品類別。但是如果你深入了解其中的一些，比如邊緣計算，我們去年宣布我們將大力投資邊緣計算。今天，我們有大約 60% 的美國企業在 5 毫秒內完成。

So as you look at the services that we've been developing, Lumen edge cloud, the Lumen edge VM, the Lumen edge bare metal, all of those capabilities we see as growth capabilities. And we've been investing heavily in them as well as things like hybrid WAN and Dynamic Connections and UCaaS, unified communications as a service. We continue to invest in the products and services and the capabilities that we need to deliver those. We continue to invest in the infrastructure, making sure that we're expanding fiber to businesses, building out our edge cloud facilities and capabilities.

因此，當您查看我們一直在開發的服務時，Lumen 邊緣雲、Lumen 邊緣 VM、Lumen 邊緣裸機，我們將所有這些功能視為增長能力。我們一直在大力投資它們以及混合 WAN 和動態連接和 UCaaS，統一通信即服務。我們繼續投資於產品和服務以及交付這些產品和服務所需的能力。我們繼續投資於基礎設施，確保我們將光纖擴展到企業，構建我們的邊緣雲設施和能力。

And we've also been investing in our partnerships and making sure that we are partnering with world-class companies that we can take and put on the Lumen platform, companies like Zoom, companies like SAP, companies like VMware, that we can partner with them and provide unique innovative solutions all over the Lumen platform. And so we'll continue to do that and continue to invest in the OpEx as well to drive those products and services. So Neel talked about that in his response to Batya's question about EBITDA. So I'd say that what we've been doing for the last couple of years have been investing in those things, but really building the platform at this point. And now it's more about rolling that platform to our customers and expanding the products and services they buy from us.

我們也一直在投資於我們的合作夥伴關係，並確保我們正在與我們可以在 Lumen 平台上使用和投放的世界級公司合作，像 Zoom 這樣的公司，像 SAP 這樣的公司，像 VMware 這樣的公司，我們可以與之合作他們並在整個 Lumen 平台上提供獨特的創新解決方案。因此，我們將繼續這樣做，並繼續投資於 OpEx，以推動這些產品和服務。所以 Neel 在回答 Batya 關於 EBITDA 的問題時談到了這一點。所以我想說的是，過去幾年我們一直在投資這些東西，但實際上是在構建平台。現在更多的是將這個平台推廣給我們的客戶，並擴展他們從我們這裡購買的產品和服務。

Yes. The one thing I would add, David, is I think we're not pleased with the 3.5% decline year-over-year, but we're very pleased with the 150 basis point improvement from the 5% decline last year. So we're really focused on improving the revenue trajectory. The other thing you can see from our profitability metrics hopefully, which is hard to see with the top line metrics, is that we're making the revenue more profitable and more durable.

是的。大衛，我要補充的一件事是，我認為我們對同比下降 3.5% 並不滿意，但我們對與去年下降 5% 相比提高 150 個基點感到非常高興。所以我們真的專注於改善收入軌跡。您希望從我們的盈利指標中看到的另一件事是，我們正在使收入更有利可圖，更持久，這在頂線指標中很難看到。

The next question is from the line of Eric Luebchow with Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Eric Luebchow。

So Neel, I wanted to follow up on the CAF II roll-off. I think as you said, it sounds like potentially next year, there could be a several hundred million dollar impact to free cash flow and you'd probably reinvest some CapEx into fiber to the home. So curious how you think about your dividend payout ratio beyond this year pro forma some of those initiatives and whether that changes your capital allocation initiatives at all. And in addition, if you could maybe frame up the outlook for fiber to the home within your consumer segment. How many homes do you think makes sense to build to? And maybe some more color on that would be helpful.

所以 Neel，我想跟進 CAF II 的推出。我認為正如你所說，這聽起來可能在明年對自由現金流產生數億美元的影響，你可能會將一些資本支出再投資到光纖到戶中。很好奇你如何看待今年以後的股息支付率，以備考其中一些舉措，以及這是否會改變你的資本配置舉措。此外，如果您可以在您的消費者細分市場中構建光纖到戶的前景。你認為建造多少個房子是有意義的？也許更多的顏色會有所幫助。

Sure, Eric. So if you think about CAF II, like I mentioned, we were -- for the last 3 years, we averaged more than $300 million of capital. The other thing to keep in mind is that we -- through end of last year, we have enabled about 1.1 million units, and these are really in underserved areas. So we are selling into that, and that revenue and penetration is picking up every quarter. So there is also cash coming in from the footprint that we have enabled. So when you look at the puts and takes going into next year of the subsidy, the capital going away and cash coming from customers in that footprint, when you add it all up, it is not a material impact to our free cash flow. So it really doesn't change anything from a capital allocation perspective.

當然，埃里克。因此，如果您考慮 CAF II，就像我提到的那樣，我們 - 在過去 3 年中，我們的平均資本超過 3 億美元。另一件要記住的事情是，到去年年底，我們已經啟用了大約 110 萬個單元，而這些單元確實位於服務欠缺的地區。所以我們正在銷售，而且收入和滲透率每個季度都在增加。因此，我們啟用的足跡也帶來了現金。因此，當您查看補貼明年的看跌期權和收益、資本流失以及來自該足跡中客戶的現金時，當您將所有這些加起來時，這不會對我們的自由現金流產生重大影響。所以從資本配置的角度來看，它真的沒有改變任何東西。

And in terms of RDOF, like I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we took a very, very disciplined approach. And so even when you net out the subsidy, our returns that we see on fiber to the home is significantly higher. Just to give you another data point, one of the largest winners of RDOF just announced that it's a $5 billion price tag to build out to about 1 million homes. If you compare that to the 400,000 homes that we just enabled last year, we certainly didn't spend a couple of billion. And so we have a different profile in terms of where we're investing fiber to the home, and we'll be success-based on that front. We're not setting any specific targets. In our new disclosure, we're providing the enabled homes and we're giving you penetration so you can see that we have a fair amount of addressable opportunity to sell into. So we'll ramp up on a success-based basis, if that makes sense.

就 RDOF 而言，就像我在準備好的發言中提到的那樣，我們採取了非常、非常有紀律的方法。因此，即使扣除補貼，我們在光纖到戶方面看到的回報也高得多。再給你一個數據點，RDOF 的最大贏家之一剛剛宣布，建造大約 100 萬套房屋的價格為 50 億美元。如果將其與我們去年剛剛啟用的 400,000 戶家庭進行比較，我們當然不會花費 20 億美元。因此，我們在將光纖投資到家庭方面有不同的概況，我們將在這方面取得成功。我們沒有設定任何具體目標。在我們的新披露中，我們正在提供功能齊全的房屋，並為您提供滲透，因此您可以看到我們有相當多的可尋址機會可以出售。因此，如果有意義的話，我們將在基於成功的基礎上增加。

And I'll just add, from a market perspective, we're super excited about our Quantum Fiber brand and the capabilities that we bring to the market. The digital experience is, in my opinion, second to none where our NPS scores reflect a very high satisfaction, the quality of the product, the bidirectional nature of the product and the symmetry of that capacity, the peering networks that we tie that into. We're extremely excited about the capabilities that we give to the customers and their acceptance of it.

我只想補充一點，從市場的角度來看，我們對我們的 Quantum Fiber 品牌和我們為市場帶來的能力感到非常興奮。在我看來，數字體驗是首屈一指的，我們的 NPS 分數反映了非常高的滿意度、產品質量、產品的雙向性質以及該容量的對稱性，以及我們將其綁定到的對等網絡。我們對我們為客戶提供的功能及其接受度感到非常興奮。

Our next question, from the line of Tim Horan with Oppenheimer.

我們的下一個問題來自 Tim Horan 和 Oppenheimer 的對話。

Can you give us a little bit more color around the Lumen platform? How differentiated do you think you are now versus your peers? I know it's not just the platform. It's also your infrastructure. Can you maybe just talk about -- it sounds like you're excited about revenue growth improving. Just maybe about the flow shares that you're seeing with some of your larger customers out there. And then lastly, where are we with implementation of the platform, I guess, more -- both from enabling new revenue growth but also lowering your own kind of internal expenses?

你能給我們更多關於 Lumen 平台的色彩嗎？您認為您現在與同齡人相比有何不同？我知道這不僅僅是平台。這也是您的基礎設施。你能不能談談——聽起來你對收入增長的改善感到興奮。也許只是關於您與一些大客戶看到的流量份額。最後，我想，我們在平台實施方面的進展如何——既能實現新的收入增長，又能降低你自己的內部支出？

Sure. So over the last couple of years, you've seen the expense impact of the platform that we've been building. As you think back, and I've referenced this in the prepared remarks, in 2019, we said we were going to save $800 million to $1 billion in transformation expenses. In the quarter -- fourth quarter, we reached $830 million, and so you can see the benefit in our cost structure of the platform. But let me tell you a little bit more about what the platform is and why it's different than everybody else.

當然。因此，在過去幾年中，您已經看到了我們一直在構建的平台的費用影響。你回想起來，我在準備好的發言中提到了這一點，在 2019 年，我們說我們將節省 8 億至 10 億美元的轉型費用。在本季度——第四季度，我們達到了 8.3 億美元，所以你可以看到我們平台成本結構的好處。但讓我多告訴你一點關於這個平台是什麼以及為什麼它與其他平台不同的原因。

First of all, it's built, and I'm kind of referencing Slide 6 in the presentation, it's built on what I consider to be the world's best cyber infrastructure. The ubiquity of our fiber, the density of our fiber, the reach, the span, the quality and the ability to upgrade capacity, which we saw in 2020 with COVID, is second to none. And we'll continue to invest in building that infrastructure. But not only that, we've been able to locate our edge compute nodes with that fiber and with the peering connectivity within 5 milliseconds of the majority of the U.S. enterprises. By the end of the year, we'll be at 95%, 98% of U.S. enterprises. And so there's that coupling that nobody else has. Nobody else has that ability.

首先，它是構建的，我在演示文稿中引用了幻燈片 6，它構建在我認為是世界上最好的網絡基礎設施之上。我們在 2020 年通過 COVID 看到的無處不在的光纖、光纖的密度、覆蓋範圍、跨度、質量和升級容量的能力是首屈一指的。我們將繼續投資建設該基礎設施。但不僅如此，我們已經能夠使用該光纖和大多數美國企業在 5 毫秒內的對等連接定位我們的邊緣計算節點。到今年年底，我們將達到美國企業的 95%、98%。所以有其他人沒有的耦合。沒有其他人有這種能力。

But then we also have the, again, the peering networks, but the connectivity into cloud service providers, the 2,200 data centers on-net. And our Dynamic Connections capability is really a network as a service where we integrate into our customers' applications, and they get to control that entire footprint, that entire connectivity, all the way from their [end] location to wherever they want to do the computing on it, to wherever they want to distribute it via a software-defined network. They don't have to call us. We don't have to engineer a solution. They can just have their software, and the message to our software and the network configures the way that they want.

但是我們也有，再次，對等網絡，但連接到雲服務提供商，2200 個數據中心在網上。我們的動態連接功能實際上是一種網絡即服務，我們將其集成到客戶的應用程序中，他們可以控制整個足跡、整個連接，從他們的 [最終] 位置到他們想做的任何地方在其上進行計算，通過軟件定義的網絡將其分發到他們想要分發的任何地方。他們不必給我們打電話。我們不必設計解決方案。他們可以只擁有自己的軟件，發送給我們軟件和網絡的消息會按照他們想要的方式進行配置。

When you combine that with our Lumen hybrid cloud and the -- some of the orchestration services that we bring to customers, take connectivity to any major cloud service provider, the connectivity to any hyperscaler, we've got more connectivity, more connectedness than virtually anybody. And so our customers get to take advantage of that. And so ultimately, the advantage to the customer on the Lumen platform is that they get to acquire, analyze and act on their data better than any other platform and more uniquely because we're more connected, more capable and we give them better orchestration services across it.

當您將其與我們的 Lumen 混合雲以及我們為客戶提供的一些編排服務相結合時，可以連接到任何主要的雲服務提供商，連接到任何超大規模應用程序，我們獲得了比虛擬更多的連接性，更多的連接性任何人。因此，我們的客戶可以利用這一點。因此，最終，客戶在 Lumen 平台上的優勢在於，他們可以比任何其他平台更好地獲取、分析和處理他們的數據，並且更獨特，因為我們聯繫更緊密，能力更強，我們為他們提供更好的編排服務穿過它。

Now we've also got great partners, partnering with VMware, partnering with SAP. We think those are great partners for us to continue to roll out these services, partnering with Zoom on our collaboration services. So we've got great partners that we bring their capabilities, and we've created this digital marketplace that the platform becomes for our customers to access the different types of technology that they need for their specific application.

現在我們還有很棒的合作夥伴，與 VMware 合作，與 SAP 合作。我們認為這些是我們繼續推出這些服務的重要合作夥伴，與 Zoom 合作開發我們的協作服務。因此，我們擁有優秀的合作夥伴，我們可以利用他們的能力，我們已經創建了這個數字市場，該平台成為我們的客戶訪問他們特定應用程序所需的不同類型技術的平台。

And how unique is this platform, do you think, versus your competitors?

您認為這個平台與您的競爭對手相比有多獨特？

Well, I'm biased. I don't think anybody is in a position to do what we do. There are certainly some people that have good fiber networks. There are certainly people that have great cloud capabilities. There are certainly a few people that have some orchestration capabilities. I don't think anybody can bring those things together in the way that we do. But we certainly have very good and strong competitors, but we just think we're unique and we think it'd be hard to replicate for others.

好吧，我有偏見。我認為沒有人能夠做我們所做的事情。肯定有一些人擁有良好的光纖網絡。肯定有人擁有強大的雲計算能力。肯定有一些人具有一些編排能力。我認為沒有人可以像我們這樣將這些東西整合在一起。但我們當然有非常優秀和強大的競爭對手，但我們只是認為我們是獨一無二的，我們認為其他人很難復制。

Our next question, from the line of Frank Louthan with Raymond James.

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

So back to the growth issue, just wanted to discuss that a bit. I mean your fiber network and the reach and so forth that you have, I mean, I think most of us are well aware of that and it's not necessarily new. What tactically from a cash flow perspective or from a sales perspective do you think you're going to be doing differently to be able to monetize that network capability and reach than maybe you have been in the past to be able to achieve that growth that you're calling for?

回到增長問題，只是想稍微討論一下。我的意思是你的光纖網絡和覆蓋範圍等等，我的意思是，我認為我們大多數人都很清楚這一點，這不一定是新的。從現金流的角度或銷售的角度來看，從戰術上講，您認為與過去相比，您將採取哪些不同的方式來利用網絡功能和覆蓋範圍獲利，從而實現您所期望的增長？打電話嗎？

Well, it is the Lumen platform. It's the combination of all of these things, and it's the intersection with our customers' needs. With the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the need to process massive amounts of data with very low latency is really critical. And so we view our fiber infrastructure, this is another application of how we can utilize the fiber infrastructure to deliver that capability to the customers. The ubiquity of it and the density of it allows us to give that 5-millisecond performance, gives very low latency to our applications. The global nature of it allows us to carry that traffic to anywhere in the world. The connectivity of it allows us to carry it to any place in the world. So if you want to go to a particular cloud service provider, we can deliver it to that one. If you want to go to a different cloud service provider, we can deliver to the other one. And so the fiber network is the core foundational piece for the Lumen platform that sits on top of it and then all those other capabilities come in.

嗯，就是Lumen平台。它是所有這些東西的結合，也是我們客戶需求的交匯點。隨著第四次工業革命，以極低的延遲處理大量數據的需求變得非常重要。因此，我們查看我們的光纖基礎設施，這是我們如何利用光纖基礎設施向客戶提供該功能的另一種應用。它的無處不在和密度使我們能夠提供 5 毫秒的性能，為我們的應用程序提供非常低的延遲。它的全球性使我們能夠將該流量傳送到世界任何地方。它的連接性使我們能夠將它帶到世界上任何地方。因此，如果您想去某個特定的雲服務提供商，我們可以將其交付給該提供商。如果你想去不同的雲服務提供商，我們可以交付給另一個。因此，光纖網絡是位於其之上的 Lumen 平台的核心基礎部分，然後所有其他功能才會發揮作用。

Now we continue to do things, Frank, that are intended to increase the value and the usefulness of the fiber network. If you look at our building ads, if you look at our fiber to the home expansions, those are about expanding the footprint. Last year, we talked about the use of the latest and newest technology and fiber capacity -- or excuse me, fiber technology that we were deploying, building the world's largest deployment of that type of technology. What we leverage there was our existing conduit infrastructure because we can build fiber at a very fast pace and at a low cost because of our conduit infrastructure. But we use that fiber for super high-scale capabilities, capabilities in delivering the world's Internet traffic but also connecting the hyperscalers and cloud service providers and great big software as a service companies, those types of things.

弗蘭克，現在我們繼續做一些旨在增加光纖網絡的價值和實用性的事情。如果您看一下我們的建築廣告，如果您看一下我們的光纖到戶擴展，這些都是關於擴大足蹟的。去年，我們談到了最新技術和光纖容量的使用——或者對不起，我們正在部署的光纖技術，構建了世界上最大的此類技術部署。我們在那裡利用的是我們現有的管道基礎設施，因為由於我們的管道基礎設施，我們可以以非常快的速度和低成本構建光纖。但是我們使用這種光纖來實現超大規模的能力，提供世界互聯網流量的能力，同時也連接超大規模和雲服務提供商以及偉大的大型軟件即服務公司，這些類型的東西。

The next question is from the line of Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自 Simon Flannery 與摩根士丹利的合作。

Jeff, you've talked a lot about broadband today. We've got a new administration, a lot of focus on the digital divide. There's money set aside for RDOF 2. There's other programs being proposed in Congress, infrastructure build, et cetera. So what are you hearing from your folks in Washington? What sort of opportunities do you think this might present for Lumen? And then perhaps if you could just expand a little bit on the lengthening sales cycle. We're obviously still in the kind of pandemic. What -- has anything particularly changed over the last month or 2? Are things gradually getting better? Or any color there would be great.

傑夫，你今天談了很多關於寬帶的話題。我們有一個新的政府，非常關注數字鴻溝。為 RDOF 2 預留了資金。國會還提出了其他計劃，基礎設施建設等等。那麼你從華盛頓的人們那裡聽到了什麼？您認為這可能會給 Lumen 帶來什麼樣的機會？然後也許你可以在延長的銷售週期上稍微擴展一下。我們顯然仍處於大流行病中。什麼——過去一兩個月有什麼特別的變化嗎？事情正在逐漸好轉嗎？或者任何顏色都會很棒。

Sure. On the what do I expect out of Washington, are there any opportunities, I don't really have any particular expectations. I expect something out of Lumen. I expect us to follow a disciplined, financially driven, logical approach to what we serve and what we don't serve. And as Neel pointed out, we think we have lots of opportunities to put our money to work inside of our existing footprint and outside to some extent, but inside our existing footprint at better returns than some of the RDOF dollars even with the subsidies. And so we'll follow a very disciplined approach to whatever comes out of Washington. And we'll work within the footprints that we have to deliver the best service for our customers with the best digital interactions so that they can overcome the digital divide and have the best capabilities. And that's one of the things that we think we stand out on as more people work from home and educate from home, we think the symmetrical nature of our fiber footprint is a huge advantage for a consumer customer or a small business customer.

當然。關於我對華盛頓的期望，是否有任何機會，我真的沒有任何特別的期望。我對 Lumen 有所期待。我希望我們遵循紀律嚴明、財務驅動、合乎邏輯的方法來處理我們提供的服務和不提供的服務。正如 Neel 指出的那樣，我們認為我們有很多機會將我們的錢投入到我們現有足跡內部和某種程度上的外部工作，但即使有補貼，在我們現有足跡內的回報也比某些 RDOF 美元更好。因此，我們將對來自華盛頓的任何事情採取非常有紀律的態度。我們將在我們必須的足跡內工作，通過最好的數字交互為我們的客戶提供最好的服務，以便他們能夠克服數字鴻溝並擁有最好的能力。隨著越來越多的人在家工作和在家接受教育，這就是我們認為我們脫穎而出的事情之一，我們認為我們光纖足蹟的對稱性對於消費者客戶或小型企業客戶來說是一個巨大的優勢。

And then the second question, sorry, on the sales, the lengthening of the sales cycles. Is there anything different here? Probably not. But what we found is people aren't resolving what is this post-pandemic world look like yet because we're not in a post-pandemic world. We're still in the middle of it. And so I think that it's not terribly that much different, but we thought it would be getting better by this point. And so we see this lengthening of sales cycles as people are really trying to resolve what does it look like post COVID and how do we think that the world is going to run.

然後是第二個問題，抱歉，關於銷售，銷售週期的延長。這裡有什麼不同嗎？可能不是。但是我們發現人們還沒有解決這個大流行後世界的樣子，因為我們不在大流行後世界。我們還在中間。所以我認為這並沒有太大的不同，但我們認為到那時它會變得更好。因此，我們看到銷售週期的延長，因為人們真的在努力解決 COVID 後的情況以及我們認為世界將如何運轉。

Now I'll tell you my opinion, which is we won't go back to the way the world was. And that work from anywhere with reasonable capacities in security and expanding the enterprise edge, not the cloud edge, not the Lumen edge, but expanding the edge of the enterprise to thousands and thousands of different locations is something that's going to create management challenges for customers and security challenges. Challenges for customers are actually good for Lumen because we can bring solutions to their capacity needs, their security needs, their orchestration needs and their control needs for how to manage these complex networks. And so while we feel -- we see this lengthening in cycles, long term, we think that the -- and I hate to say that the outcome of the pandemic is good. I don't mean that. The outcome of the way we will work after the pandemic is fairly good for Lumen.

現在我告訴你我的看法，那就是我們不會回到原來的世界。在具有合理安全能力的任何地方工作並擴展企業邊緣，而不是雲邊緣，而不是 Lumen 邊緣，但是將企業邊緣擴展到成千上萬個不同的位置會給客戶帶來管理挑戰和安全挑戰。客戶面臨的挑戰實際上對 Lumen 有利，因為我們可以為他們的容量需求、他們的安全需求、他們的編排需求以及他們對如何管理這些複雜網絡的控制需求提供解決方案。因此，雖然我們覺得 - 我們看到這種週期的延長，但從長遠來看，我們認為 - 我不想說大流行的結果是好的。我不是那個意思。大流行後我們工作方式的結果對 Lumen 來說是相當好的。

Our next question, from the line of Nick Del Deo with MoffettNathanson.

我們的下一個問題來自 Nick Del Deo 與 MoffettNathanson 的對話。

First, you highlighted the improvement in the growth rate this year versus last year. I understand it's hard, maybe impossible, to tease out. But as you look back over 2020, do you think COVID ended up being a net revenue benefit in the year from higher voice and capacity augmentations and so on, or a drag or about neutral?

首先，您強調了今年的增長率與去年相比有所提高。我知道很難，甚至不可能梳理清楚。但是，當您回顧 2020 年時，您認為 COVID 最終會因更高的語音和容量增加等因素而成為當年的淨收入收益，還是拖累或中性？

Nick, from my perspective, within a segment, it's kind of hard to tell. But overall, I think it was a net negative just because we had fairly robust plans in terms of turning around mid-markets and that got delayed. So it's hard to tell whether it's our execution or the environment. But from that perspective, if I were to handicap it, I'd say, overall, net negative.

尼克，從我的角度來看，在一個細分市場中，很難說清楚。但總的來說，我認為這是一個淨負面影響，因為我們在扭轉中端市場方面有相當強大的計劃，但被推遲了。所以很難說是我們的執行力還是環境的問題。但從這個角度來看，如果我要阻礙它，我會說，總體而言，淨負面。

Nick, and I'd say the same thing. There are pluses and minuses, probably more minuses than pluses. If you think about some of our international customers where their markets were particularly hit hard, it was a negative. If you think about some of the emergency capacity upgrades we did for people, that was a positive. Overall, more negative than positive, especially as it affected people's decisions to do something going forward: buy capacity, buy networks, buy solutions. So overall, I'd say it's a net negative.

尼克，我會說同樣的話。有優點也有缺點，可能缺點多於優點。如果你想想我們的一些國際客戶，他們的市場受到的打擊特別嚴重，這是負面的。如果你想想我們為人們所做的一些緊急能力升級，那是積極的。總的來說，負面多於正面，尤其是因為它影響了人們做某事的決定：購買容量、購買網絡、購買解決方案。所以總的來說，我會說這是一個淨負面影響。

Okay. That's helpful. And then maybe turning to the outlook for '21. Maybe it's a bit of a loaded question, but how would you characterize the level of conservatism in the outlook given the economic situation and the effect on sales cycles and whatnot? Or maybe say it differently, how do you think about the different puts and takes and how did you incorporate that into your guide?

好的。這很有幫助。然後也許轉向 21 年的展望。也許這是一個有點沉重的問題，但考慮到經濟形勢和對銷售週期的影響等等，你如何描述前景中的保守主義水平？或者換個說法，您如何看待不同的 put 和 take，以及您是如何將其納入您的指南的？

So one of the things we've seen in 2020, the services we offer are fairly resilient. Obviously, in 2020, we pulled guidance because there was so much uncertainty. But as we went through the year, we saw minimal impact even in some of the industries that were heavily impacted by the pandemic. So on balance, I would say we're fairly comfortable with the range, and we also -- we have robust plans in terms of continuing to take cost out of the business. And so from an EBITDA and a free cash flow perspective, we feel pretty good about the range.

因此，我們在 2020 年看到的一件事是，我們提供的服務相當有彈性。顯然，在 2020 年，我們取消了指引，因為存在太多不確定性。但在過去的一年中，即使在一些受到大流行嚴重影響的行業中，我們也看到了微乎其微的影響。因此，總的來說，我想說我們對這個範圍相當滿意，而且我們也有強有力的計劃來繼續降低業務成本。因此，從 EBITDA 和自由現金流的角度來看，我們對這個範圍感覺很好。

And I'm going to answer your question slightly a different question than you asked. As I think about the optimism of our investments going forward, I'm very optimistic about our investments. We know what the outcome of the capabilities that people need to look like. Not always sure about the timing. We can miss on timing a little, but we know where the market is going and what the capabilities are. And so we're optimistic, and we're investing both in OpEx and in CapEx with that optimism driving our behavior.

我將以與您提出的問題略有不同的方式回答您的問題。當我想到我們未來投資的樂觀情緒時，我對我們的投資非常樂觀。我們知道人們需要什麼樣的能力的結果。並不總是確定時間。我們可能會錯過一點時機，但我們知道市場的走向和能力。所以我們很樂觀，我們正在投資 OpEx 和 CapEx，這種樂觀情緒推動了我們的行為。

Our next question, from the line of James Ratcliffe with Evercore ISI.

我們的下一個問題來自 Evercore ISI 的 James Ratcliffe。

Two, if I could. First of all, on the cash interest side, how much room do you think you still have to go on that, [say, brought down] $600 million over the last couple of years and how much runway would you still have on that front? And secondly, on the fiber to the home expansion, you added 400,000 homes this year. Can you give us some color about what those homes were previously? Were these new construction or places where you already operate broadband or additions to your wireline footprint?

兩個，如果可以的話。首先，在現金利息方面，你認為你還有多少空間可以繼續下去，[比如說，在過去幾年減少] 6 億美元，你在這方面還有多少跑道？其次，在光纖到戶擴展方面，你們今年增加了 40 萬戶家庭。你能給我們一些關於這些房子以前的顏色嗎？這些新建築或您已經運營寬帶或增加有線足蹟的地方？

So on the cash interest, I would say that from a milestone perspective, we're significantly ahead of what we thought where we're going to be when we kicked off the deleveraging plan. So it really is dependent on market conditions. And so we think there is more opportunity, and we'll continue to focus on it and -- but it really is dependent on market conditions.

因此，關於現金利息，我想說，從里程碑的角度來看，我們遠遠領先於我們啟動去槓桿化計劃時的預期。所以這真的取決於市場狀況。因此，我們認為有更多機會，我們將繼續關注它——但這確實取決於市場條件。

Yes. And just to add on the fiber to the home question, James, you asked, is this new construction? Is it where you already operate? Is it overbuild? The answer is yes. It's all of the above, and I'll give you some examples. We build new homes all the time as a part of our -- as homes grow in a market, we focus on making sure that we're building into those subdivisions with fiber. It's a big part of our fiber expansion plan, making sure that when it's cheap to build and before homes get there, that we build the right infrastructure and to grow them. Is it in our footprint? Most of the fiber expansion is in our footprint, but not all of it. If you look at MDUs outside of our footprint, we think we have great fiber penetration in markets that we don't have consumer customers today. And so we go to those MDUs, though, and say we want to serve you in this market. And then we've actually partnered with some communities like Springfield, Missouri, where we went and overbuilt the 2 providers that were there in conjunction with the city to expand our capabilities.

是的。再加上光纖到戶問題，詹姆斯，你問，這是新建築嗎？它是你已經經營的地方嗎？是過度建設了嗎？答案是肯定的。以上就是這些，我再給大家舉幾個例子。作為我們的一部分，我們一直在建造新房屋——隨著房屋在市場上的增長，我們專注於確保我們正在用光纖建造這些細分市場。這是我們光纖擴展計劃的重要組成部分，確保在建造成本低廉時以及在房屋到達那里之前，我們建立正確的基礎設施並發展它們。它在我們的足跡中嗎？大部分光纖擴展都在我們的足跡中，但不是全部。如果你看看我們足蹟之外的 MDU，我們認為我們在目前沒有消費者客戶的市場中有很好的光纖滲透率。所以我們去了那些 MDU，並說我們想在這個市場上為你服務。然後我們實際上與密蘇里州斯普林菲爾德等一些社區合作，我們在那裡與城市一起過度建設了 2 家供應商，以擴展我們的能力。

So it's a little bit of all of the above. All of the above has one characteristic and that is -- maybe 2 characteristics, that we think we can drive revenue growth at a low cost of capital and a low OpEx to do it. And so we view every opportunity through that lens: how do we make sure that we use our capital efficiency -- efficiently and how do we make sure that we get the penetration that we want. Neel touched on that as an opportunity for us. We still have an opportunity to improve our penetration in our fiber markets. But it is a little bit of all of the above: new construction, overbuilds in existing areas and then some expansion outside our traditional footprint.

所以這是上面所有的一點點。以上所有都有一個特點，那就是——也許有兩個特點，我們認為我們可以以較低的資本成本和較低的運營支出來推動收入增長。因此，我們通過這個鏡頭來看待每一個機會：我們如何確保我們有效地利用我們的資本效率，以及我們如何確保我們獲得我們想要的滲透率。尼爾談到這對我們來說是一個機會。我們仍有機會提高我們在纖維市場的滲透率。但它只是上述所有內容中的一小部分：新建築、現有區域的過度建設，然後是我們傳統足蹟之外的一些擴張。

Our last question then will be from the line of Phil Cusick with JPMorgan.

我們的最後一個問題將來自摩根大通的 Phil Cusick。

Saved by the bell. I'm going to ask every question I have left. So just a few housekeeping ones for me. What's the penetration in those CAF areas now? And how much revenue has this contributed?

被鐘救了。我會問我剩下的每一個問題。所以對我來說只是一些家政服務。現在在這些 CAF 領域的滲透率如何？這貢獻了多少收入？

So Phil, I think we don't disclose that, but I would say part of it is it's a moving target. So where we have finished building, we are seeing relatively high penetration. But keep in mind, a lot of the units we're building [out] every quarter. But we expect fairly good penetration on that, significantly higher than what we're seeing everywhere else.

所以菲爾，我認為我們不會透露這一點，但我會說部分原因是它是一個移動的目標。因此，在我們完成建設的地方，我們看到了相對較高的滲透率。但請記住，我們每個季度都在建造很多單位。但我們預計這方面的滲透率相當高，遠高於我們在其他任何地方看到的滲透率。

Okay. And as you finish up those builds this year, it sounds like you expect to spend maybe a similar amount on fiber or broadband construction going forward but in -- maybe in higher return sort of micro-targeting areas. Is that the right way to think about it?

好的。當你今年完成這些建設時，聽起來你希望在未來的光纖或寬帶建設上花費類似的金額，但在 - 可能在更高回報的微目標領域。這是正確的思考方式嗎？

That's absolutely right, but we're going to be very success-based about it. We're going to calibrate between how our penetration is going up versus how much footprint we're converting to fiber or adding fiber, like Jeff mentioned. So we will continue to have that micro-targeting approach. But the pace at which we go and invest will be -- we'll calibrate that to our execution and driving [up penetration].

這是絕對正確的，但我們將以成功為基礎。正如 Jeff 提到的，我們將在我們的滲透率上升與我們轉換為光纖或添加光纖的足蹟之間進行校準。因此，我們將繼續採用這種微觀定位方法。但我們進行投資的步伐將是——我們將根據我們的執行和推動 [up penetration] 來校準它。

And while we're more than capable of focusing on 2 customer sets, at the same time, we've talked a lot on this call about fiber to the home and consumer. I don't want to lose sight of our investments that we're doing for enterprise. That's the vast majority of our investments in fiber and in the Lumen platform. Now we've got great benefits of the Lumen platform that we bring to consumer customers because of our digital interaction approach to working with them. We see it in our Net Promoter Score surveys. We've got great benefits that we're bringing to small business, mid-market business, enterprise business, IGAM. And we'll continue to leverage all of those investments to drive the trajectory of each of those groups to the best that we can. So thank you all -- go ahead.

雖然我們不僅有能力專注於 2 個客戶群，但與此同時，我們在這次電話會議上談了很多關於光纖到戶和消費者的問題。我不想忽視我們為企業所做的投資。這是我們在光纖和 Lumen 平台上的絕大部分投資。現在，由於我們與消費者合作的數字交互方式，我們已經從我們帶給消費者客戶的 Lumen 平台中獲得了巨大的好處。我們在淨推薦值調查中看到了這一點。我們為小型企業、中型市場企業、企業業務和 IGAM 帶來了巨大的好處。我們將繼續利用所有這些投資，盡我們所能推動每個群體的發展軌跡。所以謝謝大家 - 繼續。

So I was going to go there -- I was just going to say, it sounds like that frees up capital for you to spend, not necessarily on consumer, but maybe on the higher return enterprise fiber opportunities as well?

所以我打算去那裡——我只是想說，這聽起來像是釋放了資金供你花費，不一定是消費者，但也許還有更高回報的企業光纖機會？

Well, look, the way I would say it is we're not constraining capital today. And so we're going to -- even in a year with a fair amount of uncertainty in 2020, we spent $3.7 billion. And so we're not really constraining capital. We'll be success-based about it. We don't want a lot of stranded capital. But as we see opportunities, we will lean in and invest, but we'll calibrate it to our execution. And we have a very dynamic process, to Jeff's point. I think we dynamically allocate capital between enterprise and consumer, between edge and fiber to the home. We'll do that on an ongoing basis to make sure we're getting the right financial outcomes.

好吧，看，我要說的是我們今天沒有限制資本。因此，即使在 2020 年存在相當大不確定性的一年中，我們也將花費 37 億美元。所以我們並沒有真正限制資本。我們將以成功為基礎。我們不想要大量擱淺的資本。但當我們看到機會時，我們會投入並進行投資，但我們會根據我們的執行情況對其進行校準。在 Jeff 看來，我們有一個非常動態的流程。我認為我們在企業和消費者之間、邊緣和光纖到家庭之間動態分配資金。我們將持續這樣做，以確保我們獲得正確的財務結果。

Well, thank you all for the engagement and the questions. Before I conclude the call, let me summarize a few thoughts on 2021 and how you should think about our business. In the face of an uncertain environment last year, we made significant progress in evolving the company. We delivered for our customers, improved our revenue performance and continued to pay down debt and improved the balance sheet.

好吧，謝謝大家的參與和提問。在結束電話會議之前，讓我總結一下關於 2021 年的一些想法，以及您應該如何看待我們的業務。去年面對不確定的環境，我們在公司發展方面取得了重大進展。我們為客戶提供服務，改善了我們的收入表現，並繼續償還債務並改善資產負債表。

Following several years of work, we launched the Lumen platform and expect to drive long-term growth by meeting the changing needs of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In 2021, we're fully focused on driving growth through expanding the reach and the capabilities of the Lumen platform, penetrating our existing fiber investments, leveraging our edge strategy and expanding the alliances that we're working on within the industry.

經過幾年的努力，我們推出了 Lumen 平台，並期望通過滿足第四次工業革命不斷變化的需求來推動長期增長。 2021 年，我們將完全專注於通過擴大 Lumen 平台的範圍和功能、滲透我們現有的光纖投資、利用我們的優勢戰略以及擴大我們在行業內開展的聯盟來推動增長。

As always, we look at growing free cash flow per share as the guiding principle and believe we're doing the things we need to, to drive growth in long-term shareholder value through the growth in free cash flow per share. Thank you, all, for joining us today. I look forward to connecting with you at our upcoming Analyst Day. France, thank you very much. That concludes the call.

一如既往，我們將每股自由現金流的增長視為指導原則，並相信我們正在做我們需要做的事情，通過每股自由現金流的增長來推動長期股東價值的增長。謝謝大家今天加入我們。我期待在即將到來的分析師日與您聯繫。法國，非常感謝。通話到此結束。

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

謝謝你，斯托里先生。感謝大家今天的參與和使用 Lumen Technologies 的服務。這確實結束了電話會議。我們要求您斷開線路。祝大家有個美好的一天。