Lumen Technologies Inc (LUMN) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Lumen Technologies Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Tuesday, February 7, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mike McCormack, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

您好，歡迎來到 Lumen Technologies 2022 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 2023 年 2 月 7 日星期二進行錄製。我現在想將會議轉交給投資者關係高級副總裁 Mike McCormack。請繼續。

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for the Lumen Technologies Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. Joining me on the call today are Kate Johnson, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Stansbury, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

謝謝，大家下午好，感謝您加入我們的 Lumen Technologies 2022 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凱特·約翰遜 (Kate Johnson)；執行副總裁兼首席財務官 Chris Stansbury。

Before we begin, I need to call your attention to our safe harbor statement on Slide 2 of our fourth quarter 2022 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. We will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures reconciled to the most comparable GAAP measures that can be found on our earnings press release. In addition, certain metrics discussed today exclude cost for special items as detailed in our earnings materials, all of which can be found on the Investor Relations section of the Lumen website.

在我們開始之前，我需要提請您注意我們在 2022 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。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我們的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 Kate.

有了這個，我會把電話轉給凱特。

Thanks, Mike. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. In a few minutes, Chris will cover our fourth quarter results and discuss 2023 outlook measures. Let me begin by saying how excited I am to be here at Lumen during such a pivotal time in our company's history. I have a passion for leading businesses through the challenging world of digital transformation. It's what I've been doing for a few decades, and it's where I feel most comfortable.

謝謝，邁克。大家下午好，感謝今天加入我們。幾分鐘後，克里斯將介紹我們第四季度的業績並討論 2023 年的展望措施。首先讓我說，在我們公司歷史上如此關鍵的時刻來到 Lumen，我感到非常興奮。我熱衷於領導企業度過充滿挑戰的數字化轉型世界。這是我幾十年來一直在做的事情，也是我覺得最舒服的地方。

And while it's only been 3 months since I joined Lumen, I already feel at home. I've had the opportunity to get to know many of our employees, customers and partners. And I've spent time understanding our business processes, our proprietary gifts and our go-to-market capabilities. I can tell you that I see a very significant opportunity for Lumen and its stakeholders. That said, there's hard work ahead for our team as we make significant changes to how we serve our customers and how we execute for better financial results.

雖然我加入 Lumen 才 3 個月，但我已經有賓至如歸的感覺。我有機會結識了我們的許多員工、客戶和合作夥伴。我花時間了解我們的業務流程、我們專有的禮物和我們的上市能力。我可以告訴你，我看到了 Lumen 及其利益相關者的一個非常重要的機會。也就是說，隨著我們對客戶服務方式和執行方式做出重大改變以獲得更好的財務業績，我們的團隊將面臨艱鉅的工作。

2023 will be a year of rapid change for Lumen as we execute on our plans and pivot towards growth. As with any successful transformation, it's essential to get the right talent, and I am delighted to report the addition of 3 seasoned technology executives to the Lumen team. Sham Chotai has been appointed Executive Vice President of Product and Technology, running our newly integrated product development and IT organizations. Ashley Haynes-Gaspar has been appointed Lumen's Executive Vice President and Customer Experience Officer, running our marketing functions as well as customer success. And Jay Barrows has been appointed Executive Vice President of Enterprise and Public Sector Sales. With the addition of these 3 executives to the team, we infuse deep digital transformation leadership, product development and innovation muscle, marketing and customer life cycle thought leadership and enterprise selling expertise, all essential components of our transformation. Now with the team in place, we're ready to execute our plan.

2023 年將是 Lumen 快速變化的一年，因為我們將執行我們的計劃並轉向增長。與任何成功的轉型一樣，獲得合適的人才至關重要，我很高興地向大家報告 Lumen 團隊增加了 3 名經驗豐富的技術主管。 Sham Chotai 已被任命為產品和技術執行副總裁，負責管理我們新整合的產品開發和 IT 組織。 Ashley Haynes-Gaspar 已被任命為 Lumen 的執行副總裁兼客戶體驗官，負責我們的營銷職能和客戶成功。 Jay Barrows 被任命為企業和公共部門銷售執行副總裁。隨著這 3 位高管加入團隊，我們注入了深度數字化轉型領導力、產品開發和創新力量、營銷和客戶生命週期思想領導力以及企業銷售專業知識，這些都是我們轉型的重要組成部分。現在有了團隊，我們就可以執行我們的計劃了。

Clarity is an existential priority for any company seeking to transform. As such, over the past 3 months, we've spent considerable time with employees, customers and partners, drafting and rolling out a crystal clear strategic plan, what we're calling inside the company the Lumen North Star. In short, our North Star to find who we are, who we serve, our proprietary gifts that yield a competitive advantage, our targeted success metrics, and of course, our aspirational culture. This important plan provides clarity to the Lumen team and our stakeholders on our path to growth.

清晰是任何尋求轉型的公司的生存優先事項。因此，在過去的 3 個月裡，我們花了相當多的時間與員工、客戶和合作夥伴一起起草並推出了一個非常清晰的戰略計劃，我們在公司內部稱之為 Lumen North Star。簡而言之，我們的北極星可以找到我們是誰、我們為誰服務、我們產生競爭優勢的專有天賦、我們有針對性的成功指標，當然還有我們的理想文化。這個重要的計劃讓 Lumen 團隊和我們的利益相關者清楚了解我們的發展道路。

It starts with our mission to digitally connect people, data and applications quickly, securely and effortlessly. The first part, connecting people, data and apps, that's our core DNA and positions our world-class network as the crown jewel of our portfolio. The 3 words at the end of that mission statement, quickly, securely and effortlessly, that's really what our customers are demanding as we solve their core problems such as delivering cost-effective operations, securing their data and apps, innovating for their customers and helping their employees thrive. It's where we have the most amount of work to do and is the underpinning of our investment in operating plans.

它始於我們的使命，即快速、安全、輕鬆地以數字方式連接人員、數據和應用程序。第一部分，連接人、數據和應用程序，這是我們的核心 DNA，並將我們的世界級網絡定位為我們產品組合中的皇冠上的明珠。該使命宣言末尾的 3 個詞，快速、安全和毫不費力，這正是我們的客戶在解決他們的核心問題時所要求的，例如提供具有成本效益的運營、保護他們的數據和應用程序、為他們的客戶創新並幫助他們的員工茁壯成長。這是我們要做的工作最多的地方，也是我們運營計劃投資的基礎。

A big part of our North Star plan is a detailed economic model that provides some sensitivity analysis around our grow, nurture and harvest revenue categories. This work has informed our plans to disrupt negative growth trends in our legacy businesses and bolstered our intention to innovate for growth. As a result of this work, we've established 5 core priorities for Lumen.

我們的北極星計劃的很大一部分是一個詳細的經濟模型，它圍繞我們的增長、培育和收穫收入類別提供一些敏感性分析。這項工作為我們打破傳統業務負增長趨勢的計劃提供了信息，並增強了我們創新增長的意圖。作為這項工作的結果，我們為 Lumen 確定了 5 個核心優先事項。

Our first priority is to develop company-wide customer obsession. Lumen is the product of many mergers, and as such, we've been forced to drive operational efficiency to ensure we achieve the synergies and the value intended from combining these entities. And that takes a fair amount of looking inward, and we've built thick muscle memory doing this. Our path to growth lies in solving customer problems and helping them deliver on their desired business outcomes. And that requires looking outward first. Reorienting our people to focus on understanding customer problems and shaping our core intellectual property in connectivity, security and edge cloud to solve those problems will be a material mindset shift.

我們的首要任務是培養全公司範圍內的客戶至上主義。 Lumen 是許多合併的產物，因此，我們被迫提高運營效率，以確保我們實現合併這些實體的協同效應和預期價值。這需要相當多的向內看，我們為此建立了厚實的肌肉記憶。我們的增長之路在於解決客戶問題並幫助他們實現預期的業務成果。這需要先向外看。重新定位我們的員工以專注於了解客戶問題並塑造我們在連接、安全和邊緣雲方面的核心知識產權以解決這些問題，這將是一種物質思維方式的轉變。

As with any mindset shift, this will take time and practice. It will require deep skills building, a significant part of our culture development priority, which I'll talk about shortly. But more than just a mindset shift, delivering on our desire to become a customer-obsessed company requires innovating and investing for growth, our second core priority. As such, we are reshaping our organizational structure by combining our product development teams with our IT teams for greater speed and agility. We're centralizing marketing for tighter alignment to the customer life cycle. And we're installing what we call a growth operating system to build the muscle inside of Lumen that enables us to innovate new products that delight customers and drive shareholder returns. Our innovation focus will be to create and monetize capabilities that enhance the value and commercial potential of our work.

與任何心態轉變一樣，這需要時間和練習。這將需要深厚的技能培養，這是我們文化發展優先事項的重要組成部分，我稍後會談到這一點。但不僅僅是思維方式的轉變，要實現我們成為一家以客戶為中心的公司的願望，還需要創新和投資以實現增長，這是我們的第二個核心優先事項。因此，我們正在重塑我們的組織結構，將我們的產品開發團隊與我們的 IT 團隊結合起來，以提高速度和敏捷性。我們正在集中營銷，以更緊密地適應客戶生命週期。我們正在安裝所謂的增長操作系統，以增強 Lumen 內部的力量，使我們能夠創新出令客戶滿意並推動股東回報的新產品。我們的創新重點將是創造能力並將其貨幣化，以提高我們工作的價值和商業潛力。

Now I think it's worth spending a minute on this concept of growth operating system. Lumen has been focused on driving operational efficiency, as I said, in our scaled businesses. But to grow, we need to become great at innovating and establishing new to big businesses. We want our teams to act like entrepreneurs, collaborating with our customers and the Lumen teams to solve problems that our customers experience. And at the same time, much like in the VC world, we will foster this innovation in an environment with important guardrails, including a growth Board, executive sponsorship and cofounder teams to ensure we're pursuing and maximizing the value of high potential projects. This means performing extensive testing with our customer base, failing fast on many concepts, but recognizing the high potential of others and quickly allocating capital accordingly to maximize growth. This is a critical motion as we pivot to an outside-in mindset.

現在，我認為值得花一分鐘時間了解增長操作系統的概念。正如我所說，Lumen 一直專注於提高我們規模化業務的運營效率。但要實現增長，我們需要在創新和建立新的大企業方面表現出色。我們希望我們的團隊像企業家一樣行事，與我們的客戶和 Lumen 團隊合作解決客戶遇到的問題。同時，就像在 VC 世界中一樣，我們將在具有重要護欄的環境中促進這種創新，包括增長委員會、高管贊助和聯合創始人團隊，以確保我們追求並最大化高潛力項目的價值。這意味著對我們的客戶群進行廣泛的測試，在許多概念上快速失敗，但認識到其他人的巨大潛力並相應地迅速分配資金以實現增長最大化。這是一個關鍵的動作，因為我們轉向由外而內的思維方式。

And while I just shared our intention to develop net new capabilities that enhance the value of our network, I also want to emphasize that we will continue to invest in our world-class network. We just won't stop innovating here. And we'll continue to invest in our fiber infrastructure to meet the demands of our sophisticated customer base who are dealing with complex business problems, coupled with a workforce that now demands remote work flexibility in the postpandemic world. We recently announced our major network expansion plan to drive 6 million additional intercity fiber miles to our already expansive network by 2026.

雖然我剛剛分享了我們開發新功能以提升我們網絡價值的意圖，但我還想強調，我們將繼續投資於我們的世界級網絡。我們只是不會在這裡停止創新。我們將繼續投資於我們的光纖基礎設施，以滿足我們複雜的客戶群的需求，他們正在處理複雜的業務問題，以及現在需要在大流行後世界中遠程工作靈活性的員工隊伍。我們最近宣布了我們的主要網絡擴展計劃，到 2026 年為我們已經擴展的網絡增加 600 萬英里的城際光纖里程。

As we execute and pivot towards growth, our third core priority will be to ensure we have the complete go-to-market capability in place to enable us to compete in today's technology market. We believe Lumen will benefit significantly from incremental investment in our marketing and field-facing teams to properly cover the market and capitalize on near-term opportunities in growing spaces like security and edge cloud. We will, therefore, inject OpEx and CapEx to ensure that Lumen can serve 2 distinct groups requiring unique approaches.

當我們執行並轉向增長時，我們的第三個核心優先事項將是確保我們擁有完整的上市能力，使我們能夠在當今的技術市場中競爭。我們相信 Lumen 將從對我們的營銷和麵向現場的團隊的增量投資中受益匪淺，以適當地覆蓋市場並利用安全和邊緣雲等不斷增長的空間中的近期機會。因此，我們將注入運營支出和資本支出，以確保 Lumen 能夠為需要獨特方法的兩個不同群體提供服務。

The first group includes large customers in the public sector, large enterprise, and upper mid-market channels. These organizations offer require extensive intricate and customized solutions. And to serve this group, we aim to offer scalable solutions with a higher level of personal engagement in a robust set of managed service offerings. Now the second group includes customers in the consumer SMB and lower mid-market channels. This group tends to prefer a less hands-on approach and often utilizes self-service options. To serve this group, we'll offer a simplified product selection with a user-friendly digital platform for easy ordering and seamless interactions. Our goal is to remove any obstacles for them by offering straightforward solutions that can easily be accessed and managed securely and digitally.

第一組包括公共部門、大型企業和中高端市場渠道中的大客戶。這些組織提供需要大量複雜和定制的解決方案。為了服務於這個群體，我們的目標是提供可擴展的解決方案，並在一組強大的託管服務產品中提供更高水平的個人參與。現在，第二組包括消費者 SMB 和中低端市場渠道中的客戶。這個群體往往更喜歡較少動手的方法，並且經常使用自助服務選項。為服務這一群體，我們將通過用戶友好的數字平台提供簡化的產品選擇，以實現輕鬆訂購和無縫交互。我們的目標是通過提供易於訪問和安全數字化管理的直接解決方案，為他們消除任何障礙。

To support our first 3 priorities of developing customer obsession, innovating and investing for growth and building a reliable execution engine, we're going to lean heavily into the fourth to radically simplify our company. Simplification will come in 2 major forms. First, we'll focus on doing fewer things better. That means shutting down subscale or nonaccretive businesses, which includes no longer selling products or services that don't directly enhance our value to customers or benefit Lumen and its shareholders. We will ensure all resources are aligned to promote the programs and projects that support our mission to digitally connect people, data and apps quickly, securely and effortlessly. The second form of simplification will come as we build the digital enterprise, consolidating systems and modernizing our IT infrastructure to support effortless employee and customer digital experiences. These 2 forms of simplification will help us optimize for cost and growth simultaneously.

為了支持我們的前 3 個優先事項，即發展客戶至上、創新和投資以促進增長以及建立可靠的執行引擎，我們將大力支持第四個優先事項，以從根本上簡化我們的公司。簡化將以兩種主要形式出現。首先，我們專注於將更少的事情做得更好。這意味著關閉規模較小或非增值業務，包括不再銷售不會直接提升我們對客戶的價值或使 Lumen 及其股東受益的產品或服務。我們將確保所有資源協調一致，以促進支持我們使命的計劃和項目，即快速、安全、輕鬆地以數字方式連接人員、數據和應用程序。第二種形式的簡化將在我們構建數字化企業、整合系統和實現 IT 基礎架構現代化以支持輕鬆的員工和客戶數字化體驗時出現。這兩種形式的簡化將幫助我們同時優化成本和增長。

Our fifth and extremely important core priority at Lumen will be to further develop our culture. We know that the cultural common denominators of companies that successfully transform in the digital era include clarity, customer obsession, courage and a growth mindset. At Lumen straight from the top, we're committing to clarity in everything we do. And I hope my comments today have reflected that commitment. The remaining common denominators won't come in the form of an edict or a mandate. We will invest in and train our employees to develop the skills required to change.

我們在 Lumen 的第五個也是極其重要的核心優先事項將是進一步發展我們的文化。我們知道，在數字時代成功轉型的公司的文化共同點包括清晰、客戶至上、勇氣和成長心態。在 Lumen 自上而下，我們致力於讓我們所做的每一件事都清晰明了。我希望我今天的評論反映了這一承諾。其餘的共同點不會以法令或授權的形式出現。我們將投資和培訓我們的員工，以培養變革所需的技能。

That wraps up the high-level summary of how we plan to transform Lumen to pivot to growth. We need to do a lot of things, some basic and some quite complex, to position ourselves to take advantage of the opportunity that lies before us. We will continue to move with great speed, but also very thoughtfully and collaboratively, leveraging our customer and partner relationships to guide us. The team is coming together with formidable energy, and I'm really looking forward to sharing more of our story with you as the year progresses.

這總結了我們計劃如何轉變 Lumen 以轉向增長的高層次總結。我們需要做很多事情，一些是基本的，一些是相當複雜的，以便讓我們自己能夠利用擺在我們面前的機會。我們將繼續以極快的速度前進，但也會非常周到和協作，利用我們的客戶和合作夥伴關係來指導我們。團隊正以強大的能量聚集在一起，我真的很期待隨著時間的推移與您分享更多我們的故事。

Before we move on to our discussion of results and the 2023 outlook, it's important that I talk about a couple of items as we enter 2023. First, on EBITDA and CapEx, we're leaning into our growth and optimization priorities, and Chris will provide financial details of these initiatives shortly. We believe these investments are critical to position Lumen for strong execution and scalable sustainable growth. And we expect revenue and EBITDA stability in less than 2 years.

在我們繼續討論結果和 2023 年展望之前，重要的是我要談談我們進入 2023 年時的幾個項目。首先，在 EBITDA 和資本支出方面，我們傾向於我們的增長和優化優先事項，Chris 將盡快提供這些舉措的財務細節。我們認為，這些投資對於 Lumen 實現強大的執行力和可擴展的可持續增長至關重要。我們預計收入和 EBITDA 將在不到 2 年內保持穩定。

Second, let's talk about our Quantum pacing. As we've said previously, we hit the pause button during the fourth quarter. Now to be frank, it was more of a stop button than a pause button, which impacted our Quantum metrics for the quarter. That said, the evaluation we undertook was absolutely critical to position Quantum for long-term success. By focusing on all metrics and not just the location enablement goal, we've established a higher IRR, more predictable long-term outcome for this exciting project.

其次，讓我們談談我們的量子起搏。正如我們之前所說，我們在第四季度按下了暫停鍵。現在坦率地說，它更像是一個停止按鈕而不是暫停按鈕，這影響了我們本季度的 Quantum 指標。也就是說，我們進行的評估對於 Quantum 取得長期成功至關重要。通過關注所有指標而不僅僅是位置支持目標，我們為這個激動人心的項目建立了更高的 IRR、更可預測的長期結果。

A natural outcome of our assessment of Quantum is a more focused build target where we're able to achieve proper returns for shareholders. We believe the overall Quantum enablement opportunity is 8 million to 10 million locations. The engine is revving back up, and we're aggressively working to ramp our build activities in 2023. And to that end, we made an important change during the fourth quarter to separate our operational activities like planning, engineering and all field operations between mass markets and business.

我們對 Quantum 評估的一個自然結果是一個更集中的建設目標，我們能夠為股東實現適當的回報。我們相信 Quantum 的整體支持機會是 800 萬到 1000 萬個地點。引擎正在重新啟動，我們正在積極努力在 2023 年增加我們的建造活動。為此，我們在第四季度做出了一項重要的改變，將我們的運營活動（如規劃、工程和所有現場運營）與質量部門分開市場和業務。

Maxine Moreau, our President of Mass Markets, now has top to bottom operational and P&L responsibilities. This is a significant change internally that I expect will improve our Quantum deployment pacing, but it will take time to reach scale. My expectation is that later this year, you'll see significant improvement in our execution on enablement.

我們的大眾市場總裁 Maxine Moreau 現在負有自上而下的運營和損益責任。這是一個重大的內部變化，我預計它會改善我們的 Quantum 部署節奏，但要達到規模還需要時間。我的期望是，今年晚些時候，您會看到我們在支持方面的執行有顯著改善。

And with that, I will turn the call over to Chris to discuss our fourth quarter results. Chris?

有了這個，我將把電話轉給克里斯來討論我們第四季度的業績。克里斯？

Thank you, Kate, and good afternoon, everyone. To start, I hope you had a chance to review the 8-K we filed on January 27, which provides modified financial information back to first quarter of '21, removing the impact of the ILEC and LATAM businesses as well as the impact of the CAF II program. The 8-K also outlined the new business sales channel reporting structure for 2023 reporting, which collapsed IGAM into large enterprise and pulled public sector out of large enterprise. This provides better alignment with how we manage these channels internally and should provide for more clarity when modeling our company.

謝謝你，凱特，大家下午好。首先，我希望您有機會回顧一下我們在 1 月 27 日提交的 8-K，它提供了修改後的財務信息回到 21 年第一季度，消除了 ILEC 和 LATAM 業務的影響以及CAF II 計劃。 8-K 還概述了 2023 年報告的新業務銷售渠道報告結構，該結構將 IGAM 合併為大型企業，並將公共部門從大型企業中撤出。這與我們在內部管理這些渠道的方式更好地保持一致，並且在為我們的公司建模時應該更加清晰。

Let me move on to discuss some macro thoughts. Later in my remarks, I will address our outlook for full year 2023, but near term, we continue to face macro headwinds. Supply chains remains strained with labor as the key headwind, and we are all facing the impacts of inflation. In addition, we are actively working to offset dissynergies, resulting from the divestiture of our 20-state ILEC business as well as our LATAM business, but those headwinds are likely to persist through this year.

讓我繼續討論一些宏觀的想法。在稍後的發言中，我將談到我們對 2023 年全年的展望，但短期內，我們將繼續面臨宏觀逆風。供應鏈仍然緊張，勞動力是主要的不利因素，我們都面臨著通貨膨脹的影響。此外，我們正在積極努力抵消因剝離我們在 20 個州的 ILEC 業務以及我們的 LATAM 業務而產生的不協同效應，但這些不利因素可能會持續到今年。

Despite these near-term pressures, this is an exciting time for Lumen and our team. Kate has energized our company, and we are positioning Lumen to win. This will require internal systems and process investments to solidify our platform, pivot to a position of playing offense and enable us to grow. I will discuss the impact of these investments later in my remarks.

儘管存在這些近期壓力，但這對 Lumen 和我們的團隊來說是一個激動人心的時刻。 Kate 為我們的公司注入了活力，我們正在定位 Lumen 以取勝。這將需要內部系統和流程投資來鞏固我們的平台，轉向進攻的位置並使我們能夠成長。我將在稍後的發言中討論這些投資的影響。

With that, I will move to the financial summary of our fourth quarter results. I will be referencing results on a modified basis, which aligns with the 8-K disclosures mentioned earlier and removes the impact of the divested businesses that closed during 2022 as well as the impact of the CAF II program.

有了這個，我將轉向我們第四季度業績的財務摘要。我將在修改後的基礎上引用結果，這與前面提到的 8-K 披露一致，並消除了 2022 年關閉的剝離業務的影響以及 CAF II 計劃的影響。

Overall, Business revenue declined approximately 4.2% year-over-year and 0.3% sequentially on a constant currency basis and after adjusting for the sale of our correctional facilities business in the prior year period. Mass Markets revenue declined 7.6% year-over-year and 2.8% sequentially. We reported adjusted EBITDA of $1.393 billion in the fourth quarter and generated a 36.7% margin. Our free cash flow was $126 million in the fourth quarter. After paying all taxes owed on the 2022 business divestitures, we reduced estimated net debt by approximately $10 billion during 2022. And during the quarter, we repurchased 33 million shares of common stock for $200 million.

總體而言，營業收入同比下降約 4.2%，按固定匯率計算並根據上年同期我們的懲教設施業務的銷售進行調整後，環比下降 0.3%。大眾市場收入同比下降 7.6%，環比下降 2.8%。我們報告稱，第四季度調整後的 EBITDA 為 13.93 億美元，利潤率為 36.7%。第四季度我們的自由現金流為 1.26 億美元。在支付了 2022 年業務剝離所欠的所有稅款後，我們在 2022 年將估計的淨債務減少了約 100 億美元。在本季度，我們以 2 億美元回購了 3300 萬股普通股。

Moving to a more detailed look at revenue. I will be referencing all revenue growth metrics on a modified adjusted basis, where applicable, to remove the impacts of foreign exchange and the correctional facilities business sale in the fourth quarter of 2021. On that basis, our fourth quarter total revenue declined 5% year-over-year to $3.8 billion. This is the last quarter for which year-over-year comparisons are impacted by the sale of the correctional facilities business. The benefit related to the correctional facilities business was about $3 million in the fourth quarter of '21, while the impact of FX year-over-year was a headwind of approximately $20 million.

更詳細地了解收入。我將在適用的情況下，在修改後的調整基礎上參考所有收入增長指標，以消除 2021 年第四季度外彙和懲教設施業務出售的影響。在此基礎上，我們第四季度的總收入同比下降 5% -同比增至 38 億美元。這是最後一個季度的同比比較受到懲教設施業務出售的影響。在 2021 年第四季度，與懲教設施業務相關的收益約為 300 萬美元，而外彙的同比影響約為 2000 萬美元。

Within our 2 key segments, Business revenue declined 4.2% year-over-year to $3.005 billion, and Mass Markets revenue declined 7.6% year-over-year to $795 million. Within our enterprise channels, which is our Business segment, excluding wholesale, revenue declined 5.9% year-over-year. Our exposure to legacy voice revenue continues to improve within enterprise channels dropping 141 basis points year-over-year and now represents less than 12% of enterprise channel revenue. Large enterprise revenue declined 2.5% year-over-year.

在我們的 2 個關鍵部門中，業務收入同比下降 4.2% 至 30.05 億美元，大眾市場收入同比下降 7.6% 至 7.95 億美元。在我們的企業渠道中，即我們的業務部門，不包括批發，收入同比下降 5.9%。我們在企業渠道中對傳統語音收入的敞口繼續改善，同比下降 141 個基點，現在佔企業渠道收入的不到 12%。大型企業收入同比下降 2.5%。

As I previously noted, in the new reporting, we will be providing, starting this quarter, we've collapsed IGAM and large enterprise into the large enterprise channel and have moved public sector to its own channel. Now representing our largest enterprise channel, large enterprise had improved revenue trends both year-over-year and sequentially and was our strongest-performing enterprise channel.

正如我之前指出的那樣，在新報告中，我們將提供，從本季度開始，我們將 IGAM 和大型企業整合到大型企業頻道中，並將公共部門轉移到自己的頻道中。現在代表我們最大的企業渠道，大型企業的收入趨勢同比和環比都有所改善，是我們表現最強勁的企業渠道。

Public sector revenue declined 13.8%. We've had significant wins in this channel, and we expect to see improving trends as the year progresses. We also had a contract in this channel expire last quarter which is impacting the year-over-year comparisons by 176 basis points. On a sequential basis, public sector revenue declined 0.9%.

公共部門收入下降了 13.8%。我們在這個渠道中取得了重大勝利，我們希望隨著時間的推移看到不斷改善的趨勢。上個季度我們在該渠道的合同也到期，這對同比比較產生了 176 個基點的影響。公共部門收入環比下降 0.9%。

Mid-market revenue declined 6.6% year-over-year, with VPN and voice the most significant headwinds. Wholesale revenue grew 0.5% year-over-year. This is a channel that will likely decline over time and one we manage for cash.

中端市場收入同比下降 6.6%，其中 VPN 和語音是最大的阻力。批發收入同比增長 0.5%。這是一個可能會隨著時間的推移而下降的渠道，我們管理的渠道是現金。

As I move to our business product life cycle reporting, I will be referencing percentage changes on the same modified adjusted basis I referenced earlier. As Kate mentioned, our North Star plan incorporates a detailed economic model with plans to disrupt legacy declines and help us innovate for growth.

當我轉向我們的業務產品生命週期報告時，我將參考我之前提到的相同修改後調整基礎的百分比變化。正如凱特提到的，我們的北極星計劃結合了一個詳細的經濟模型，併計劃打破傳統的衰退並幫助我們創新以實現增長。

Grow products revenue grew 2.5% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. We saw strength in waves, security services and unified communications. Grow now represents over 36% of our Business segment, up from 34% in the prior year period, and carried an approximate 84% direct margin this quarter. For added color, grow products represented the majority of our enterprise sales in the fourth quarter, which will continue to improve our mix of revenue going forward. I would note that grow revenue was negatively impacted by approximately 100 basis points related to a public sector contract that expired. This will continue to impact our grow comparisons through the first half of '23. A key focus going forward will be to accelerate the growth of the grow portfolio. This will take some time, but we believe we have real opportunity here with our outside-in focus that Kate mentioned earlier.

第四季度種植產品收入同比增長 2.5%。我們看到了波浪、安全服務和統一通信的力量。 Grow 現在占我們業務部門的 36% 以上，高於去年同期的 34%，本季度的直接利潤率約為 84%。對於增加的顏色，增長產品佔第四季度我們企業銷售額的大部分，這將繼續改善我們未來的收入組合。我會注意到，與到期的公共部門合同相關的大約 100 個基點對收入增長產生了負面影響。這將繼續影響我們在 23 年上半年的增長比較。未來的一個關鍵重點將是加速增長組合的增長。這需要一些時間，但我們相信我們在這裡有真正的機會，正如 Kate 之前提到的那樣，我們專注於由外而內。

Nurture products revenue declined 7.5% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. The decline was driven by VPN and Ethernet, and nurture now represents about 31% of our Business segment and carried an approximate 68% direct margin this quarter. We are making good progress on our nurture strategy and our efforts to migrate this revenue back into grow products.

第四季度培育產品收入同比下降 7.5%。下降是由 VPN 和以太網推動的，培育現在占我們業務部門的 31% 左右，本季度的直接利潤率約為 68%。我們在我們的培育戰略和我們將這些收入轉移回成長產品的努力方面取得了良好進展。

Harvest products revenue declined 8.3% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. Our harvest team continues to work hard to manage to a lower rate of decline within this product set, which is helping to extend the life of these products. In addition, as with our nurture products, we are managing customers back to grow and nurture products. Harvest now represents approximately 26% of our Business segment and carried an approximate 76% direct margin this quarter.

Harvest 產品收入在第四季度同比下降 8.3%。我們的收穫團隊繼續努力工作，以降低該產品組的下降率，這有助於延長這些產品的使用壽命。此外，與我們的培育產品一樣，我們正在管理客戶以促進和培育產品。 Harvest 現在約占我們業務部門的 26%，本季度的直接利潤率約為 76%。

Other products revenue declined 6.4% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. Our other products revenue tends to experience fluctuations due to the largely nonrecurring nature of these products.

第四季度其他產品收入同比下降 6.4%。由於這些產品基本上是非經常性的，我們的其他產品收入往往會出現波動。

Moving on to Mass Markets. As I mentioned earlier, total Mass Markets revenue declined 7.6% year-over-year and 2.8% sequentially. Our Mass Markets fiber broadband revenue grew by over 18% year-over-year, and in the fourth quarter, represented approximately 19% of Mass Markets revenue. Our exposure to legacy voice and other services revenue has improved by 320 basis points year-over-year.

轉向大眾市場。正如我之前提到的，大眾市場總收入同比下降 7.6%，環比下降 2.8%。我們的大眾市場光纖寬帶收入同比增長超過 18%，在第四季度，約佔大眾市場收入的 19%。我們對傳統語音和其他服務收入的敞口同比增長了 320 個基點。

As Kate discussed, we have made significant changes in how we are approaching the Quantum Fiber opportunity. This was a thoughtful evaluation that will result in a significant improvement in long-term shareholder value. That said, our location and subscriber results were impacted by the pause we had in place through our evaluation. This change in strategy will continue to impact Quantum metrics until we get to scale with our new plan, which we expect to occur late this year. During the quarter, total enablements were approximately 97,000, bringing the total enabled locations to over 3.1 million as of December 31. During the quarter, we added 19,000 Quantum Fiber customers, and this brings our Quantum Fiber subscribers to 832,000.

正如 Kate 所討論的那樣，我們在處理量子光纖機會的方式上做出了重大改變。這是一項深思熟慮的評估，將顯著提高長期股東價值。也就是說，我們的位置和訂戶結果受到我們通過評估設置的暫停的影響。這一戰略變化將繼續影響 Quantum 指標，直到我們根據我們預計在今年晚些時候實施的新計劃進行擴展。本季度，啟用總數約為 97,000 個，截至 12 月 31 日，啟用位置總數超過 310 萬個。本季度，我們增加了 19,000 個 Quantum Fiber 客戶，這使我們的 Quantum Fiber 用戶達到 832,000 個。

Fiber ARPU was stable sequentially at approximately $60, but we've seen accelerating year-over-year growth each quarter during 2022. As of December 31, our penetration of legacy copper broadband footprint was less than 12%. Quantum Fiber penetration stood at approximately 26%. Our Quantum Fiber 2020 vintage penetration was approximately 29% at the 24-month mark and is now over 30%. Our 2021 vintage was at approximately 17% at the 12-month mark. Our Quantum Fiber NPS score was greater than positive 50 again this quarter, an indication of the quality, value and superior service that Quantum Fiber delivers.

光纖 ARPU 環比穩定在 60 美元左右，但我們看到 2022 年每個季度的同比增長都在加速。截至 12 月 31 日，我們對傳統銅線寬帶足蹟的滲透率不到 12%。量子纖維的滲透率約為 26%。我們的 Quantum Fiber 2020 復古滲透率在 24 個月大關時約為 29%，現在已超過 30%。我們的 2021 年份在 12 個月大關時約為 17%。本季度我們的 Quantum Fiber NPS 得分再次超過正值 50，這表明 Quantum Fiber 提供的質量、價值和優質服務。

As Kate mentioned, we have recalibrated our addressable footprint to ensure we are generating healthy returns for our shareholders. Based on that recalibration, we are targeting 8 million to 10 million locations for the overall build or roughly 5 million to 7 million incremental locations over the next few years. We continue to monitor how the economic environment is impacting our customers, and we have not observed any discernible changes in customer payment patterns.

正如凱特所提到的，我們已經重新調整了我們的可尋址足跡，以確保我們為股東帶來可觀的回報。基於該重新校準，我們的目標是在未來幾年內整體建設 800 萬到 1000 萬個位置，或者大約 500 萬到 700 萬個增量位置。我們繼續監測經濟環境如何影響我們的客戶，我們沒有觀察到客戶支付模式有任何明顯變化。

Turning to adjusted EBITDA. For the fourth quarter of 2022, adjusted EBITDA was $1.393 billion compared to $1.496 billion in the year-ago quarter. As I mentioned earlier, we are seeing cost pressures from inflation in addition to our OpEx investments to drive growth. Special items this quarter totaled $583 million related primarily to a noncash loss reported upon the designation of our EMEA business as held-for-sale and transaction and separation costs, partially offset by a gain on the sale of our ILEC 20-state business. Our fourth quarter 2022 EBITDA margin was 36.7%, down slightly from 37.2% in the year-ago period.

轉向調整後的 EBITDA。 2022 年第四季度，調整後的 EBITDA 為 13.93 億美元，而去年同期為 14.96 億美元。正如我之前提到的，除了我們推動增長的運營支出投資外，我們還看到通貨膨脹帶來的成本壓力。本季度的特殊項目總額為 5.83 億美元，主要與我們將 EMEA 業務指定為持有待售以及交易和分離成本時報告的非現金損失有關，部分被出售 ILEC 20 州業務的收益所抵消。我們 2022 年第四季度的 EBITDA 利潤率為 36.7%，略低於去年同期的 37.2%。

Capital expenditures for the fourth quarter of 2022 were $833 million. Additionally, in the fourth quarter of 2022, the company generated free cash flow of $126 million. Our reported net debt was $19.5 billion as of December 31, 2022, and our expected estimated net debt stands at $20.4 billion. Our expected estimated net debt reflects our utilizing cash on hand to settle the tax obligations related to the divestitures we closed in 2022, which totals $900 million to $1 billion. We anticipate paying these taxes during the first half of 2023. Given the investments that Kate identified, we anticipate leverage to rise to between 4 to 4.3x in the near term. We expect leverage to peak as we approach year-end 2023 and decline thereafter.

2022 年第四季度的資本支出為 8.33 億美元。此外，在 2022 年第四季度，該公司產生了 1.26 億美元的自由現金流。截至 2022 年 12 月 31 日，我們報告的淨債務為 195 億美元，我們的預期估計淨債務為 204 億美元。我們預期的估計淨債務反映了我們利用手頭現金來支付與我們在 2022 年完成的資產剝離相關的稅收義務，總計 9 億至 10 億美元。我們預計將在 2023 年上半年繳納這些稅款。鑑於凱特確定的投資，我們預計槓桿率在短期內將升至 4 至 4.3 倍。我們預計隨著 2023 年底的臨近，槓桿率將達到頂峰，然後下降。

For the full year 2023, we expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $4.6 billion to $4.8 billion. When bridging to our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance, in addition to the CAF II completion and divested business EBITDA, there are a few other drivers to keep in mind. We estimate that our full year EBITDA will be impacted by approximately $100 million related to incremental inflationary pressures. Combined with dissynergies, we expect a headwind of between $200 million to $250 million this year. We're actively working to mitigate the impact of these dissynergies.

對於 2023 年全年，我們預計調整後的 EBITDA 將在 46 億美元至 48 億美元之間。在與我們全年調整後的 EBITDA 指導相銜接時，除了 CAF II 完成和剝離業務 EBITDA 之外，還有一些其他驅動因素需要牢記。我們估計，我們全年的 EBITDA 將受到與增量通脹壓力相關的大約 1 億美元的影響。加上協同效應，我們預計今年的逆風將在 2 億至 2.5 億美元之間。我們正在積極努力減輕這些不協調的影響。

As Kate discussed, over the next couple of years, we will be aggressively investing both OpEx and CapEx to position ourselves for long-term sustained success. The focus of these investments will be to enable growth, improve customer experience and simplify how we operate. These investments will include a number of items such as digitization, ERP, Network as a Service and IT simplification. These growth and optimization investments outlined in our EBITDA guidance waterfall chart are expected to total $150 million to $200 million. Importantly, we expect our revenue and EBITDA to stabilize as we exit 2024 with growth thereafter.

正如 Kate 所討論的那樣，在接下來的幾年裡，我們將積極投資 OpEx 和 CapEx，以使自己為長期持續的成功做好準備。這些投資的重點將是促進增長、改善客戶體驗和簡化我們的運營方式。這些投資將包括許多項目，例如數字化、ERP、網絡即服務和 IT 簡化。我們的 EBITDA 指導瀑布圖中概述的這些增長和優化投資預計總額為 1.5 億至 2 億美元。重要的是，我們預計我們的收入和 EBITDA 將隨著我們在 2024 年之後的增長而穩定下來。

Moving to capital spending. For the full year 2023, we expect total capital expenditures in the range of $2.9 billion to $3.1 billion. Growth in optimization investments totaling $250 million to $350 million are included in this guidance. Additionally, we expect to enable an incremental 500,000 Quantum locations in 2023 as we emerge from our project reevaluation. We anticipate a cost per enablement of $1,200 in 2023. Lastly, our capital expenditure guidance includes $35 million to $65 million related to rebuilding efforts in the wake of Hurricane Ian last fall.

轉向資本支出。對於 2023 年全年，我們預計總資本支出在 29 億美元至 31 億美元之間。本指南包括總計 2.5 億至 3.5 億美元的優化投資增長。此外，隨著我們完成項目重新評估，我們預計到 2023 年將增加 500,000 個 Quantum 位置。我們預計 2023 年每次啟用的成本為 1,200 美元。最後，我們的資本支出指導包括與去年秋天伊恩颶風過後的重建工作相關的 3500 萬至 6500 萬美元。

Moving on to free cash flow. We expect to generate free cash flow in the range of $0 million to $200 million for the full year 2023. In total, our 2023 free cash flow will be impacted by $435 million to $615 million related to our growth and optimization investments as well as the impact of Hurricane Ian recovery efforts. We do not have any required or planned discretionary pension fund contributions in 2023.

繼續自由現金流。我們預計 2023 年全年將產生 0 百萬至 2 億美元的自由現金流。總的來說，我們 2023 年的自由現金流將受到 4.35 億至 6.15 億美元的影響，這些影響與我們的增長和優化投資以及颶風伊恩恢復工作的影響。我們在 2023 年沒有任何要求或計劃的全權酌情養老基金供款。

Additionally, the cash taxes due on the 2022 sale of the ILEC and LATAM businesses are being paid out of the cash proceeds from those deals and are excluded from our free cash flow guidance. As a reminder, our first quarter typically has seasonally higher expenses related to timing of bonus payments and other prepaid expenses. We expect net cash interest expense in the range of $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion for 2023.

此外，2022 年出售 ILEC 和 LATAM 業務時應繳納的現金稅將從這些交易的現金收益中支付，不包括在我們的自由現金流指導中。提醒一下，我們的第一季度通常有與獎金支付時間和其他預付費用相關的季節性較高費用。我們預計 2023 年的淨現金利息支出將在 11 億美元至 12 億美元之間。

In terms of special items for 2023, 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.

就 2023 年的特殊項目而言，我們預計與往年相比成本將大幅增加，這主要是受支持資產剝離過渡服務的專門第三方成本的推動。這些服務的報銷將計入其他收入，不會對我們的現金流產生重大淨影響。

In closing, we are positioning Lumen for growth. We're making tangible progress internally, and we're investing in ourselves over the next 2 years to deliver on our longer-term goals. We look forward to sharing our progress with you as we execute on our plans, and we'll provide more detail around those plans and expected financial performance at our Investor Day in New York City on the afternoon of Monday, June 5. So please save that date. More details will follow in the coming months.

最後，我們將 Lumen 定位為增長。我們正在內部取得切實進展，並且我們將在未來 2 年內投資於自己，以實現我們的長期目標。我們期待在執行計劃時與您分享我們的進展，我們將在 6 月 5 日星期一下午在紐約市舉行的投資者日上提供有關這些計劃和預期財務業績的更多詳細信息。所以請保存那個日期。更多細節將在未來幾個月公佈。

With that, we are ready for your questions.

這樣，我們就可以回答您的問題了。

(Operator Instructions) And our first question is from the line of Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自摩根士丹利的西蒙弗蘭納里。

Great. Kate, thanks for all of the positioning of the company and the opportunities. Help us understand the path to revenue and EBITDA stability. I know we've got the Analyst Day coming up, but what sort of milestones should we be looking for during 2023 to suggest that things are improving? Do you think there'll be an inflection in the rate of revenue decline, rate of EBITDA decline? How do we get comfortable that you are on this path to turn this around within a couple of years?

偉大的。凱特，感謝公司的所有定位和機會。幫助我們了解實現收入和 EBITDA 穩定性的途徑。我知道我們即將迎來分析師日，但我們應該在 2023 年尋找什麼樣的里程碑來表明情況正在改善？您認為收入下降率、EBITDA 下降率會出現拐點嗎？我們如何讓您在幾年內扭轉這一局面的道路上感到欣慰？

And then on the fiber side of things, could you just talk a little bit about how the BEAD program fits into your expectations given you're kind of sort of less aggressive posture towards Quantum? Is BEAD something that's interest to you at this moment?

然後在光纖方面，鑑於您對 Quantum 的態度不太積極，您能否談談 BEAD 計劃如何符合您的期望？你現在對 BEAD 感興趣嗎？

Sure. Thanks, Simon. So first and foremost, 2023 is a reset year. So we talked about new leadership. We talked about a new mission. We talked about new priorities. And it's going to take us some time to get rolling. I think we bring a couple of things to the story that we haven't done before. The first is injecting energy into the growth engine in the form of marketing, in the form of disciplined sales approach at the high end of the market, really an execution, focus and mindset with some of the new leaders that I'm bringing in. So I'm excited about that, and I think that we'll get some early traction in the form of things like funnel and pipeline. I think that the story of 2-year stabilization is really, as we go into '24, we're going to have sort of the green shoots to show you more explicitly.

當然。謝謝，西蒙。因此，首先，2023 年是重置的一年。所以我們談到了新的領導層。我們談到了一個新的使命。我們討論了新的優先事項。這將需要我們一些時間才能開始。我認為我們為這個故事帶來了一些我們以前沒有做過的事情。首先是以市場營銷的形式為增長引擎注入能量，以高端市場紀律嚴明的銷售方式，真正的執行力、專注力和思維方式與我帶來的一些新領導者。所以我對此感到很興奮，我認為我們會以漏斗和管道等形式獲得一些早期的牽引力。我認為 2 年穩定的故事真的是，當我們進入 24 年時，我們將有一些萌芽來更明確地向你展示。

With respect to your question about BEAD, our projection this year is -- or our projection for about 8 million to 12 million enablements in total doesn't include any BEAD funding. And BEAD is super early. The funds haven't started flowing yet. So we really don't know how that story is going to pan out, but it does represent a potential upside to our story.

關於您關於 BEAD 的問題，我們今年的預測是——或者我們對總共約 800 萬到 1200 萬次支持的預測不包括任何 BEAD 資金。 BEAD 非常早。資金還沒有開始流動。所以我們真的不知道這個故事會如何發展，但它確實代表了我們故事的潛在優勢。

And our next question is from the line of Philip Cusick from JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Philip Cusick。

Following up first on the enterprise space. The $150 million to $200 million in investment, can you just dig more into that? And how much of that is sort of onetime in terms of new ERP investment versus ongoing costs? And how should we think about the potential for revenue and EBITDA growth in business over a long period of time? If we go back to the underlying market, is this a growing market? Or is it a shrinking market that you need to take share in?

首先跟進企業空間。 1.5 億到 2 億美元的投資，你能不能再深入一點？就新 ERP 投資與持續成本而言，其中有多少是一次性的？我們應該如何考慮長期內業務收入和 EBITDA 增長的潛力？如果我們回到基礎市場，這是一個成長中的市場嗎？還是您需要分一杯羹的萎縮市場？

So great question. Our pivot is about moving from a place of playing defense to offense. Where I talked about changing mindset to really obsess about customers, that's about finding new problems and addressing them with both our existing capabilities as well as building a capability to address those problems with net new capabilities, either build, buy or partnering.

這麼好的問題。我們的重點是從防守轉向進攻。在我談到改變心態以真正關注客戶的地方，這是關於發現新問題並利用我們現有的能力解決這些問題，以及建立一種能力來解決這些問題的淨新能力，無論是構建、購買還是合作。

And if you think about it, customers are dealing with these giant problems, it's the usual stuff, cost-effective core operations. How do I get my employees to thrive? How do I secure my data and applications? How do I drive business process improvement? How do I innovate for my customers? But they're doing all of that in the hybrid world, which basically hybrid meaning working from home or working from the locations that have been in place for years.

如果你仔細想想，客戶正在處理這些巨大的問題，這是通常的事情，具有成本效益的核心業務。我如何讓我的員工茁壯成長？如何保護我的數據和應用程序？我如何推動業務流程改進？我如何為客戶創新？但他們在混合世界中做所有這些，基本上混合意味著在家工作或在已經存在多年的地方工作。

As all of that changes, the complexity of their networking solution needs is changing as well, and that represents a huge opportunity for us. But I think we all know that we really need to sort of glide up the stack a bit and really lean into both security and edge in order to drive net new growth on top of that core networking solution set that we have. Chris, do you want to add anything to that?

隨著所有這些變化，他們的網絡解決方案需求的複雜性也在發生變化，這對我們來說是一個巨大的機會。但我認為我們都知道我們確實需要稍微向上滑動堆棧並真正傾斜到安全和邊緣，以便在我們擁有的核心網絡解決方案集之上推動淨新增長。克里斯，你想補充什麼嗎？

Yes. So Phil, the -- in terms of what the spending is focused on, we talked about it a bit, but we've got to digitize more of what we do end to end, so that, that customer experience is more seamless and self-serve wherever possible. We've got to continue to simplify and really stop doing some things, automate some things, which will allow us to get it to dissynergies, but makes us easier to do business with. And the ERP is 1 piece of that.

是的。所以 Phil，關於支出的重點，我們討論了一下，但我們必須將更多端到端的工作數字化，這樣客戶體驗就會更加無縫和自我- 盡可能服務。我們必須繼續簡化並真正停止做一些事情，自動化一些事情，這將使我們能夠發揮不協調作用，但使我們更容易開展業務。 ERP 是其中的一部分。

And then beyond that, we've obviously got to invest in things that are going to drive growth, things that would allow us to enable Network as a Service, for example. So really understanding where the network is so that customers can quickly access it and deploy from there. So that's what's in there, but none of those things will be complete this year. I referenced in my comments that this is probably a 2-year journey in terms of spend.

除此之外，我們顯然必須投資於能夠推動增長的事物，例如能夠讓我們啟用網絡即服務的事物。因此，真正了解網絡的位置，以便客戶可以快速訪問它並從那裡進行部署。這就是其中的內容，但今年這些事情都不會完成。我在評論中提到，就支出而言，這可能是 2 年的旅程。

As it relates to why we think we can get to revenue and EBITDA stabilization by the end of next year, I want to be really clear. That's based off of the things we have today. So when Kate talked about growth OS, that's extra. That's kind of supercharging the growth down the road. But with what we have today, I think we can very accurately say that from a product and sales standpoint, we were not executing as cleanly as we could have. And there is renewed focus. There's a lot more rigor behind the connectivity between product and our selling efforts. And frankly, there's some low-hanging fruit that we can go after.

至於為什麼我們認為我們可以在明年年底前實現收入和 EBITDA 穩定，我想說得很清楚。這是基於我們今天擁有的東西。所以當凱特談到增長操作系統時，這是額外的。這有點推動了未來的增長。但就我們今天所擁有的，我認為我們可以非常準確地說，從產品和銷售的角度來看，我們沒有像我們本可以的那樣乾淨利落地執行。並且有新的焦點。產品與我們的銷售工作之間的聯繫背後有更嚴格的要求。坦率地說，我們可以追求一些唾手可得的成果。

So I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it's fixed by second half of this year. That's why we said by the end of next year. But I can tell you that the reason we said that is we've got line of sight given what we have in-house today.

所以我不會坐在這裡告訴你它會在今年下半年修復。這就是為什麼我們說到明年年底。但我可以告訴你，我們這麼說的原因是，鑑於我們今天在內部擁有的東西，我們已經有了視線。

If I can follow up, and forgive me, this -- I don't mean to sound disrespectful at all, but we've heard from Lumen and the predecessor companies for 12 years about the new changes in plans and how things are going to turn around. And I know you have an Analyst Day coming up in June, and you've only, really, as a team, been together for a little while. Is there anything that's sort of dramatically changing under the hood that can start to give us some faith that this business is really turning as opposed to what feels like another iteration of things that we've heard before?

如果我能跟進，請原諒我，這 - 我一點也不想听起來不尊重，但 12 年來我們從 Lumen 和前身公司那裡聽到了計劃的新變化以及事情的進展迴轉。而且我知道您將在 6 月舉行分析師日，而且您實際上只是作為一個團隊在一起了一段時間。有沒有什麼事情在幕後發生了巨大的變化，讓我們開始相信這項業務真的在轉變，而不是我們以前聽說過的事情的另一次迭代？

Yes. So I'm here now, and I'm excited to be here now because there's a huge opportunity. And one of the things that I'm bringing to the table is this maniacal focus on execution. And I think that, that's a really important shift. I think when you think about the pivot to growth, you need to think about Lumen as a collection of companies that was trying to drive synergy from a bunch of mergers and was inwardly focused on driving operational efficiency. Every dollar of revenue looked good because as a potential contributor to EBITDA, and every dollar of cost take-out look good.

是的。所以我現在來到這裡，我很高興現在來到這裡，因為這裡有巨大的機會。我要帶到桌面上的一件事是這種對執行的瘋狂關注。我認為，這是一個非常重要的轉變。我認為，當你考慮增長的支點時，你需要將 Lumen 視為一家公司的集合，這些公司試圖通過一系列合併來推動協同效應，並在內部專注於提高運營效率。每一美元的收入看起來都不錯，因為作為 EBITDA 的潛在貢獻者，每一美元的成本支出看起來都不錯。

But there was no anchoring North Star. There was no customer obsession. There was no really focusing on how do we innovate for growth. And we hadn't been in a position to invest in our go-to-market engine, everything from marketing to sales and sales support and customer success. And now we are, right? The capital allocation priorities that we set for the company now enable all of that. And the leaders that I'm bringing in from technology, combined with the leaders that are already here at Lumen that really know this business, the combination is going to be incredibly powerful. It's a really exciting time.

但是沒有錨北極星。沒有客戶的痴迷。沒有真正關注我們如何創新以實現增長。而且我們還沒有能力投資我們的上市引擎，從營銷到銷售和銷售支持以及客戶成功的一切。現在我們是，對吧？我們為公司設定的資本分配優先順序現在可以實現所有這些。我從技術領域帶來的領導者，加上已經在 Lumen 的真正了解這項業務的領導者，這種結合將非常強大。這是一個非常激動人心的時刻。

And our next question is 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。

Kate, congrats on the new job, and welcome to the mosh pit. So I guess I got a few, if I could. I guess, Chris, you've been talking about disrupting legacy declines. If you could be more specific about what that really means?

凱特，恭喜你獲得新工作，歡迎來到 mosh pit。所以我想我有一些，如果可以的話。我想，克里斯，你一直在談論破壞傳統的衰落。如果你能更具體地說明這到底意味著什麼？

And then, Kate, you talked about a priority being radically simplifying. Does that mean that there's more strategic stuff to come in terms of the asset base that we're looking at inside Lumen today?

然後，凱特，你談到了從根本上簡化的優先事項。這是否意味著我們今天在 Lumen 內部看到的資產基礎方面會有更多戰略性的東西？

And if I could ask a third, and I apologize. Chris, with respect to the stock buyback of $200 million in the fourth quarter, could you walk us through kind of whose idea that was and how you landed on that being the right choice for allocating capital?

如果我可以問第三個，我道歉。克里斯，關於第四季度 2 億美元的股票回購，您能否向我們介紹一下這是誰的想法，以及您如何確定這是分配資本的正確選擇？

Yes, sure. So the first question really on kind of how we can disrupt the growth trajectory of legacy products. Look, the historical motion, I think, broadly in telecom is sell things until they die. And hopefully, that new thing, you can sell more of that. What is absent from that is a customer lifetime value mindset. And there's this fear of cannibalization. And I want to be really loud in saying cannibalization is good because if you can keep that customer for longer and you can manage that migration, you're going to be much better off.

是的，當然。因此，第一個問題實際上是關於我們如何破壞遺留產品的增長軌跡。看，我認為，在電信行業，歷史性的運動廣泛地是賣東西直到他們死。希望那個新東西，你可以賣得更多。缺少的是客戶終生價值的心態。還有這種對蠶食的恐懼。我想大聲說蠶食是好的，因為如果你能更長時間地留住那個客戶，並且你能管理好遷移，你就會過得更好。

So what we're talking about is aggressively managing end-of-life products, moving customers up the stack. So think about legacy voice, right? Think about things like customers who are nearing the end of a VPN contract who don't want to renew, but there's IP and ways out there, and we can wrap security around it. So more proactively addressing those migrations. And that's something that hasn't been a key focus, and I think that's some of the low-hanging fruit I talked about.

因此，我們正在談論的是積極管理報廢產品，將客戶推向更高層次。那麼想想傳統的聲音，對吧？想想那些不想續訂的 VPN 合同即將到期的客戶，但有 IP 和其他方法，我們可以圍繞它進行安全保護。因此，更主動地解決這些遷移問題。這並不是重點關注的問題，我認為這是我談到的一些唾手可得的成果。

As it relates to the buyback, look, it was a big change. And you and I have had conversations about it. We've had conversations with your peers about it and other investors. It was a tough decision. But it was guided by the fact that the way we solidify Lumen's performance for all of our stakeholders going forward is by getting back to growth. And so cutting the dividend did that.

就回購而言，看，這是一個很大的變化。你和我已經就此進行過對話。我們已經與您的同行和其他投資者進行了對話。這是一個艱難的決定。但這是基於這樣一個事實，即我們為所有利益相關者鞏固 Lumen 業績的方式是恢復增長。所以削減股息就做到了。

In the near term, we knew that there were index funds and other investors who relied on that dividend to have an ownership position in Lumen. And so we bought back stock around the times that those index funds were rebalancing to support the stock through those big shifts. And so that was the thinking in terms of how we manage that in the fourth quarter.

在短期內，我們知道有指數基金和其他投資者依靠股息持有 Lumen 的所有權。因此，我們在這些指數基金重新平衡以通過這些重大轉變支持股票的時候回購了股票。這就是我們在第四季度如何管理的想法。

And David, did you want to -- you asked a question about simplification. Could you repeat it? I didn't hear some of it.

大衛，你想不想——你問了一個關於簡化的問題。你能重複一遍嗎？我沒有聽到其中的一些。

Yes. Kate, the question was within the confines of the -- I think the fourth priority, like radical simplification of the business, I think the streamlining of processes and that sort of thing, I think, is kind of one side of the interpretation of what that might look like. Another side might be further asset divestitures, other kinds of strategic types of things and stones that have not been turned over to date.

是的。凱特，這個問題是在——我認為第四個優先事項，比如徹底簡化業務，我認為簡化流程之類的事情，我認為，是對什麼的解釋的一方面可能看起來像。另一方面可能是進一步的資產剝離，其他類型的戰略類型的東西和迄今為止尚未移交的石頭。

Yes. I mean the 2 sort of pieces of it, as I discussed, was going to be understanding how we could do fewer things better, I think, is what I said. And with this mindset around simplification of our product portfolio. We've had a proliferation of SKUs. And when you think about the proliferation of IT systems through all the mergers to support those SKUs, both sides of the equation, simplification of what we sell as well as how we sell it, that's the winning formula. So those were -- that was the intention of our remarks.

是的。我的意思是，正如我所討論的那樣，其中的兩部分將理解我們如何可以做得更好，我想，這就是我所說的。並以這種圍繞簡化我們產品組合的心態。我們有大量的 SKU。當你考慮通過所有合併來支持這些 SKU 的 IT 系統擴散時，等式的兩邊，簡化我們銷售的產品以及我們銷售它的方式，這就是成功的公式。所以那些是——這就是我們發言的目的。

Regarding the overall strategy, I think if you keep coming back to our mission statement, to digitally connect people, data and applications quickly, securely and effortlessly, anything that we do will strategically map directly to that statement.

關於總體戰略，我認為如果你繼續回顧我們的使命宣言，即快速、安全、輕鬆地以數字方式連接人員、數據和應用程序，我們所做的任何事情都將在戰略上直接映射到該宣言。

Our next question is from the line of Greg Williams with Cowen and Co.

我們的下一個問題來自 Greg Williams 與 Cowen and Co. 的合作。

Great. Echoing the congrats, Kate. My first question is just on what are the larger puts and takes on the range -- $200 million range of your guidance that determines the low end and the high end? And then second question is just on the reduction of your Quantum Fiber forecast. I believe I heard it's $500,000 enablement. What's your comfort level on the fears of third-party overbuilders coming in as you're not building? Is that sort of contemplated in the fact that you've now reduced your overall build from 12 million down to 8 million to 10 million, and those third-party overbuilders, they're just coming overbuilding in that territory?

偉大的。回應祝賀，凱特。我的第一個問題是更大的看跌期權和承擔範圍是什麼——你指導的 2 億美元範圍決定了低端和高端？然後第二個問題只是關於減少你的量子纖維預測。我相信我聽說這是 500,000 美元的支持。您對第三方過度建設者的恐懼在您不建設時的舒適度如何？您現在已經將總體建設從 1200 萬減少到 800 萬再到 1000 萬，而那些第三方過度建設者，他們只是在那個領域過度建設，這是否是一種考慮？

Greg, it's Chris. In terms of the guidance range, I would say that the pieces that I spend more time being concerned about are the things, frankly, that are beyond our control, things like the inflationary environment and just the broader macro. So I'd say that's probably the biggest piece of the variability. I can tell you that the guidance is mapped directly back to things like sales quotas, and the way we pay people for performance has changed as well. So all of that is designed to drive us to where that guidance is. But it's really around the things beyond our control that move us to between the high and the low.

格雷格，是克里斯。就指導範圍而言，我會說我花更多時間關注的是坦率地說，我們無法控制的事情，比如通貨膨脹環境和更廣泛的宏觀經濟。所以我想說這可能是可變性中最大的一部分。我可以告訴你，指導直接映射回銷售配額之類的東西，我們支付績效的方式也發生了變化。因此，所有這些都是為了驅使我們到達那個指導所在的地方。但真正讓我們在高潮和低谷之間徘徊的是我們無法控制的事情。

As it relates to the Quantum piece, I mean I think your point is a valid one, and that's obviously, I think, a risk. But -- and frankly, I think you can even see it in some of the penetration numbers from 2021. I was very concerned about putting fiber in the ground for the sake of putting fiber in the ground, right? We need to make sure that we remain focused on those large metros that we've talked about and that we stop being so focused on a cost per enablement and on a number of enablements and more around making sure that in those markets that we're serving, that customers are going to want our product.

由於它與 Quantum 相關，我的意思是我認為你的觀點是有效的，而且我認為這顯然是一種風險。但是 - 坦率地說，我認為你甚至可以在 2021 年的一些滲透率數字中看到它。我非常擔心為了將光纖放入地下而將光纖放入地下，對吧？我們需要確保我們繼續專注於我們已經討論過的那些大型都市圈，並且我們不再過於關注每次啟用的成本和一些啟用，以及更多地圍繞確保在這些市場中我們服務，客戶會想要我們的產品。

And so I think even though this is a little bit painful in the near term, we're seeing really good performance on our planning yield, meaning when we plan a market and it goes to engineering and then it comes out of engineering, that we've been able to accurately estimate the cost so that we can proceed to construction rather than having to go back to planning all over again.

所以我認為，儘管這在短期內有點痛苦，但我們在規劃收益方面看到了非常好的表現，這意味著當我們規劃一個市場，它進入工程，然後它從工程中出來時，我們我們已經能夠準確地估算成本，這樣我們就可以繼續進行施工，而不必重新進行規劃。

So we're seeing some really good activities internally. But I would much rather have this conversation today than one 5 years from now where we hit $1,000, and we hit the 10 million enablements, and then you guys are asking me where the annuity stream is on all that fiber. And my own opinion, our opinion, is that I think you're going to see that from some of the overbuilders in markets that are building for the sake of building rather than really having a returns mindset around it.

所以我們在內部看到了一些非常好的活動。但我更願意今天進行這種對話，而不是 5 年後我們達到 1,000 美元，我們達到 1000 萬啟用，然後你們問我年金流在所有光纖上的位置。我自己的觀點，我們的觀點是，我認為你將從市場中一些過度建設者那裡看到這一點，這些建設者是為了建設而不是真正圍繞它建立回報心態。

And our next question is from the line of Batya Levi from UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀的 Batya Levi。

It looks like you're expecting another 10% decline in organic EBITDA this year aside from the impact from dissynergies and inflation and higher investments for growth. Can you provide a little bit more color on the drivers for that organic decline? Does that assume maybe worsening top line trends as we go through the transition? Or is it more of a mix shift where growth is coming from lower margin services?

看起來你預計今年有機 EBITDA 將再下降 10%，除了協同效應和通貨膨脹以及更高的增長投資的影響。您能否為有機下降的驅動因素提供更多顏色？這是否假設隨著我們經歷過渡，頂線趨勢可能會惡化？或者它更像是一種混合轉變，增長來自利潤率較低的服務？

Yes, Batya, it's Chris. I think the key thing is we do have that grow bucket which is now the largest bucket. It's not growing enough, okay? And that's really where the focus is. So the reason you see in total organic declines is that we have harvest and nurture buckets that are declining at high single-digit rates. Margin is really not a concern as we move into the grow bucket. We've disclosed that in the presentation. But when you look at our direct margins, it's actually beneficial to us when we move into the grow products.

是的，Batya，是克里斯。我認為關鍵是我們確實擁有現在最大的增長桶。發育不夠好吧？這才是真正的重點所在。所以你看到有機總量下降的原因是我們的收穫和培育桶以高個位數的速度下降。當我們進入成長桶時，利潤率真的不是問題。我們已經在演示文稿中披露了這一點。但是當你看看我們的直接利潤時，當我們進入種植產品時，它實際上對我們有利。

So it's really about managing that migration because we still have roughly 2/3 of the business that's declining at very high rates and how do we supercharge the grow bucket. So the starting -- the performance itself isn't where we want it to be, but the starting point is actually pretty strong. We've got a good base there. So I'd say that's one thing.

所以這真的是關於管理遷移，因為我們仍然有大約 2/3 的業務以非常高的速度下降，我們如何增加增長桶。所以起點 - 性能本身並不是我們想要的，但起點實際上非常強大。我們在那裡有一個很好的基地。所以我會說這是一回事。

The second thing is, obviously, we're in a tough macro environment where everybody is being very thoughtful about the money they spend. So if you think about us doing a reset, we're doing it in a tough environment. So I think both of those things combined are really what's driving that.

第二件事是，顯然，我們處於艱難的宏觀環境中，每個人都對他們花的錢非常謹慎。因此，如果您考慮我們進行重置，我們是在艱難的環境中進行的。所以我認為這兩件事結合在一起才是真正的驅動力。

Maybe just a quick follow-up. How should we think about the pacing of that EBITDA decline through the year? Is first half the trough because you have the dissynergies? Or is that going to be offset as you ramp up investment for growth?

也許只是一個快速跟進。我們應該如何考慮全年 EBITDA 下降的速度？低谷的前半部分是因為你有不協調嗎？還是會隨著您增加增長投資而被抵消？

Look, I don't want to get too scientific around that because we obviously have a lot of variability. For example, in our OpEx quarter-to-quarter, we have higher OpEx in the summer when it's hotter and we're doing more construction. So there's a lot of moving pieces in there. I would say the most important thing is that revenue number. And I think, over time, we would like to be able to show you guys that the decline rate is slowing. And I think that's going to be the first leading indicator that we're on our way to growth. And so I don't want to predict when in the year you start to see that. Again, it's a 2-year journey until we get to stabilization. But I'd watch that over time, and I think that's the best way to measure our success.

聽著，我不想在這方面過於科學，因為我們顯然有很多可變性。例如，在我們的季度運營支出中，我們在夏季的運營支出更高，那時天氣更熱，我們正在進行更多的建設。所以里面有很多動人的作品。我想說最重要的是收入數字。而且我認為，隨著時間的推移，我們希望能夠向你們展示下降速度正在放緩。我認為這將是我們正在走向增長的第一個領先指標。所以我不想預測你會在一年中什麼時候開始看到它。同樣，這是一個 2 年的旅程，直到我們達到穩定。但我會隨著時間的推移觀察它，我認為這是衡量我們成功的最佳方式。

Our next question is from the line of Michael Rollins with Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗的邁克爾羅林斯。

Curious if you could share a little bit more detail in terms of what's happening currently in the sales cycle in the pipeline. And are you entering 2023 with a better backlog just given some of the announcements that you've had over the past number of months, particularly in the public sector?

想知道您是否可以就管道中的銷售週期中當前發生的事情分享更多細節。考慮到您在過去幾個月中發布的一些公告，尤其是在公共部門，您進入 2023 年是否會有更好的積壓？

And then just one other question. On the bridge regarding dissynergies, are those dissynergies isolated to the divestitures? Or do those dissynergies encapsulate the decision to separate the operations of Mass Markets from the Business segment?

然後是另一個問題。在關於不協調的橋樑上，這些不協調是否與資產剝離隔離？或者這些不協調是否包含了將大眾市場的運營與商業部門分開的決定？

Mike, this is Kate. So to address your question about what's happening in the enterprise business, the first thing is from a public sector perspective, you're absolutely right. We have a healthy backlog, and we're excited about seeing a lot of that convert this year. Our pipeline continues to be steady and strong.

邁克，這是凱特。因此，要解決您關於企業業務中正在發生的事情的問題，首先是從公共部門的角度來看，您是絕對正確的。我們有一個健康的積壓，我們很高興今年看到很多這樣的轉換。我們的管道繼續穩定而強大。

And regarding enterprise decision-making, I think with the macroeconomic environment, we all see sort of more approvals required for purchases of technology. I think that plays right into the pivot that we're making where we need to be great at pitching our value story and how we can help customers address their most existential problems and help them get through those buying cycles. Chris?

關於企業決策，我認為在宏觀經濟環境下，我們都看到購買技術需要更多的批准。我認為這恰好是我們正在做的支點，我們需要善於宣傳我們的價值故事，以及我們如何幫助客戶解決他們最存在的問題並幫助他們度過這些購買週期。克里斯？

Yes. And the dissynergies are really around the divestitures. It has nothing to do with ops. So obviously, there's corporate overhead that doesn't go away when you sell off big chunks of EBITDA. But there's other efficiencies we can get to internally if we can automate some more things going forward. And that's really where the focus is there on the dissynergies.

是的。不協調實際上是圍繞資產剝離。跟op沒關係。很明顯，當你出售大量的 EBITDA 時，公司的間接費用並沒有消失。但是，如果我們可以自動化更多的事情，我們可以在內部獲得其他效率。這才是真正關注不協調的地方。

Now I will say that as we were talking about dissynergies last year, we actually thought they'd be a little bit higher than what we're calling it for this year, and that's because we've got some other cost savings initiatives going on internally that we think can start to eat away at that. So that's good.

現在我要說的是，當我們去年談論協同效應時，我們實際上認為它們會比我們今年所稱的要高一點，那是因為我們正在進行其他一些成本節約計劃在內部，我們認為可以開始蠶食它。所以這很好。

And one other follow-up. On the net debt leverage, you mentioned it could be 4 to 4.3. Is that the peak through this whole cycle of getting back towards your goal of EBITDA growth? Or is there the potential for leverage to go even higher before it goes lower?

和另一個後續行動。關於淨債務槓桿，您提到它可能是 4 到 4.3。這是整個週期中回到您的 EBITDA 增長目標的高峰期嗎？或者槓桿率是否有可能在下降之前上升到更高水平？

Yes, that is our estimated peak. And quite frankly, that excludes any assumption on the EMEA deal closing because right now, we're assuming that doesn't happen until early next year. So when that closes, obviously, those -- given where leverage is, we said that we would, from a capital allocation standpoint, focus on growth and then manage leverage and buybacks dynamically. Obviously, with an exit leverage ratio that high, those proceeds would be focused on debt reduction, and that would bring us back down.

是的，那是我們估計的峰值。坦率地說，這排除了對 EMEA 交易完成的任何假設，因為現在，我們假設這種情況要到明年初才會發生。因此，當它結束時，很明顯，那些 - 考慮到槓桿在哪裡，我們說，從資本配置的角度來看，我們將專注於增長，然後動態管理槓桿和回購。顯然，在退出槓桿率如此之高的情況下，這些收益將集中用於減少債務，這將使我們退縮。

But operationally, yes, we would expect that, that leverage is peak as we exit this year because we're doing, obviously, the spending that doesn't give us all the benefits from that spending until we go forward and then some continued spending next year. But I would not expect it would go above that.

但在操作上，是的，我們預計，當我們今年退出時，槓桿率將達到頂峰，因為我們正在做的支出顯然不會給我們帶來所有好處，直到我們繼續前進，然後再繼續支出明年。但我不認為它會超過那個。

And our next question is 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。

How long do you think it will take to integrate the IT systems from the past mergers? And will you be integrating or changing any billing systems? That's my first question.

您認為整合過去合併的 IT 系統需要多長時間？您會整合或更改任何計費系統嗎？這是我的第一個問題。

The second question. When you talk about getting rid of some of the businesses that you mentioned and don't really support the growth, how many of the -- how long will that take given that some of these may still have longer-term contractual obligations or regulatory obligations that may be harder to just eliminate? If you can give us some color on that, that would be great.

第二個問題。當你談到擺脫你提到的一些業務並且並不真正支持增長時，考慮到其中一些可能仍有長期合同義務或監管義務，這需要多長時間？這可能更難消除？如果你能給我們一些顏色，那就太好了。

Neither one of these things are overnight stories. With respect to simplifying the IT infrastructure, it's complex. We have a lens towards customer satisfaction, customer experience, and that's driving our prioritization and how we actually do the planning as well as what's the level of difficulty and how much will -- how much can we do that will impact things in the short, medium and long term. So we're right at the planning stages of building the framework to be able to give you more clarity. The second piece of that was -- what was the question?

這些事情都不是一蹴而就的故事。關於簡化 IT 基礎設施，它很複雜。我們著眼於客戶滿意度、客戶體驗，這推動了我們的優先級排序，以及我們實際如何進行規劃，以及困難程度和程度——我們能做多少，這將在短期內影響事情，中長期。因此，我們正處於構建框架的規劃階段，以便能夠讓您更加清楚。第二部分是——問題是什麼？

Around products and sale of products.

圍繞產品和銷售產品。

The simplified -- doing less and doing it better is the focus, obviously. When we talk about businesses that don't accrete to the North Star, whenever we have customers, whenever we have revenue, whenever we have EBITDA, we have to be very thoughtful and use a product life cycle framework to evaluate how to move these customers to modern technologies and how to create a great customer experience in doing so, where they can get the benefit of more of our capabilities and maybe some of our partners as well. And that framework is something that is new to our teams in terms of taking a disciplined approach to simplifying and narrowing what we do every day. So we're right in the early throes of doing that. We're not going to be turning anything on or off overnight without careful consideration.

簡化 - 做得更少，做得更好是重點，顯然。當我們談論那些不吸納北極星的業務時，每當我們有客戶，每當我們有收入，每當我們有 EBITDA 時，我們必須非常深思熟慮，並使用產品生命週期框架來評估如何移動這些客戶到現代技術，以及如何在這樣做的過程中創造出色的客戶體驗，他們可以從中受益更多我們的能力，也許還有我們的一些合作夥伴。就採取紀律嚴明的方法來簡化和縮小我們每天所做的事情而言，該框架對我們的團隊來說是全新的。所以我們正處於這樣做的早期陣痛中。未經仔細考慮，我們不會在一夜之間打開或關閉任何東西。

Yes. And Frank, I would only just add one quick thing there because I know you've been at this game a lot longer than Kate or I have, and that there's been a lot of disaster scenarios with billing systems so I want to address that head on.

是的。弗蘭克，我只想快速補充一點，因為我知道你玩這個遊戲的時間比凱特或我長得多，而且計費系統出現過很多災難場景，所以我想談談這個問題在。

Part of what we're doing is really determining where we want the end point to be because, quite frankly, there -- in some cases, there's going to be no business case for integrating old billing systems if the products that are supported by those billing systems are maturing out from a product life cycle standpoint.

我們正在做的部分工作實際上是確定我們希望終點在哪裡，因為坦率地說，在某些情況下，如果這些產品支持舊的計費系統，那麼就沒有集成舊計費系統的商業案例從產品生命週期的角度來看，計費系統正在走向成熟。

So in the near term, it's really about simplifying what the customer sees, which may not deal with the front end. And then where we can deal with the front end in a seamless way, we will, or we'll just migrate to the new thing as we build going forward. So it's complicated, as you well know, but we're not blindly running into a billing replacement program.

所以在短期內，它實際上是關於簡化客戶所看到的，這可能與前端無關。然後，在我們可以無縫處理前端的地方，我們會，或者我們會在我們向前構建的過程中遷移到新事物。所以這很複雜，正如你所知道的，但我們並不是盲目地進行計費更換計劃。

And our next question is from the line of Nick Del Deo with SVB MoffettNathanson.

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

I have one for Kate and one for Chris. Kate, your predecessor, Jeff, used to emphasize profitable growth and free cash flow per share as kind of the financial measures he was most focused on. I saw the profitable growth got a mention in the deck. What other financial metrics are you going to be most focused on? And is there anything you need to do to get the organization aligned around them? And then for Chris...

我有一件給凱特，一件給克里斯。凱特，你的前任傑夫，過去常常強調盈利增長和每股自由現金流是他最關注的財務指標。我看到在甲板上提到了盈利增長。您最關注哪些其他財務指標？您是否需要做任何事情來讓組織圍繞他們達成一致？然後為克里斯...

So...

所以...

Sorry. Go ahead.

對不起。前進。

No, no, go ahead. Please ask your question.

不，不，繼續。請提出你的問題。

Yes, I was going to say, and then for Chris, with respect to the growth and optimization spending, I think you said it's a 2-year journey in terms of spend. I don't want to ask for 2024 guidance, but if we think about that 2-year journey, should we expect heavier spending upfront with sort of a tapering over time? Or should we think of that as being relatively even over the course of 2 years?

是的，我想說，然後對於克里斯，關於增長和優化支出，我想你說過這是一個 2 年的支出旅程。我不想要求 2024 年的指導，但如果我們考慮這 2 年的旅程，我們是否應該期望更多的前期支出隨著時間的推移逐漸減少？還是我們應該認為這在 2 年的時間裡是相對均勻的？

I'll jump in first with respect to measurements for success. Look, there are 2 key measurements for success that we're holding ourselves accountable to in the North Star plan. The first is the ease of doing business for both employees and customers. And by the way, there's a one-to-one correlation between a great customer experience and a great employee experience, right? Making it easier for both is a win-win. It also materially influenced our design criteria around bringing product and technology together because the customer experience becomes the product that we're selling.

我將首先討論成功的衡量標準。看，我們在 North Star 計劃中要求自己對成功的 2 個關鍵衡量標準負責。首先是為員工和客戶開展業務的便利性。順便說一下，出色的客戶體驗和出色的員工體驗之間存在一對一的關聯，對吧？讓雙方都更容易是雙贏的。它還對我們將產品和技術結合在一起的設計標準產生了重大影響，因為客戶體驗成為我們銷售的產品。

The second main measurement which I've discussed is really profitable revenue growth. Now that said, that's at the highest level. We've spent considerable time mapping the KPIs and the measurements, both financial and operational, to our mission statement to digitally connect people, data and applications quickly, securely, effortlessly. Those descriptors, quickly, securely effortlessly, there are literally hundreds of metrics that we're going to be thinking about as we transform operations, as we intensify go-to-market, as we build all of the engines to execute for this company in a reliable way. And we've done so for our Business segment, for our Mass Market segment and for corporate as well. So it's a complex set. We can shine a little bit more light on that at Investor Day, but we're not short on KPIs, for sure.

我討論的第二個主要指標是真正盈利的收入增長。話雖如此，那是最高級別的。我們花費了大量時間將 KPI 和衡量指標（包括財務和運營）映射到我們的使命宣言中，以快速、安全、輕鬆地以數字方式連接人員、數據和應用程序。這些描述符，快速，安全，毫不費力，實際上有數百個指標我們將在我們轉變運營時考慮，因為我們加強上市，因為我們構建所有引擎來為這家公司執行一種可靠的方式。我們已經為我們的商業部門、我們的大眾市場部門和企業部門這樣做了。所以這是一個複雜的集合。我們可以在投資者日對此進行更多闡述，但我們肯定不會缺少 KPI。

Yes. And as it relates to the spend profile over the next couple of years, I would assume it's relatively flat from year to year. And really, the key thinking behind that, Nick, is there's only so much we can do at once. And I think we're going as fast and as hard as we can. If we could do more now, I would so that we get to the finish line faster. But from an organizational capacity standpoint, particularly given the fact that we're still providing service agreements to the 2 divestitures last year, we're working on another big one this year, we just got to be careful. So I'd assume that next year, from a CapEx standpoint on those growth initiatives and simplification, it just looks a lot the same as this year.

是的。由於它與未來幾年的支出情況有關，我認為它每年都相對平穩。實際上，尼克，這背後的關鍵思想是我們一次只能做這麼多。而且我認為我們正在盡可能快和盡可能地努力。如果我們現在可以做得更多，我會更快地到達終點線。但從組織能力的角度來看，特別是考慮到我們仍在為去年的兩次資產剝離提供服務協議這一事實，我們今年正在開展另一項大型資產剝離，我們必須要小心。所以我假設明年，從資本支出的角度來看，這些增長計劃和簡化，看起來與今年非常相似。

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

我們的下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Eric Luebchow。

Welcome, Kate, to the team. So a question on the nurture bucket. We've seen that declining around 7% or 8% the last couple of quarters. And maybe you could help us understand how much of that is due to maybe substitution or cannibalization into other buckets like grow. How much of that you think is maybe more legacy in nature that eventually could churn off? And whether there's an opportunity there to maybe turn that trajectory into a better direction if you can price more aggressively like you've done in some of the harvest buckets.

凱特，歡迎加入我們的團隊。所以關於培養桶的問題。我們看到過去幾個季度下降了 7% 或 8% 左右。也許你可以幫助我們了解其中有多少是由於替代或蠶食到其他桶，如增長。您認為其中有多少可能是自然界中最終可能流失的更多遺留物？如果你能像在一些收穫桶中所做的那樣更積極地定價，是否有機會將這一軌跡轉向更好的方向。

Yes. I'll take that. So the harvest bucket declines have been aided, in part, by rerate activity. So part of what we're doing there is looking at what can we do on cost, what can we do on managing rerates. The benefits of kind of shifting more into growth, I would say, really haven't started yet. That's got a lot more life in it as we've gotten into 2023. So I would say that, that's yet to come.

是的。我會接受的。因此，重新評級活動在一定程度上助長了收穫桶的下降。因此，我們正在做的部分工作是研究我們可以在成本方面做些什麼，我們可以在管理重新評級方面做些什麼。我想說，更多地轉向增長的好處還沒有真正開始。隨著我們進入 2023 年，它有更多的生命。所以我會說，那還沒有到來。

As it relates to nurture, there's really not been much in the way of rerate activity there. I think that's something we can do. And nurture is probably the harder of the 2 because if you think about something like VPN, we have a lot of customers that like the VPN they have or they've recently signed VPN contracts because it meets their need today. It's really the VPN customers that are more at an end of contract and don't want to continue with that where we have the opportunity.

由於它與培養有關，因此重新評估活動的方式實際上並不多。我認為這是我們可以做的事情。培養可能是兩者中較難的一個，因為如果你考慮像 VPN 這樣的東西，我們有很多客戶喜歡他們擁有的 VPN，或者他們最近簽署了 VPN 合同，因為它滿足了他們今天的需求。實際上，更多的是 VPN 客戶在合同到期時不想繼續我們有機會的合同。

So we've got to get a little more clarity around what we think those longer-term growth rates can look like. We have an opinion on that. I think it's a little early to share that, but that's something we would certainly provide some more color on at the Investor Day.

因此，我們必須更清楚地了解我們認為這些長期增長率會是什麼樣子。我們對此有意見。我認為現在分享這一點還為時過早，但我們肯定會在投資者日提供更多色彩。

Our final question is from the line of Brett Feldman from Goldman Sachs.

我們的最後一個問題來自高盛的 Brett Feldman。

Welcome, Kate. If I go back to the deck and you talk about sort of the updated fiber addressability opportunity, the 8 million to 10 million locations, when that's complete, that would still represent, I think, a little less than half of the locations that are in your land mine footprint at this point in time. How are you thinking about managing the portion of the footprint that's not on the upgrade path? Is there a meaningful amount of revenue and EBITDA coming out of those markets right now? And there's obviously a lot of legacy fixed costs embedded in that area. Is that something you can start taking out now? Or is it going to be a little further down the road when you get those savings?

歡迎，凱特。如果我回到甲板上，你談論某種更新的光纖可尋址機會，即 800 萬到 1000 萬個位置，當它完成時，我認為這仍然代表了不到一半的位置您此時的地雷足跡。您如何考慮管理不在升級路徑上的佔用空間部分？這些市場現在是否有大量收入和 EBITDA？很明顯，該領域存在大量遺留固定成本。那是你現在可以開始拿出來的東西嗎？或者當您獲得這些儲蓄時，它會走得更遠嗎？

Yes, I'll take that, Brett. The -- when you look at our existing footprint, we've obviously still got a lot of areas that are rural. And as we've said, our plans for Quantum are dense urban areas and major metros, and that remains. We're not going to be looking to run fiber to lower density areas because the numbers just don't make sense.

是的，我會接受的，布雷特。 - 當您查看我們現有的足跡時，我們顯然還有很多農村地區。正如我們所說，我們對 Quantum 的計劃是密集的城市地區和主要地鐵，並且仍然如此。我們不打算將光纖鋪設到密度較低的區域，因為這些數字沒有意義。

As it relates to those areas, though, they -- their overall performance has been more stable than the 20 states that we've sold. So the performance there has been good. We will manage that very closely for things like rates and costs as time goes on. But at this point, those are assets that are attractive to us, and we'll continue to manage them closely.

不過，就這些領域而言，它們的整體表現比我們出售的 20 個州更穩定。所以那裡的表現一直很好。隨著時間的推移，我們將非常密切地管理諸如費率和成本之類的事情。但在這一點上，這些資產對我們有吸引力，我們將繼續密切管理它們。

Thanks, Brett. I'm going to turn it over to Kate for closing comments.

謝謝，布雷特。我將把它交給 Kate 徵求結束意見。

So I just want to say thank you for the warm welcome. For everybody, thanks for the great questions, and thanks for joining today. I hope you come away with the same level of excitement that I have for this great business. The investments we're going to make over the next couple of years are the right ones to position us for our very, very bright future. And I look forward to sharing more about the journey with you and all of our goals for the next few years when we host our Investor Day in June. And with that, we'll end the call.

所以我只想說謝謝你們的熱烈歡迎。感謝大家提出重要問題，感謝大家今天的加入。我希望你帶著我對這項偉大事業的同樣興奮程度離開。我們將在未來幾年進行的投資是為我們非常非常光明的未來做好準備的正確投資。當我們在 6 月舉辦投資者日時，我期待著與您分享更多關於旅程的信息以及我們未來幾年的所有目標。就這樣，我們將結束通話。

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

謝謝你，凱特。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。我們要求您斷開線路。祝大家有個美好的一天。