AT&T Inc (T) 2023 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to AT&T's Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) And as a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would like to turn the conference call over to our host, Mr. Amir Rozwadowski, Senior Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

感謝您的耐心等待。歡迎參加 AT&T 2023 年第三季財報電話會議。 （接線生指示）溫馨提示：本次會議正在錄音。我想將電話會議交給我們的主持人，財務和投資者關係資深副總裁 Amir Rozwadowski 先生。請開始。

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter call. I'm Amir Rozwadowski, Head of Investor Relations for AT&T. Joining me on the call today are John Stankey, our CEO; and Pascal Desroches, our CFO.

謝謝大家，早安！歡迎參加我們的第三季電話會議。我是AT&T投資者關係主管阿米爾·羅茲瓦多夫斯基（Amir Rozwadowski）。今天和我一起參加電話會議的還有我們的執行長約翰·斯坦基（John Stankey）和財務長帕斯卡爾·德羅什（Pascal Desroches）。

Before we begin, I need to call your attention to our safe harbor statement. It says that some of our comments today may be forward-looking. As such, they're subject to risks and uncertainties described in AT&T's SEC filings. Results may differ materially. Additional information, including our earnings materials, are available on the Investor Relations website.

在開始之前，我需要提醒大家注意我們的安全港聲明。聲明指出，我們今天的部分評論可能具有前瞻性。因此，這些評論可能受到 AT&T 提交給美國證券交易委員會 (SEC) 的文件中所述的風險和不確定性的影響。實際結果可能存在重大差異。更多信息，包括我們的收益材料，請訪問投資者關係網站。

With that, I'll turn the call over to John Stankey. John?

說完這些，我將把電話轉給約翰·斯坦基。約翰？

Thanks, Amir, and good morning, everyone. I appreciate you joining us. At the start of this year, we articulated a plan in which our deliberate investment in 5G and fiber would help grow our customer base in a profitable manner. Strong results we share today represent the latest proof that our strategy is working and sets us up for continued sustainable and profitable growth.

謝謝，阿米爾，大家早安。感謝各位的參與。今年年初，我們制定了一項計劃，旨在透過對5G和光纖的深度投資，以盈利的方式擴大我們的客戶群。今天我們分享的強勁業績再次證明了我們的策略正在奏效，並為我們持續可持續的獲利成長奠定了基礎。

We're meeting rising data demand with best-in-class 5G and fiber solutions. This is not only expanding our durable customer base but also delivering attractive returns. The results we're seeing only strengthen our conviction in continuing to invest to bring these next-generation technologies to even more Americans. We're tracking in line to meet or beat our consolidated financial targets. And we're raising our full year adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow guidance today. Our goal has been to invest and grow the business in a manner that progressively differentiates the AT&T asset base in our industry, and we're doing exactly that.

我們正以一流的5G和光纖解決方案滿足日益增長的數據需求。這不僅擴大了我們長期的客戶群，也帶來了豐厚的回報。我們所看到的成果更加堅定了我們繼續投資，將這些下一代技術帶給更多美國人的信念。我們正在努力實現甚至超越合併財務目標。今天，我們上調了全年調整後EBITDA和自由現金流預期。我們的目標是投資和發展業務，逐步提升AT&T在業界的資產基礎，而我們也正在這樣做。

In wireless, our consistent go-to-market approach continues to expand our base of high-value subscribers. Our results show that our best deal for everyone approach continues to resonate with customers. For example, in September, we saw the strongest iPhone preorders we've had in many years despite competing promotions with higher subsidies allowing lower-value device trade-ins. This is a testament to both the simplicity of our offers and the strength of our consistent and straightforward value proposition as well as the quality of our network.

在無線領域，我們一貫的市場導向策略持續拓展著我們的高價值用戶群。我們的業績表明，我們為每個人提供最優價格的策略持續獲得客戶的認可。例如，儘管競爭對手推出了更高的補貼，允許低價值設備以舊換新，但9月份的iPhone預訂量仍創下多年來的新高。這不僅證明了我們服務的簡潔性，也證明了我們始終如一、直截了當的價值主張的強大力量，以及我們卓越的網路品質。

The tale of the tape is clear. Customers are staying with us longer and spending more with us. Just take a look at our consistent low churn, increasing ARPUs and improving returns. Why? Because we're providing more value to customers. For example, the vast majority of people taking our iPhone promotions are signing up for our highest value plans even though it's not a promo requirement. In fact, our highest value unlimited plan is our fastest growing plan.

故事的脈絡清晰可見。客戶在我們這裡停留的時間更長，消費也更多。只要看看我們持續的低客戶流失率、不斷成長的ARPU（每用戶平均收入）和不斷提升的回報率就知道了。為什麼？因為我們為客戶提供了更多價值。例如，絕大多數參加我們iPhone促銷活動的客戶都選擇了我們價值最高的套餐，儘管這並不是促銷活動的必要條件。事實上，我們價值最高的無限流量套餐是我們成長最快的套餐。

In addition, our network has never been better in terms of its size and quality as we continue to enhance the largest wireless network in North America and expand the nation's most reliable 5G network. It's no surprise that when you combine our high-value customer growth and rising revenues per user, we continue to grow profits in our wireless business as evidenced by our highest ever EBITDA on record.

此外，隨著我們持續增強北美最大的無線網絡，並擴展全美最可靠的5G網絡，我們的網絡規模和品質也達到了前所未有的高度。高價值客戶的成長和每用戶收入的不斷增長，將無線業務的利潤持續增長也就不足為奇了，我們創下歷史新高的EBITDA（息稅折舊攤銷前利潤）就是明證。

Turning to fiber. The story remains the same. Where we build fiber, we win. We win by delivering the undisputed best broadband solution on the planet, improving our brand position, gaining broadband share and by improving our mobile share.

說到光纖。故事依舊如故。哪裡有光纖，哪裡就有勝利。我們透過提供全球無可爭議的最佳寬頻解決方案、提升品牌地位、贏得寬頻市場份額以及提升行動市場份額來贏得勝利。

Our strategy is working. We just delivered nearly 300,000 high-quality net adds this quarter against a muted backdrop of household move activity. In addition, the returns on our fiber investment continued to improve from our initial assumptions. We're exceeding our expectations for penetration in new markets. Additionally, the accretive mix shift to higher-value fiber plans has driven our fiber ARPU up nearly 9% year-over-year. Look no further than how fiber is fueling a surge in broadband revenue growth.

我們的策略正在奏效。在家庭遷移活動低迷的背景下，本季我們剛剛實現了近30萬個高品質用戶淨增。此外，我們的光纖投資報酬率持續高於我們最初的預期。我們在新市場的滲透率超出了預期。此外，向更高價值光纖套餐的增值組合轉變，推動我們的光纖ARPU年增近9%。光纖如何推動寬頻收入激增，這點毋庸置疑。

Consumer Wireline has transformed from a declining business to one that is delivering strong, consistent growth. We offer a superior product that has room to improve on all the levers that drive margin performance as we scale. No matter where we put fiber, we're the preferred broadband provider. In August, we selectively launched AT&T Internet Air, our fixed wireless product. We view this service as yet another tool in our connectivity toolbox. While it will primarily act as a targeted catch product, we've been pleased with the positive early reception and have already added about 25,000 subscribers pushing us back into positive territory for overall net broadband growth of 15,000 subscribers in the quarter.

消費者有線業務已從衰退的業務轉型為強勁且持續成長的業務。我們提供卓越的產品，並且在所有推動利潤率成長的槓桿上，隨著業務規模的擴大，仍有提升空間。無論我們將光纖部署到何處，我們都是首選的寬頻供應商。 8月，我們選擇性地推出了我們的固定無線產品AT&T Internet Air。我們將這項服務視為我們連接工具箱中的另一個利器。雖然它主要將作為一款定向投放產品，但我們對早期的積極反響感到滿意，並已新增約2.5萬名用戶，這使我們重回正軌，本季度整體寬頻淨增長用戶數達1.5萬名。

Meanwhile, we're only in the very early stages of reaping the long-term benefits from the inevitable convergence of 5G and fiber. Where we've deployed fiber, we're seeing a tick in Mobility growth. Additionally, AT&T customers with fiber and wireless service have our lowest churn and the highest lifetime values to match. As the one player scaling both wireless and fiber networks, we're well positioned to be the provider of choice for the ubiquitous connectivity that consumers want. And importantly, we're positioned to do this at the lowest unit economic costs, establishing a long runway for sustainable returns.

同時，我們才剛開始從5G和光纖不可避免的融合中獲益。在我們部署光纖的地方，我們看到行動業務正在穩步成長。此外，擁有光纖和無線服務的AT&T客戶擁有最低的流失率和最高的生命週期價值。作為唯一同時擴展無線和光纖網路的供應商，我們完全有能力成為消費者所需的無處不在的連接首選提供者。更重要的是，我們有能力以最低的單位經濟成本實現這一目標，從而為可持續的回報奠定長期基礎。

As we advance our network capabilities, we're powering experiences built for the high-speed connected everywhere world we now live in. One example is our work with Cisco to deliver the next evolution and collaboration for those working on the go. By tapping into the fast speeds and low latency of 5G, we seamlessly extended [web-in] calling capabilities to mobile phones, simplifying connectivity for a mobile workforce. We feel strongly that this is just the beginning of what's possible. At the same time that we're reinvigorating customer growth, we are also operating more efficiently across our business. This is a core component of the 120 basis point margin improvement we saw in adjusted EBITDA compared to the third quarter of 2022.

隨著我們網路能力的提升，我們正在為如今這個高速互聯的世界提供更豐富的體驗。例如，我們與思科合作，為行動辦公室人士提供新一代網路演進和協作。利用5G的高速和低延遲，我們將[網路存取]通話功能無縫擴展到手機，簡化了行動辦公室人員的連接。我們堅信，這只是一個開始，未來將無限可能。在重振客戶成長的同時，我們的業務營運效率也在提升。這是我們調整後息稅折舊攤提前利潤率較2022年第三季提升120個基點的核心因素。

You can also see the benefits of our $1.5 billion of incremental cash from operations over the first 3 quarters compared to the same period a year ago. We're off to a strong start as we execute on our plan to generate $2 billion plus of incremental cost savings within the next 3 years, and we're confident in our ability to achieve this goal. We're executing our legacy wireline transformation as we scale our 5G and fiber networks. Over time, we expect this evolution to drive significant operating efficiencies as we sunset legacy infrastructure that no longer meets our customers' needs.

您還可以看到，與去年同期相比，我們前三個季度新增的15億美元營運現金流帶來了許多好處。我們開局良好，正在執行未來三年內實現20億美元以上增量成本節約的計劃，並且我們對實現這一目標充滿信心。我們正在推動傳統有線網路的轉型，同時擴展5G和光纖網路。隨著時間的推移，我們預計，隨著我們逐步淘汰不再滿足客戶需求的傳統基礎設施，這項轉型將顯著提升營運效率。

We're also aligning our operating footprint and work environment to mirror our streamlining focus on 5G and fiber. These steps are important enablers to further improve our collaboration, eliminate organizational redundancies and fully utilize the innovative technologies that improve how we work. And while we're still in the very early stages of generative AI, we're already seeing tangible AI-driven improvements in productivity and cost savings. Measurable progress has been made with lowering customer support costs, unlocking software development efficiencies and improving our network design effectiveness. We expect these capabilities to play a key role in our continued efforts to achieve our future cost savings objectives.

我們也正在調整營運佈局和工作環境，以反映我們對5G和光纖的精簡重點。這些措施對於進一步改善協作、消除組織冗餘以及充分利用改善工作方式的創新技術至關重要。儘管我們仍處於生成式人工智慧的早期階段，但我們已經看到人工智慧在生產力和成本節約方面帶來的實際提升。在降低客戶支援成本、提升軟體開發效率和改善網路設計效率方面，我們已經取得了顯著進展。我們期待這些能力將在我們持續努力實現未來成本節約目標的過程中發揮關鍵作用。

This takes us to the final priority, and that's how we're putting our improving operating leverage to work. In the third quarter, we reduced our net debt by more than $3 billion and are on track to achieve our 2.5x net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA target by the first half of 2025. Less net debt allows us to continue investing in AT&T's durable connectivity businesses and enhance our ability to deliver additional shareholder returns, once we reach our long-term target.

這引出了我們最後一個優先事項，那就是如何將不斷提升的營運槓桿發揮作用。第三季度，我們的淨債務減少了30多億美元，預計在2025年上半年實現淨債務與調整後EBITDA比率達到2.5倍的目標。減少淨債務使我們能夠繼續投資於AT&T的持久連接業務，並在達到長期目標後，增強我們為股東帶來更多回報的能力。

Our focus remains steady on allocating capital to create best-in-class experiences for customers, drive sustainable, profitable growth and deliver long-term value for shareholders. Over the last few years, our investment-led strategy has delivered tangible benefits to and financial returns from our growing and high-value customer pool in both Mobility and broadband.

我們始終專注於資本配置，為客戶打造一流的體驗，推動永續的獲利成長，並為股東創造長期價值。過去幾年，我們以投資為主導的策略，為我們在行動和寬頻領域不斷增長的高價值客戶群帶來了切實的效益和財務回報。

We've expanded our nationwide 5G network and are on track to reach 200 million people or more with mid-band 5G spectrum by the end of the year. We're also on track to pass 30 million-plus fiber locations by the end of 2025. We now have about 24 million fiber locations that we're able to serve on our network with additional opportunities to provide service through our GigaPower joint venture with BlackRock or BEAD funding opportunities. Given the returns we're seeing, we continue to believe leaning into attractive return profile of 5G in the fiber business makes strategic and economic sense. At the same time, we remain committed to our dividend payout level and expect its credit quality to consistently improve.

我們已擴展了覆蓋全國的5G網絡，並預計在今年年底前透過中頻段5G頻譜覆蓋2億或更多用戶。我們也有望在2025年底前將光纖覆蓋點數突破3,000萬個。目前，我們的網路已覆蓋約2400萬個光纖覆蓋點，並且我們還有機會透過與貝萊德成立的GigaPower合資公司或BEAD融資機會提供服務。鑑於我們所看到的回報，我們仍然相信，在光纖業務中，選擇5G極具吸引力的回報組合具有戰略和經濟意義。同時，我們將繼續致力於維持股息支付水平，並預期其信用品質將持續改善。

In fact, we've already generated more than enough cash to meet our annualized dividend even before the fourth quarter, which is generally our highest cash generation quarter. Demand for better and faster broadband connectivity has grown exponentially. With the largest wireless network in North America and as the nation's largest fiber Internet provider, we're providing best-in-class 5G and fiber services to meet that demand. It's clear the fundamentals of our business have never been stronger. They'll only grow stronger as we continue to scale our networks, simplify our customers' connected lives and deepen our engagement with them.

事實上，即使在第四季之前，我們就已經創造了足夠的現金來支付年度股息，而第四季通常是我們現金產生最高的季度。對更好、更快的寬頻連線的需求呈指數級增長。憑藉北美最大的無線網路和全美最大的光纖網路供應商，我們正提供一流的5G和光纖服務來滿足這項需求。顯然，我們業務的基本面從未如此強勁。隨著我們繼續擴展網路規模、簡化客戶的互聯生活並深化與客戶的互動，我們的業務基礎只會變得更加強大。

With that, I'll turn it over to Pascal. Pascal?

說完這些，我就把麥克風交給帕斯卡了。帕斯卡？

Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone. As John discussed, we're driving great returns on our 5G and fiber investments, as you can see on Slide 5. The favorable trend in our wireless and broadband businesses continue. We're growing subscribers, ARPUs and margins in both wireless and broadband, and we're taking out costs. Our strategy is working and gives us confidence to raise guidance today. I will discuss this in more detail later on.

謝謝，約翰。大家早安。正如約翰所說，我們在5G和光纖投資方面取得了豐厚的回報，正如您在第五張幻燈片上看到的那樣。我們的無線和寬頻業務持續保持良好勢頭。我們的無線和寬頻用戶數量、ARPU（每用戶平均收入）和利潤率都在成長，而且成本也在降低。我們的策略正在奏效，這讓我們有信心今天上調業績指引。稍後我將更詳細地討論這一點。

Now let's move to our third quarter financial summary on Slide 6. Consolidated revenues were up 1% in the third quarter, largely driven by growth in wireless service and fiber revenues. These increases were partially offset by an expected decline in business wireline. Adjusted EBITDA was up 4.6% for the quarter with growth in Mobility, Consumer Wireline and Mexico. This was partially offset by an expected decrease in Business Wireline. In fact, due to our increased revenue growth and overachievement in cost savings, we now expect to grow adjusted EBITDA by better than 4% versus our prior guidance of 3% plus.

現在我們來看看投影片6上的第三季財務摘要。第三季綜合營收成長1%，主要得益於無線服務和光纖收入的成長。這些成長部分被商業有線業務的預期下滑所抵消。本季調整後EBITDA成長4.6%，主要得益於行動業務、消費者有線業務及墨西哥業務的成長。這部分被商業有線業務的預期下滑所抵消。事實上，由於我們收入成長的加速和成本節約的超額完成，我們現在預計調整後EBITDA的成長將超過4%，而我們先前的預期是3%以上。

Adjusted EPS was $0.64 compared to $0.68 in the year-ago quarter. This includes about $0.08 of noncash aggregated EPS headwinds from lower pension credits, lower capitalized interest, higher effective tax rate and lower DIRECTV equity income, all of which we expected. Cash from operating activities was $10.3 billion in the quarter and $26.9 billion year-to-date. This is an increase of $1.5 billion year-to-date primarily driven by higher receipts due to revenue growth and lower disbursements, including personnel costs and device maintenance. This growth comes at the same time as we saw a lower year-over-year net impact of receivable sales of about $1 billion year-to-date and higher cash taxes of about $350 million year-to-date. This shows the underlying strength of the organic cash flow occurring in our business.

調整後每股收益為 0.64 美元，而去年同期為 0.68 美元。這包括約 0.08 美元的非現金每股收益不利因素，這些不利因素包括退休金抵免減少、資本化利息減少、有效稅率上升以及 DIRECTV 股權收益減少，這些均在我們預期之內。本季經營活動產生的現金為 103 億美元，年初至今為 269 億美元。年初至今增加 15 億美元，主要原因是收入成長導致收入增加以及支出減少（包括人事成本和設備維護費用）。同時，我們看到年初至今應收帳款銷售額的淨影響較去年同期下降約 10 億美元，而現金稅增加約 3.5 億美元。這顯示我們業務中有機現金流的潛在實力。

Capital investment was $5.6 billion in the quarter. This reflects continued historically high levels of investments in 5G and fiber. We expect to move past elevated capital investment levels as we exit the year. We feel really good about free cash flow of $5.2 billion in the quarter. Through the first 3 quarters, our free cash flow was $10.4 billion, up $2.4 billion versus the same period a year ago. We're also now tracking to about $16.5 billion free cash flow for the full year.

本季資本投資為56億美元。這反映了我們在5G和光纖領域的投資持續保持歷史高點。我們預計，到年底，資本投資將再創歷史新高。我們對本季52億美元的自由現金流感到非常滿意。前三個季度，我們的自由現金流為104億美元，比去年同期成長了24億美元。目前，我們預計全年自由現金流約為165億美元。

Now let's turn to our Mobility results on the next slide. Looking at our Mobility results, postpaid phone net adds were 468,000. Total revenues and operating income in our largest business unit are at all-time highs. Revenues were up 2%, and service revenues were up 3.7%. These gains were driven by subscriber growth and higher postpaid phone ARPU. Year-to-date, wireless service revenues have grown 4.6%, and we continue to feel really good about the performance of our wireless business.

現在讓我們來看看下一張投影片中的行動業務業績。行動業務的業績顯示，後付費電話淨增用戶數為46.8萬。我們最大業務部門的總收入和營業利潤均創歷史新高。收入成長了2%，服務收入成長了3.7%。這些成長主要得益於用戶成長和後付費電話ARPU的提高。年初至今，無線服務收入成長了4.6%，我們對無線業務的表現依然非常滿意。

Mobility EBITDA was up 7.6% in the quarter. Mobility postpaid phone ARPU was $55.99, up $0.32 year-over-year. The primary drivers of ARPU growth are higher ARPUs on legacy plans, a continued mix shift to higher value rate plans with higher margin and continued improvement in consumer international roaming trends. Postpaid phone churn remains low at 0.79% for the quarter. This continued low wireless churn shows our value proposition is resonating with customers. In prepaid, we had 26,000 phone net additions with total churn of 2.78% with Cricket churn substantially lower.

本季度，行動業務EBITDA成長了7.6%。行動後付費電話ARPU為55.99美元，年增0.32美元。 ARPU成長的主要驅動因素包括：傳統套餐ARPU的提高、持續向利潤率更高的高價值套餐轉型，以及消費者國際漫遊趨勢的持續改善。本季後付費電話用戶流失率維持在0.79%的低點。持續的低無線用戶流失率表明我們的價值主張正在引起客戶的共鳴。預付費方面，我們新增了2.6萬支手機，總用戶流失率為2.78%，其中Cricket用戶流失率顯著降低。

Let's move to the next slide in our wireline results. Our fiber investment is driving Consumer Wireline growth and strong returns. We added 296,000 fiber customers in the quarter. The consistency of fiber's appeal continues to shine as we've now added more than 200,000 fiber net adds for 15 straight quarters. We've also seen measurable improvement in fiber churn year-over-year despite recent pricing actions. This highlights the superior product and experience that customers consistently receive with fiber. Strong fiber revenue growth of about 27% drove total broadband revenues up nearly 10% year-over-year. Fiber ARPU was $68.21, up about 9%. Customers are increasingly choosing faster speed tiers, which is also supporting ARPU growth.

讓我們來看看下一張有線業務業績投影片。我們的光纖投資正在推動消費者有線業務的成長和強勁回報。本季度，我們新增了29.6萬光纖客戶。光纖的持續吸引力持續凸顯，我們已連續15季淨增加超過20萬光纖客戶。儘管近期採取了價格調整措施，但我們的光纖客戶流失率較去年同期仍顯著改善。這凸顯了客戶始終如一地透過光纖獲得的卓越產品和體驗。光纖營收強勁成長約27%，頻寬寬頻總營收年增近10%。光纖ARPU為68.21美元，成長約9%。越來越多的客戶選擇更快的網速，這也支持了ARPU的成長。

Consumer Wireline EBITDA grew 9.4% on the strength of fiber revenue growth. Given the better-than-expected broadband revenue we've achieved so far this year, we now expect to deliver 7%-plus broadband revenue growth for the year. Additionally, our AT&T Internet Air product is off to a solid start. As we expand our service to select new markets, we're confident it will serve as a strong catch product as we continue to sunset our legacy copper services.

由於光纖收入的強勁成長，消費者有線業務的息稅折舊攤提前利潤 (EBITDA) 成長了 9.4%。鑑於今年迄今我們寬頻收入優於預期，我們預計今年寬頻收入將成長 7% 以上。此外，我們的 AT&T Internet Air 產品開局良好。隨著我們不斷將服務拓展到新的市場，我們相信，在我們繼續淘汰傳統銅線服務的同時，它將成為一款強勁的搶手產品。

Turning to Business Wireline. EBITDA was down $268 million year-over-year. Overall, Business Wireline remains in transition as we move from offering legacy products to next-generation connectivity products. If you take a step back, the overall picture of our business franchise looks somewhat different when you include the increasing strategic importance of business wireless to these very same accounts. Wireless service revenue was up 7%, benefiting from continued growth in postpaid wireless subscribers and connected devices. As the transition to electric vehicles continues, we expect a tailwind from our consistent success in connected cars since EVs consume more data bandwidth.

再來看看Business Wireline。 EBITDA年減2.68億美元。總體而言，Business Wireline仍在轉型，我們正在從提供傳統產品轉向提供下一代連接產品。如果退一步來看，考慮到Business Wireless對這些客戶日益增長的策略重要性，我們業務特許經營的整體情況會有所不同。無線服務收入成長了7%，這得益於後付費無線用戶和連網裝置的持續成長。隨著向電動車轉型的持續推進，我們預計連網汽車領域的持續成功將帶來順風，因為電動車消耗的數據頻寬更大。

Connectivity solutions are also growing in the high single digits due to momentum with fiber as we make it available for more small- to medium-sized businesses. And total business solutions year-to-date, EBITDA is down slightly year-over-year as growth in wireless is largely offsetting declines in wireline. At the end of the day, we see the same underlying trends we see year-to-date with Business Wireline EBITDA, and we now expect low double-digit declines for the full year.

由於光纖業務的強勁成長，我們為更多中小型企業提供光纖服務，連接解決方案也實現了高個位數成長。年初至今，整體商業解決方案的息稅折舊攤銷前利潤 (EBITDA) 年比略有下降，因為無線業務的成長在很大程度上抵消了有線業務的下滑。最終，我們看到了與年初至今商業有線業務 EBITDA 相同的基本趨勢，我們目前預計全年將出現低兩位數的降幅。

Now before I close, I'd like to quickly provide an update on the progress we're making on improving the flexibility of our balance sheet. As a result of our strong cash generation, we're on track to achieve our net debt reduction target for the year. In addition to debt reduction and liability management we discussed last quarter, we have also incrementally reduced our short-term direct supplier and vendor financing obligations in the third quarter, and we expect to continue to do so in the fourth quarter.

在結束之前，我想快速介紹一下我們在提升資產負債表彈性方面的最新進展。由於我們強勁的現金創造能力，我們有望實現今年的淨債務削減目標。除了上個季度討論過的債務削減和負債管理之外，我們還在第三季度逐步減少了短期直接供應商和供應商融資義務，預計第四季將繼續減少。

As a reminder, the pay down of these obligations is a headwind to free cash flows. We are reducing these liabilities in a high interest rate environment, which will help contain our cash interest costs. Therefore, I'm really pleased that we're doing this while still exceeding our initial free cash flow targets for the year. In addition, lowering our financing obligations should enable a more ratable quarterly cadence of our free cash flow in 2024. As we think about our debt mature towers for the next few years, we feel we are in a solid position and expect to address near-term maturities as they come due with cash on hand.

提醒一下，償還這些債務會對自由現金流造成不利影響。我們在高利率環境下減少這些債務，這將有助於控制我們的現金利息成本。因此，我很高興我們能夠做到這一點，同時仍然超額完成今年最初的自由現金流目標。此外，降低融資債務應該能夠使我們在2024年實現更合理的季度自由現金流分配節奏。考慮到未來幾年的債務到期情況，我們認為自己目前處於穩健的狀況，並預計可以利用手頭現金來應對即將到期的短期債務。

We had more than $9 billion of cash equivalents and interest-bearing deposits on hand at the end of the quarter. In this high rate environment, we find ourselves in the enviable position of being able to earn more on this cash than the cost of our long-term debt. It is also important to remember that more than 95% of our long-term debt is fixed at an average rate of 4.2%, and a weighted average maturity of 16 years. The financial structure I've outlined improves our financial flexibility and ensures we remain in an advantageous position with respect to our cost of capital. Our expectations for growing free cash flow and reducing our debt as it comes due only further improve that position.

截至本季末，我們持有超過90億美元的現金等價物和計息存款。在當前高利率環境下，我們擁有令人稱羨的優勢，能夠利用這些現金獲得高於長期債務成本的收益。同樣重要的是，我們超過95%的長期債務的平均利率為4.2%，加權平均期限為16年。我概述的財務結構提高了我們的財務靈活性，並確保我們在資本成本方面保持優勢。我們對增加自由現金流和減少到期債務的預期，只會進一步改善我們的這一優勢。

To close, I'd just like to emphasize I could not be happier with what our team has achieved this year. We are very pleased with our operating results as our business fundamentals are largely exceeding our expectations. As John mentioned, we articulate the plan in which we expected to grow customers in a profitable manner, and we're on track to deliver just that.

最後，我想強調的是，我對我們團隊今年的成就感到非常高興。我們對營運業績非常滿意，因為我們的業務基本面遠超預期。正如約翰所說，我們清晰地闡述了我們期望以盈利的方式增加客戶數量的計劃，並且我們正在按計劃實現這一目標。

That concludes my remarks this morning. Let me hand it over to Amir to open it up for Q&A. Amir?

我今天早上的發言到此結束。現在請阿米爾開始問答環節。阿米爾？

Thank you very much, Pascal. Operator, we'll take the first question.

非常感謝，帕斯卡。接線員，我們來回答第一個問題。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員指示）

Our first question will come from the line of Brett Feldman of Goldman Sachs.

我們的第一個問題來自高盛的布雷特·費爾德曼。

Two, if you don't mind. The first one is, I was hoping we could get your early insights on what drives the uptake of Internet Air, the demo where it's resonating. And I'm also curious how you are deciding which of your in-region markets where it makes sense to launch that product, and maybe whether you're starting to reconsider whether there's opportunities to identify the same conditions out of region? And then just a question for Pascal. I'm curious why you did not increase your adjusted EPS guidance for the year in conjunction with your EBITDA guidance?

如果您不介意的話，我想問兩個問題。首先，我希望我們能提前了解您關於推動 Internet Air 普及的因素以及它在演示中引起共鳴的原因。另外，我還想知道您是如何決定在哪個區域市場推出產品的？您是否開始重新考慮是否有機會在區域外找到相同的條件？然後我想問帕斯卡一個問題：為什麼您沒有同時上調本年度調整後每股收益和息稅折舊攤銷前利潤的指引？

Nothing's changed in our approach to Internet Air. I think I'd start with the second part of your question, and I'm going to articulate exactly how we see the product being used within our business moving forward. So we don't necessarily distinguish that there's application of the product out of region just as there is in region, although they're a little bit different. I said before I have no issue selling Internet Air into the business segment. It's a really attractive thing for us to do. It's a really helpful product on a number of different fronts. It meets a particular need.

我們對 Internet Air 的策略沒有任何改變。我想先從你問題的第二部分開始，然後我會詳細闡述我們對該產品未來在我們業務中的應用的看法。因此，我們並不一定區分該產品在區域外和區域內的應用，儘管它們略有不同。我之前說過，我對將 Internet Air 銷售給業務部門沒有任何問題。這對我們來說非常有吸引力。它在很多方面都是一款非常有用的產品。它滿足了我們特定的需求。

I've shared with you that given what businesses pay for broadband and the other incremental services you can layer on top of them that allows them to have a higher take or a higher ARPU. And their usage characteristics that makes the profitability of serving the product in that segment different than it is in, say, a consumer household with four people that's streaming video all day long. And so we will continue to find opportunities to do that. We have some markets out of region where we're underpenetrated. We have a lot of network valve capacity that we can use. We'll selectively look at opportunities to do that where it makes sense to do that.

我之前跟大家分享過，考慮到企業支付的寬頻費用以及其他增值服務，你可以在這些服務的基礎上疊加其他服務，從而提高他們的收入或每用戶平均收入 (ARPU)。這些服務的使用特點也決定了在該細分市場中提供服務的盈利能力，不同於為一個全天觀看串流媒體影片的四口之家提供服務。因此，我們將繼續尋找機會。我們在一些區域外的市場滲透率較低。我們擁有大量的網路容量可供利用。我們會選擇性地尋找機會，在合理的情況下開展這項業務。

I wouldn't tell you that's the dominant driver in region and where we've been putting a lot of time and energy. We start with our customers first. We have a lot of longstanding loyal customers that have been with us. They've been buying bundled services from us, and we can give them a better service on Internet Air than we could possibly on the existing infrastructure that's in place, that is generally going to be infrastructure that we're going to be replacing in fairly short order with fiber.

我不認為這是該地區的主要驅動力，我們在這方面投入了大量的時間和精力。我們先從客戶出發。我們有很多長期的忠實客戶。他們一直在購買我們的捆綁服務，而且我們在 Internet Air 上能為他們提供比現有基礎設施更好的服務，而這些基礎設施我們很快就會被光纖取代。

And so as a holding strategy, we may apply the product, in that case, to hold that customer with a better service experience because they're a high-value customer. It allows us to move into our process of shutting down infrastructure in places where we need to ultimately pull out costs, and shut our network and infrastructure, and it becomes a tool in allowing us to do that. And so that's how we intend to use it. And we'll use it, as I said, on a very careful, surgical and target basis. But it really hasn't changed our point of view on the product in aggregate. And Pascal can touch on the EPS issue, which I think is a pretty simple explanation.

因此，作為一種留存策略，我們可能會運用該產品，在這種情況下，透過更好的服務體驗來留住該客戶，因為他們是高價值客戶。它使我們能夠在最終需要降低成本的地方關閉基礎設施，關閉我們的網路和基礎設施，它成為我們實現這一目標的工具。這就是我們打算使用它的方式。正如我所說，我們會非常謹慎、精準、有針對性地使用它。但它實際上並沒有改變我們對產品的整體看法。帕斯卡可以談談每股盈餘的問題，我認為這是一個非常簡單的解釋。

Brett, here's what I would say. First and foremost, don't read too much into this. We couldn't be happier with the performance of the overall company. And remember, when we gave EPS guidance, we gave a pretty broad range, a $0.10 range. I think it's fair to say we are tracking towards the upper end of that range. But there's more variability in things like capitalized interest, noncash pensions. So it's really just a question on our part but all in all, we feel really good about the overall performance of the business.

布雷特，我想說的是：首先，不要過度解讀。我們對公司整體的業績非常滿意。別忘了，我們給的每股盈餘指引範圍很廣，大概在0.10美元左右。我認為，我們目前正朝著這個範圍的上限靠攏。但資本化利息、非現金退休金等方面的波動性較大。所以這其實只是我們自己的問題，但總的來說，我們對公司的整體表現非常滿意。

Our next question will come from the line of Simon Flannery of Morgan Stanley.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的西蒙·弗蘭納裡。

Great. I wonder if we could dig into the fiber and the broadband growth. That 9% ARPU growth is very impressive. Can you just aggregate that a little bit more and then help us understand what's the kind of the take-up of these higher-end tiers and how much further can this growth continue? And then perhaps talk a little bit about DIRECTV and how you see that evolving over time. And how are you thinking about your various strategic options around that?

太好了。我想我們能否深入探討光纖和寬頻的成長情況。 9% 的 ARPU 成長非常令人印象深刻。您能否再詳細總結一下，幫助我們了解這些高端服務的普及情況，以及這種成長還能持續多久？然後，能否談談 DIRECTV，以及您如何看待它的長期發展？您是如何考慮圍繞它的各種策略選擇的？

Simon, I don't know if I'll be able to give you the exact number you want. But what I will tell you is the ARPU growth is being driven largely by migration into higher speed plans where customers are moving up in the continuum. Plus, we've been managing the base of some of our embedded stuff at the low end with some pricing adjustments that we've made that's helped. So the spread from bottom to top of the customer base is a little tighter spread than it used to be, in aggregate. But by and large, we've got customers that are choosing to migrate up on speed. And I would tell you, there's a long way for that to run because, as you know as we're deploying today, you had a minimum on the new build, we're putting on 5-gig networks.

Simon，我不知道能否給出您想要的確切數字。但我可以告訴您的是，ARPU 的成長主要得益於客戶向更高速度套餐的遷移，他們正在逐步提升網路速度。此外，我們一直在管理一些低端嵌入式產品的基數，並進行了一些價格調整，這很有幫助。因此，總體而言，客戶群從低端到高端的價差比以前略小。但總的來說，我們有一些客戶正在選擇升級網速。我想告訴您，這還有很長的路要走，因為正如您所知，我們今天正在部署，新網路的最低配置是 5G 網路。

And so we've got a lot of customers that have a lot of room to go from maybe their migration into a 1-gig product and ultimately moving up to a 2.5- or 5-gig product as their needs adjust and when they decide they want to do that. So I would also tell you when you look at where we're selling on average price per bit relative to others in the industry, we tend to sell at a bit of a discount, which we're okay with right now. I've outlined before why we think that's a pretty decent strategy at this juncture and allows us to get the faster penetration the way we want to do it. And I think it's also going to help as we move into some bundling strategies moving forward that we -- it gives us a lot of opportunity and flexibility as to how we think about putting those products together without taking any margin erosion in the approach.

因此，我們有很多客戶，他們有很大的發展空間，可以從遷移到 1GB 產品，最終隨著需求的調整和決定升級到 2.5GB 或 5GB 產品。所以我還要告訴大家，當你看到我們相對於業內其他公司的平均每比特價格時，我們傾向於以略低的價格出售，目前我們對此感到滿意。我之前已經解釋過，為什麼我們認為在當前這個關鍵時刻這是一個相當不錯的策略，它使我們能夠以我們想要的方式更快地實現滲透。而且我認為，隨著我們逐步轉向一些捆綁策略，這也會有所幫助——它為我們提供了很大的機會和靈活性，讓我們可以考慮如何將這些產品組合在一起，而不會在過程中造成任何利潤損失。

So I feel really good that we've got a lot of headroom. I think I would also point out that on the expense side of the equation, we are still scaling. You see it happening each quarter. We're getting better, but in a lot of these metropolitan areas that we're building, we're not quite at optimal scale yet. That's where our build is focused and we move forward, which is to fill in and make sure that we get footprints in numbers of homes passed and workforce sizing that is kind of in an optimal structure. And when we do that, we take cost per down as a result of that. We take cost per down in our acquisition costs. We take cost per down in our ongoing maintenance cost. So you should also understand that from a margin accretion perspective, it's not just about driving the ARPU up. It's about us also getting more efficient and effective on the cost line of how we operate that business.

所以我很高興我們有很大的發展空間。我想指出的是，在費用方面，我們仍在擴張。你可以看到每個季度都在發生這種情況。我們正在變得更好，但在我們正在建立的許多大都市地區，我們還沒有達到最佳規模。這就是我們的建設重點，我們將繼續前進，確保我們在覆蓋的房屋數量和員工規模方面取得進展，並達到最佳結構。當我們做到這一點時，我們會相應地降低單位成本。我們將單位成本計入購置成本。我們將單位成本計入持續維護成本。所以，你應該明白，從利潤率成長的角度來看，這不僅是提高每位用戶平均收入 (ARPU)，也是為了讓我們在營運業務的成本上更有效率和更有效。

On DTV, we're running the business incredibly well. It's generating the cash that our partnership was designed to generate. The team is very focused on what they're doing. The plan for the first 2 years that we've been in is basically not only track to what we expected but has outperformed what we expected. I think the focus in that mature business has been really good. We're very satisfied with the trajectory of how it's operating. We're extremely satisfied with how the management team is executing the plan that we set up. They're very focused on what their mission is over the next couple of years. My point of view is we continue to run the play we set up. Something else came along that made sense, fine, we'd examine it. But right now, our management team is focused on operating the business.

在數位電視方面，我們的業務運作得非常好。它正在產生我們合作計劃中預期的現金流。團隊非常專注於他們正在做的事情。我們參與的前兩年的計劃不僅基本上符合我們的預期，甚至超出了我們的預期。我認為，我們對這項成熟業務的專注度非常好。我們對它的營運軌跡非常滿意。我們對管理團隊執行我們所製定的計劃的方式也非常滿意。他們非常專注於未來幾年的使命。我的觀點是，我們會繼續按照我們設定的策略行事。如果出現其他合理的情況，我們會進行研究。但目前，我們的管理團隊專注於業務運作。

Great. Any update on the BEAD process?

太好了。 BEAD 流程有什麼更新嗎？

Other than the wheels of government turn slowly, not really. It's in the process, and we've been working actively. I would say there's a couple of states that are a little bit further ahead than the other states in the country. If you want to call them bellwether, they're bellwether from the sense of that as they're getting ready to file and submit their applications, it's exposing a couple of the areas where clarification needs to occur in the process, about how the regs are to be applied, how the bids are to be evaluated. That process of getting that clarification between the industry, broadly the state and the federal government is underway. And I think that's where the action is right now. That clarification will, hopefully, allow the states that are maybe second, third, fourth in the queue to be a little bit more precise in their applications. And I suspect that once some of these issues are resolved, there'll be a little less back and forth and a little bit more of the road respond to the application and move forward.

除了政府運作緩慢之外，其實並沒有。一切都在進行中，我們一直在積極努力。我想說，有幾個州比全國其他州稍微領先一些。如果你想稱他們為領頭羊，他們之所以被稱為領頭羊，是因為他們準備提交申請時，就暴露出了一些流程中需要澄清的領域，例如如何應用法規，如何評估投標。產業、廣義上是州政府和聯邦政府之間正在進行的澄清工作。我認為現在行動就在這裡。希望這些澄清能讓那些可能排在第二、第三或第四的州在申請時更加精準。我認為，一旦這些問題解決，審批流程就會減少一些，審批流程也會更順暢，審批進度也會加快。

As I've said before, I'm not optimistic that there's customers that are paying monies on BEAD-supported infrastructure builds that impact the 2024 financial plan. I think this is going to be a 2025-plus thing when you kind of look at the aggregate portions of the build, the private capital that comes in and ultimately, customers that come on the network and start buying services that might not have been buying services before.

正如我之前所說，我並不樂觀地認為，那些為BEAD支持的基礎設施建設付費的客戶，最終會影響到2024年的財務計畫。我認為，如果從建設的總體規模、投入的私人資本，以及最終接入網路並開始購買以前可能從未購買過服務的客戶的角度來看，這將是一個2025年以後的事情。

Our next question will come from the line of John Hodulik of UBS.

我們的下一個問題來自瑞銀的 John Hodulik。

Two, if I could. First on wireless. Churn was flat sequentially despite the typical seasonality and continues to come down annually. I mean, just, John, just what are you seeing in the competitive market? Obviously, a lot of concern about what's happening from cable and through other MVNOs. So just trends you're seeing there, and maybe does that suggest that the strength that we typically see in 4Q subs will continue? And then one more, if I may, on the free cash flow. Looking out to '24, not looking for guidance at this point, but anything you can tell us about the piece parts that will drive free cash flow versus these level -- versus the '23 levels next year like CapEx? Or anything you can tell us about working cap, EBITDA or even DIRECTV or tax payments would be great.

如果可以的話，我想提兩個問題。首先是無線業務。儘管存在典型的季節性因素，但客戶流失率環比持平，並且每年都在下降。約翰，我的意思是，您在競爭激烈的市場中看到了什麼？顯然，人們對有線電視和其他行動虛擬網路營運商（MVNO）的情況非常擔憂。那麼您看到的趨勢是什麼？這是否意味著我們通常在第四季度看到的強勁用戶成長動能將持續下去？然後，如果可以的話，我想再提一個關於自由現金流的問題。展望2024年，目前我並不尋求指引，但您能否告訴我們一些能夠推動自由現金流成長的因素，例如資本支出，與明年的2023年水準相比如何？或者，您能否告訴我們一些關於營運資本、息稅折舊攤提前利潤（EBITDA）、DIRECTV或納稅的資訊？

I'd be happy to have Pascal give a non-answer on guidance for free cash flow next year, but I'm just kidding, John. We'll give you a little texture on it, I guess. On the wireless side, look, I think at the second quarter call last year or last quarter when we talked about where we were on our momentum in the market, we articulated what had occurred. We pointed back to specifically one particular account that we had, had some churn in that drove a little bit of an anomaly. We indicated to you that we felt pretty good about our momentum in the market that we expected a normalized third quarter in our performance. And I believe you can look at the tale of tape here and see that there's a normalized third quarter in our performance and nobody else has reported. But from the best of what I can glean in our mechanisms that are out of the market, we're kind of back into a ratable share position. And I think that's actually a preferred position because the way we think about this is I'm actually more interested in growing our share of revenues as opposed to just our share of raw number of customers.

我很樂意讓帕斯卡就明年自由現金流的預期給出一個非答案的答案，不過我只是開個玩笑，約翰。我想，我們會給你一些細節。至於無線業務，我記得在去年第二季或上個季度的電話會議上，我們談到我們在市場中的發展勢頭時，我們清楚地闡述了當時的情況。我們特別提到了我們擁有的一個特定帳戶，它有一些客戶流失，這導致了一些異常情況。我們向你表示，我們對市場發展勢頭感到相當滿意，我們預計第三季的業績會恢復正常。我相信你可以看看這裡的業績記錄，你會發現我們的第三季業績已經恢復正常，而其他公司還沒有公佈業績。但從我所能收集到的我們退出市場的機制來看，我們已經回到了可評級的股票狀態。我認為這實際上是一個優先地位，因為我們對此的看法是，我實際上更感興趣的是增加我們的收入份額，而不是僅僅增加我們的原始客戶數量份額。

And I think we're doing as good a job of that in the industry as anybody. We're bringing on highly accretive customers, and we continue to see our share of industry revenues improve at a better rate than the share of our actual subscriber counts, which tells me that I think we're focused on those profitable customers and bringing in the right customers. I would tell you the churn numbers, as you indicated, we're very happy with them. They're very strong. They're very solid. So despite what's being reported by MVNOs or cable, our base is incredibly stable.

我認為我們在這方面做得和業內其他公司一樣好。我們不斷吸引高增值客戶，而且我們持續看到我們在行業收入中的份額增長速度高於實際用戶數量的份額增長速度，這說明我們專注於那些盈利客戶，並且正在吸引合適的客戶。我想告訴你，正如你所指出的，我們對客戶流失率非常滿意。這個數字非常強勁，非常穩固。所以，無論行動虛擬網路營運商或有線電視公司報告什麼情況，我們的客戶群都非常穩定。

And you can see what's happening on our road side that's ultimately driving the net numbers. If you step back and think about that in aggregate, if we're growing ARPUs and if we're growing accretive customers, and if our churn is stable, look, I think I'm okay with what's going on. I think that's a good formula. And when I think about where we get ready to approach the fourth quarter, we're kind of right on plan of what we expected just to see happen. We're optimistic about the quarter. We think we're set up well in terms of our staffing levels, our positioning in the market, resources and supplies that we have. We think the product is a relevant product. So no matter what the economic environment is, I don't see anything that's going to necessarily impact the category. I think it's a very popular category for gift giving and what needs to go on. So I would expect we have a strong seasonal fourth quarter like we typically have in the industry, and I don't see that changing right now. Pascal, do you want to give some texture on free cash flow?

你可以看到我們路邊發生的事情，這最終推動了淨銷售額的成長。如果你退一步思考，從總體上看，如果我們的每位用戶平均收入 (ARPU) 在成長，如果我們的客戶數量在成長，如果我們的客戶流失率保持穩定，那麼我認為我對目前的情況還算滿意。我認為這是一個很好的公式。當我思考我們為迎接第四季所做的準備時，我們發現我們的業績基本上符合預期。我們對本季的業績持樂觀態度。我們認為，就員工配置、市場定位、現有資源和供應而言，我們已經做好了充分的準備。我們認為這款產品具有很強的相關性。因此，無論經濟環境如何，我認為不會有任何因素必然影響該品類。我認為這是一個非常受歡迎的禮品類別，我們需要繼續保持下去。因此，我預計第四季度的業績將像行業通常一樣強勁，我認為目前這種情況不會改變。帕斯卡，你想對自由現金流做一些說明嗎？

Sure thing. John, here are the things to keep in mind. We've said this all along. We're trying to build a franchise that is producing sustainable growth in both earnings and cash. We're confident we're going to be able to do that in 2024. So when you think about earnings, here are the piece parts to keep in mind. We continue to expect to grow our Mobility business very nicely as well as continue to drive growth in our fiber broadband business.

當然可以。約翰，以下是需要注意的事項。我們一直都在強調這一點。我們正在努力打造一個盈利和現金都可持續增長的特許經營權。我們有信心在2024年實現這一目標。所以，當你考慮盈利時，需要注意以下幾點。我們預期行動業務將持續保持良好成長，同時光纖寬頻業務也將持續成長。

Our cost takeout efforts the last couple of years have shown that we are committed to creating a really efficient cost structure. So all those things will help drive EBITDA growth. And you couple that with a step down in CapEx from the elevated levels we've been at in '22 and '23, those are going to be the big growth drivers to drive free cash flow growth next year, offsetting that, we would anticipate DIRECTV contributions to decline along -- consistent with the secular decline of that business. But I would say keep in mind that, that DIRECTV is probably more resilient than many have expected, and the team is doing an incredible job of managing that asset. And then we also expect with the phaseout of the 2017 tax incentives like bonus depreciation, interest limitations, well, we're going to pay more taxes next year. Those are the big piece parts.

我們過去幾年的成本削減措施表明，我們致力於打造真正高效的成本結構。所有這些舉措都將有助於推動息稅折舊攤銷前利潤（EBITDA）的成長。再加上資本支出較2022年和2023年的高點下降，這些將成為明年推動自由現金流成長的主要成長動力。同時，我們預計DIRECTV的貢獻也將隨之下降——與該業務的長期下滑相一致。但我想說的是，DIRECTV的韌性可能比許多人預期的要強，而且我們的團隊在管理這項資產方面做得非常出色。此外，我們也預計，隨著2017年稅收優惠政策（例如獎金折舊和利息限制）的逐步取消，我們明年將繳納更多稅款。這些都是重要組成部分。

Our next question will come from the line of Phil Cusick of JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Phil Cusick。

Maybe under the category of pushing my luck. On CapEx, it's been trending down for the year. The last few years, you've actually had lower CapEx in the fourth quarter, and vendor comments are that things are going to slow more. Should we be looking for a big bounce in the fourth quarter for some reason to get to $24 billion or maybe that is a little high at this point?

或許可以歸類為碰運氣。資本支出方面，今年一直呈現下降趨勢。過去幾年，你們第四季的資本支出實際上有所下降，而且供應商的評論是，情況會進一步放緩。我們是否應該期待第四季出現大幅反彈，達到240億美元？或者說，目前這個數字可能有點高？

Yes, Phil, I'd be disappointed if you didn't try to push your luck, but I think we gave you guidance that said our CapEx for the year was going to mirror kind of what we did last year. And I still think that's going to be our guidance that our CapEx for the year is going to mirror what we had last year. So you should expect you're going to see something in the fourth quarter that delivers a number that reflects something very similar in the neighborhood of what we did last year. I've been telling you, I think, for several quarters that our goal is to get to a little bit more ratable construct around how we operate the business, and we've been working hard to do that, meaning we smooth some things out.

是的，菲爾，如果你不去冒險，我會很失望，但我認為我們給你的指引是，我們今年的資本支出將與去年基本持平。我仍然認為，今年的資本支出將與去年基本持平，這將是我們的指引。所以你應該可以預期，第四季的數據將與去年大致相當。我想，我已經跟你說過好幾個季度了，我們的目標是在業務運營方面建立更可評估的架構，我們也一直在努力實現這一點，這意味著我們會理順一些事情。

We're not quite where we need to be in that regard yet, but we're getting better. So I think you need to be careful leaning extensively on seasonality because if we're doing our job right and we're doing all the right things and managing our working capital and those kinds of things, which I think we're getting progressively better at based on the comments that we gave you earlier, you may see seasonality start to adjust a little bit.

在這方面，我們還沒有達到應有的水平，但正在好轉。所以我認為，過度依賴季節性因素需要謹慎，因為如果我們工作做得正確，所有事情都做得正確，並且管理好我們的營運資金等等（根據我們之前的評論，我認為我們在這方面正在逐步改進），你可能會看到季節性因素開始有所調整。

If I can, one more. On the fiber side, how are you finding the business doing in terms of shaking customers out of cable, given the low move environment? Are you doing anything different to pull customers away? Or is this just sort of steadily working?

如果可以的話，我再問一個問題。在光纖方面，考慮到低移動性的環境，你們覺得在吸引客戶離開有線電視方面做得怎麼樣？你們有沒有採取其他什麼措施來吸引顧客？還是說，目前的做法已經比較穩定了？

We -- what I would say is, I'll maybe reframe your question. We're constantly evolving our tactics and our approach for how we take share. And we're constantly -- I think we're getting better and I -- props to the marketing team that does this and the operating team that does the build. It's really a team effort, frankly, that occurs in these markets. There's no better way to sell the product than having -- digging up somebody's front yard, so to speak. So it builds awareness, and then our job is to capitalize on that awareness and build excitement around it.

我想說的是，我可能需要重新思考你的問題。我們一直在改進策略和市場份額提升的方法。而且我們一直在不斷進步，我認為我們正在不斷進步，我向負責這項工作的行銷團隊和負責建立的營運團隊表示敬意。坦白說，在這些市場中，這真的需要團隊合作。沒有什麼比挖掘別人的前院更好的產品銷售方式了。這能建立知名度，而我們的工作就是利用這種知名度，並圍繞它營造興奮感。

And we've done an exceptional job at the front end of making that happen, and we continue to fine-tune our tactics around that. And that's what's led to faster rates of penetration. And it's a huge sensitivity driver and the overall financial performance of the investment, if you can double penetration rates in the first 18 months over what had been historic levels. It's amazing what that does pay back effectively. And we've been really successful at doing that. I think to give you a little color on your question, as we hit the 40% pan level in a market, which we're now getting more and more markets where we're kind of at that 40% share, 40% penetration level, our tactics do switch. And so as more markets hit the 40% level, we have to go to a little bit different set of tactics around how we do that.

我們在實現這一目標的前端做得非常出色，並且我們持續圍繞這一目標調整策略。這也帶來了更快的滲透率。如果你能在前18個月內將滲透率翻一番，那麼這將是一個巨大的敏感度驅動因素，也是投資的整體財務表現。這確實能帶來驚人的回報。我們在這方面做得非常成功。我想稍微解釋一下你的問題，當我們在一個市場達到40%的市場份額時，我們現在在越來越多的市場達到了40%的份額，也就是40%的滲透率，我們的策略就會隨之改變。因此，隨著越來越多的市場達到40%的水平，我們必須採取略有不同的策略來做到這一點。

And I think, frankly, in many instances, especially where those are in region, they play into our strengths in terms of how we drive more value into the household, how we use the bundling lever in an effective way, how we use data differently to target, what distribution channels we use to contact those customer shift as a result of that. So I would say we have a really fine-tuned set of plays that get us from 0 to 40, and we're pretty good at doing that. And then when we hit 40, we kind of start to use a different set of playbooks in those particular markets as they mature, and I feel really good. The team has their handle on that, and they're doing it the right way. We spend the right money at the right time to unseat those customers, and that's why you see that business scaling so nicely in the way that it is.

坦白說，我認為在許多情況下，尤其是在區域性市場，它們能夠充分發揮我們的優勢，例如如何為家庭創造更多價值，如何有效利用捆綁銷售，如何以不同的方式利用數據進行目標定位，以及我們透過哪些分銷管道來聯繫由此產生的客戶變化。所以，我想說，我們有一套非常精準的策略，可以幫助我們從0發展到40，而且我們在這方面做得相當不錯。當我們發展到40個市場時，隨著這些市場的成熟，我們會開始使用不同的策略，我感覺非常好。我們的團隊已經掌握了這些策略，並且正在以正確的方式進行。我們在正確的時間投入正確的資金來吸引這些客戶，這就是為什麼你會看到我們的業務如此順利地擴張。

Since you mentioned it, what is that first 18-month penetration at this point?

既然您提到了這一點，那麼目前第一個 18 個月的滲透率是多少？

So next question.

那麼下一個問題。

Our next question will come from the line of Michael Rollins of Citi.

我們的下一個問題來自花旗銀行的麥可‧羅林斯。

Two, if I could, as well. First, could you discuss the factors behind the slowing wireless device upgrade rate? How it's impacting the financials? And could this go even lower in the future? And then secondly, just an update on where AT&T is on the run rate cost-cutting targets? And if you could size the potential for additional savings over the next 1 to 3 years?

如果可以的話，還有兩個問題。首先，您能否談談無線設備升級速度放緩背後的原因？這對財務狀況有何影響？未來還會進一步下降嗎？其次，請問 AT&T 目前在運行成本削減目標方面進展如何？您能否估算一下未來 1 到 3 年內 AT&T 的額外成本節省潛力？

Sure, Michael. So I would tell you that I don't think anything has really changed in what we see in the device rate and whether or not it slows dramatically over what its current rate is, hard to say. I would say the bias is pick your view of what the economic environment does, and that's probably the higher correlation as to what happens to the upgrade rate. And if there's a more stressed economic environment, maybe it slows a bit. If it stays healthy and robust and kind of works along where we're at right now, then I don't think it's going to dramatically change.

當然，邁克爾。所以我想告訴你，我認為我們看到的設備升級率並沒有發生任何真正的變化，至於它是否會比目前的速度大幅放緩，很難說。我想說，偏見在於你對經濟環境的看法，而這可能與升級率的變化有更高的相關性。如果經濟環境壓力更大，升級率可能會稍微放緩。如果經濟保持健康強勁，並且與目前的情況基本一致，那麼我認為它不會發生大幅變化。

I think what we've been seeing in general is a couple of things. I've mentioned this before in other calls, and it doesn't change my point of view. The devices, frankly, from generation to generation, change a little bit less. It's harder to get differentiation in the hardware. I mean, they're really good cameras on them, and there's really good modems. And they all have really good speed because of the spectrum bands that handle them. And so customers aren't necessarily hanging on a device evolution to say there's such a dramatic uptick in functionality that I can't use my device for several years.

我認為我們總體上看到的是幾件事。我之前在其他電話會議中提到過這一點，這並沒有改變我的觀點。坦白說，一代又一代的設備變化較小。在硬體上很難實現差異化。我的意思是，它們配備了非常好的攝影機和調製解調器。而且由於支援的頻段不同，它們都擁有非常快的速度。因此，客戶不一定會因為設備的升級而抱怨功能大幅提升，以至於我的設備幾年都無法使用。

Two, I think people or the human body, the commercial case industry that is responsible for protecting devices, people are dropping them less, and they're taking better care of them. And as a result of that, they last a little bit longer. You add on to that, the fact that we're very successful at selling insurance into our customer base. Because we sell insurance, customers are more prone to potentially take a replacement device within the terms of the agreement that they have rather than swap out to a new device, and that has worked out well for customers. And it works out well for us, and that tends to extend the life cycle a bit.

其次，我認為，就人或人體而言，以及負責保護設備的商用外殼產業，人們越來越少掉落設備，也越來越注重設備的保養。因此，設備的使用壽命也更長了。此外，我們在向客戶群銷售保險方面也做得非常成功。由於我們銷售保險，客戶更有可能在協議條款範圍內選擇更換設備，而不是直接換新設備，這對客戶來說非常有利。對我們來說也是如此，這往往會延長設備的使用壽命。

And look, as devices get expensive, more expensive and they are getting more expensive for whatever reason, consumers are rational animals. And like any other more expensive thing, oftentimes, you keep it a little bit longer, you try to squeeze a little bit more out of it. And I think there's a cycle of that occurring. So I think that's why we're seeing the cycle we're seeing. Whether it continues to drive its way down or it kind of flattens out remains to be seen, but it's pretty explainable. And I don't think it's going to substantially alter kind of our point of view of [momentum] views for you and what we're looking at as we move forward.

你看，隨著設備越來越貴，而且無論出於什麼原因，它們都在變得越來越貴，消費者是理性的動物。就像其他更昂貴的東西一樣，很多時候，你會把它保留一段時間，試圖從中榨取更多利潤。我認為這是一個循環。所以我認為這就是我們看到這種循環的原因。它是繼續下降還是趨於平穩還有待觀察，但這很容易解釋。而且我認為這不會實質地改變我們對你[動量]的觀點以及我們未來發展的方向。

On the run rate on cost cutting that you asked about. Look, the run rate is we did $6 billion over 3 years, right? And we did that in an inflationary environment. So it was really like, I would say, it's 130% of what we really wanted to do when you think about what we were able to actually work through and get done. We've given you $2 billion more over the next 3 years. You saw that we took an accrual this quarter. That accrual is set up through the course of next year. I think if you want to understand how we expect some of these costs to go, there's probably a correlation to that accrual that you should think about. That's obviously not all of it, but it's a portion of it. It would give you some indication of how we think about feathering this in over the course of the next 12 months.

關於您提到的成本削減的運行率。您看，運行率是指我們在三年內削減了60億美元，對吧？而且我們是在通膨環境下實現的。所以，考慮到我們實際上能夠完成的工作，我想說，這實際上相當於我們真正目標的130%。我們已在未來三年內再撥款20億美元。您看到我們本季進行了應計，這筆應計款項將持續到明年。如果您想了解我們預期這些成本的走向，您應該考慮這筆應計款項與成本之間的關聯。這顯然不是全部，但只是其中的一部分。這可以讓您了解我們如何在未來12個月內逐步實現這些目標。

And I would say, as I indicated in my opening remarks, we feel really good about where we are in momentum right now and some of the things we have underway. I mentioned to you many quarters ago that we're -- we've been investing in our information technology infrastructure. It's been painful. It requires a lot of work. It's very, very detailed work every time you change out a CRM system or a billing system. And you have to carefully deal with your customer base and your different distribution channels. We're now getting to the point where we're starting to turn some scale up on those platforms. That, coupled with the fact that more of our activity is built on fiber and wireless, is giving us a different kind of cost structure in the business.

我想說，正如我在開場白中提到的，我們對目前的勢頭以及我們正在進行的一些工作感到非常滿意。我很多個季度前就提到過，我們一直在投資資訊科技基礎設施。這很痛苦，需要大量的工作。每次更換CRM系統或計費系統，都需要非常非常細緻的工作。而且，你必須謹慎地處理你的客戶群和不同的通路。我們現在正處於在這些平台上開始擴大規模的階段。再加上我們更多的業務建立在光纖和無線網路上，這讓我們的業務成本結構發生了變化。

We're going to continue to ride that curve. We're going to continue to make sure that we streamline the business effectively for what we have as the new products moving forward. That's part of the legacy migration of what we've been doing in geographic footprint shutdown. And I feel really good about us being able to achieve that $2 billion over the next 3 years.

我們將繼續順應這一趨勢。隨著新產品的推出，我們將繼續確保有效地精簡現有業務。這是我們在地理覆蓋範圍關閉方面進行的遺留遷移工作的一部分。我對我們能夠在未來三年內實現20億美元的目標感到非常高興。

And our next question will come from the line of Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson.

我們的下一個問題來自 MoffettNathanson 的 Craig Moffett。

I want to stay with the topic you were just discussing about upgrade rates and things and just try to get a sense of what you're seeing in terms of the new iPhone launch and what that might mean for margins in the fourth quarter. And then just a second question, if I could, just to clarify your remarks earlier on the BEAD program. As it does ramp up in what now sounds more likely to be 2025, would you expect that, that would be, to some degree, a substitute for some of your fiber builds that are currently thought of as competitive overbuilds? Or would they be a supplement to competitive overbuilds?

我想繼續您剛才討論的關於升級率之類的話題，並試著了解您對新款 iPhone 發布的看法，以及這對第四季度利潤率可能意味著什麼。然後，如果可以的話，我還有一個問題，想澄清一下您之前關於 BEAD 計劃的評論。隨著 BEAD 計劃在現在看來更有可能在 2025 年啟動，您是否認為它會在某種程度上取代目前被認為是競爭性過度建設的一些光纖建設？或者，它們會成為競爭性過度建設的補充？

So I -- what I would tell you, Craig, is I've made some comments in my opening remarks that we had a preorder rate in this cycle that was probably the best that we've seen in a long period of time. And whether or not that's unique to AT&T or unique to the industry, I don't know. I have not heard others report at this juncture. I don't know what their guidance is going to be, but I will tell you that our upgrade rate was a bit higher than what we have seen in the last several quarters. But it wasn't what I would call out of pattern, where it's going to be anything that is inconsistent with the guidance we've given you on our margins for the year and inconsistent with what we expect for the business performing. So everything that we have articulated to you where we would guide in on service revenue growth, what we think the operating margins are going to be within the business, our EBITDA performance is all still very much in check relative to what we see going on there.

所以，克雷格，我想告訴你的是，我在開場白中提到過，我們這一輪預購率可能是我們長期以來見過的最佳水平。至於這是否是AT&T獨有的，或者說是整個產業獨有的，我不知道。目前我還沒聽到其他公司的報告。我不知道他們的業績指引會是什麼，但我可以告訴你，我們的升級率比過去幾季略高。但這並非我所說的異常，即任何與我們給出的年度利潤率指引不一致或與我們對業務表現的預期不一致的情況。因此，我們先前向你闡述的所有內容，包括我們對服務收入成長的預期、我們對業務營運利潤率的預期以及我們的EBITDA表現，相對於我們所看到的實際情況，仍然處於非常可控的範圍內。

What I would say on BEAD is I think it will depend. I think in some cases, there could be some instances where there's a substitute in a state, but I think in some cases, there can be some incremental. And a lot of it will depend on the nature of the particular build, geographically where it's located and what our relative contribution is in. And so I would -- I hate to give you such a soft answer, but the good news is it doesn't change anything we've guided you toward in '24. It doesn't change anything we're building now for '24. It doesn't change what we've committed to you for in '25 in terms of our commitment for the total number of fiber homes passed. If we find some incremental opportunities to go after and if we win some, we won't know that until next year. We'll, of course, make some changes but that's not going to be something that you're going to be seeing over the 18-month horizon in terms of what it does to our investment levels, sub count levels or anything like that.

關於BEAD，我想說的是，我認為這將視情況而定。我認為在某些情況下，某個州可能會有替代方案，但在某些情況下，可能會有一些增量。這很大程度上取決於具體建設的性質、地理位置以及我們的相對貢獻。所以我不想給你一個如此軟弱的答案，但好消息是，這不會改變我們在2024年為你們指引的任何方向。這不會改變我們現在為2024年建造的任何項目。這也不會改變我們在2025年對你們的承諾，也就是光纖家庭總數的覆蓋率。如果我們發現了一些值得爭取的增量機會，並且贏得了一些，我們要到明年才能知道。當然，我們會做出一些改變，但就其對我們的投資水平、子數量水平或諸如此類的任何影響而言，這不會是你在 18 個月內會看到的。

Our next question will come from the line of David Barden of Bank of America.

我們的下一個問題來自美國銀行的大衛‧巴登 (David Barden)。

John, a big part of the growth that AT&T and the sector has enjoyed has come from the pricing lever, and you guys were early in calling out pricing is something that had to move to reflect inflation in the economy. But as you look ahead into 2024, given the realities of the cable industry's presence here now and maybe the gravity that they represent from a pricing perspective, could you kind of opine a little bit on how you see the price lever being a part of the kind of short- to medium-term growth story for AT&T? And then maybe also second question, if I could, would be kind of any -- obviously, we just saw the new FCC net neutrality NRPM come out. I'm wondering if there's anything new in there that you see that you incrementally agree or disagree with based on what we kind of went through with Wheeler on this topic?

約翰，AT&T 及其行業所取得的成長很大一部分來自於定價槓桿，你們很早就指出，定價必須根據經濟通膨情況進行調整。但展望 2024 年，考慮到有線電視行業目前的現狀，以及它們在定價方面所代表的影響力，您能否談談您如何看待價格槓桿作為 AT&T 短期至中期增長故事的一部分？第二個問題，如果可以的話，是——顯然，我們剛剛看到新的 FCC 網路中立性 NRPM 出台。我想知道，根據我們與 Wheeler 就此主題進行的討論，您是否認為其中有什麼新內容，您逐漸同意或不同意？

Really just trying to fire me up, aren't you?

你真的只是想激怒我，不是嗎？

Got to get you going in the morning, John.

明天早上我得讓你出發，約翰。

I guess. Here's how I kind of view the pricing issue. First of all, the industry has invested in an incredible level. If you kind of look, last year was a record investment level for the wireless industry. It's entirely possible. Obviously, don't know yet, but I look at trends that are going on. It's entirely possible this year could be pretty close to that as well. And so it's not a surprise to me in a rational industry when investment levels are up like that, that there's a desire to make sure that everybody is getting a return on these massive investments they're making, and the incredible performance that they're putting out on these networks and the value that's driving into the consumer experience.

我想。我對定價問題的看法大致如下。首先，這個行業的投資已經達到了令人難以置信的水平。如果你仔細觀察，你會發現去年無線產業的投資創下了歷史新高。這完全有可能。當然，目前還不清楚，但我關注的是當前的趨勢。今年的投資水準完全有可能接近這個數字。所以，在一個理性的行業中，當投資水平如此之高時，我並不感到驚訝，因為大家都希望確保每個人都能從他們所做的巨額投資中獲得回報，確保他們在這些網絡上實現的驚人性能，以及為消費者體驗帶來的價值。

And so I step back from that and say, is it perfectly reasonable with what I see going on with the industry in general and other players in the market. Understanding that, that value equation as customers are getting more speed, more reliability, greater capability that, that value exchange needs to be adjusted a little bit. And I see that happening. And I see it happening in a lot of different quarters in a lot of different ways. And sometimes, it manifests itself in an exchange for value giving -- because there's more capacity out there giving people more free things, more hotspots for an incremental amount of money. Sometimes it's looking at those that are maybe at the ratio of how much they're using to how much they're paying need to be hit a little bit as a result of it.

所以，我退一步思考，從我所看到的整個產業以及市場中其他參與者的情況來看，這是否完全合理？要知道，隨著客戶獲得更快的速度、更高的可靠性和更強大的容量，價值等式需要稍微調整。我看到這種情況正在發生。我看到它以不同的方式在很多不同的領域發生。有時，它表現為價值交換——因為有更多的容量可以向人們提供更多免費的東西，更多的熱點，只需增加一些費用。有時，它關注的是那些使用量與支付量之比可能需要因此受到輕微影響的人。

But I see a lot of rational moves in that regard. And I think as the market continues to mature, the industry, from my point of view, has shown that it can do that in a fairly effective way. And I look at things like customer satisfaction and utility and use, and all those things are headed in the right direction. So I'm going to conclude that it's being done in a fairly smart way. And I look at -- I know my numbers, and I look at my churn numbers, and my churn numbers are really, really good. We're really pleased in that regard.

但我看到這方面有很多理性的舉措。我認為，隨著市場不斷成熟，在我看來，這個行業已經證明，它能夠以相當有效的方式做到這一點。我觀察了客戶滿意度、效用和使用等因素，發現所有這些都朝著正確的方向發展。所以我的結論是，這正在以相當明智的方式進行。我了解我的數據，我查看了我的客戶流失率，我的客戶流失率非常非常好。我們對此感到非常滿意。

And so to me, it's like there is plenty of places navigate and look at this and do it strategically if you're experienced in managing a subscription base, which I think that we are and I think we've done over time. Cable is running the play that they're running. They're attacking a particular segment of the market that they want to attack. I'm a person that kind of use things long term and structurally. And as I've said before, I don't think it's a sustainable strategy to be the low cost or price leader in a market when you're on a variable cost structure. And so ultimately, there's some repricing. It's a little bit lumpy at times in this industry. We know that, that's the case. But ultimately, there's a repricing that goes on.

所以對我來說，如果你在管理訂閱用戶群方面經驗豐富，那麼有很多地方可以探索、審視並策略性地實施。我認為我們在這方面經驗豐富，而且我們已經累積了多年的經驗。有線電視公司正在按照他們自己的方式運作。他們正在攻擊他們想要攻擊的特定細分市場。我是一個注重長期和結構性發展的人。正如我之前所說，在成本結構可變的情況下，我認為在市場上成為低成本或價格領導者並非可持續的策略。所以最終，價格會有所調整。這個行業有時確實存在波動。我們知道這一點，但最終，價格會有所調整。

And our job is play for the long haul, and that's why we're focused on accretive, profitable growth, looking for the right customers, the ones that want to stay with us. And I think we're doing just fine in that regard. And if you get those customers that really understand the value that you bring to the equation, you shouldn't have a problem adjusting pricing on that value as you work through the evolution of your product.

我們的工作是長遠的，因此我們專注於增值和獲利成長，尋找合適的客戶，那些願意與我們長期合作的客戶。我認為我們在這方面做得很好。如果你能找到真正理解你為公司帶來的價值的客戶，那麼在產品不斷改進的過程中，根據這些價值調整定價應該不會有問題。

So on to your second question. The United States demonstrated coming through the pandemic that it had one of the best and most scalable broadband infrastructures in the world, both at home and at business. And where other regions of the world were doing silly and crazy things, we relocated massive amounts of work and shifted massive amounts of traffic on wireless networks from the urban core during the days to the suburban residential dwellings. And we shifted video from workplaces to home, and we performed remarkably well.

那麼回到你的第二個問題。美國在疫情中展現了其擁有世界上最好、最具可擴展性的寬頻基礎設施之一，無論是在家庭還是企業。當世界其他地區都在做一些愚蠢而瘋狂的事情時，我們將大量工作和無線網路流量從白天的城市核心區轉移到了郊區的住宅區。我們還將影片從工作場所轉移到了家中，並且表現非常出色。

And that's indicative, I think, of what has been very sound and good policy driving investment in infrastructure in this country. We're, as I just said, coming off a record investment year in wireless infrastructure. If you look at fiber, there is -- I've never seen the amount of private capital and money that's going into fiber builds right now around the United States that are incenting more infrastructure builds on that side. We just passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act not only dealt with the underserved, but it had a component in there for affordability of the underserved.

我認為，這顯示推動我國基礎建設投資的政策非常健全且有效。正如我剛才所說，我們剛剛經歷了無線基礎設施投資創紀錄的一年。以光纖為例，我從未見過目前美國各地投入光纖建設的私人資本和資金如此之多，從而刺激了更多基礎設施的建設。我們剛剛通過了《兩黨基礎設施法案》，該法案不僅涵蓋了服務不足人口的問題，還包含一項旨在提高服務不足人口的可負擔性的內容。

And I think what's most important to understand is while the government is putting up $43 billion, $44 billion for that, private capital will probably match that to the tune of about $100 billion. You could have $150 billion of investment going in to solve the underserved and unconnected problem. There's more choice every day in the broadband industry. There's no indications that in the ISP segment, there's any discrimination going on. We have an industry in aggregate that supports no blocking, no paid prioritization, no throttling contrary to what we see going on with some platform apps that are out there, that are choosing to do some of those things in how they operate their business.

我認為最重要的是要明白，雖然政府為此投入了430億到440億美元，但私人資本可能會投入約1000億美元。這樣一來，就有1500億美元的投資用於解決服務不足和網路不良的問題。寬頻產業的選擇每天都在增加。沒有跡象表明，在網路服務供應商（ISP）領域存在任何歧視。我們這個行業總體上支援不屏蔽、不付費優先、不限速，這與我們看到的一些平台應用的情況相反，它們在經營業務時選擇這樣做。

The ISP industry is, I think, the last of customers concerned, no customers are complaining about what's going on in that front. So why we would use taxpayer money and resources and political capital to chase a problem that doesn't exist is a bit of a mystery to me? Chasing an unnecessary partisan issue when we have bipartisan issues, potential bipartisan issues like what is the competitive spectrum policy for the United States, and how do we reauthorize spectrum authority so that we can keep pace with places like China and have a growing economic environment and great innovation. How do we deal with the fact we have a broken universal service process that is so important for those that can't afford their services to make sure that it's sustainable?

我認為，網路服務供應商（ISP）產業是最後關心客戶的，沒有客戶抱怨這方面的情況。那麼，我們為什麼要動用納稅人的錢、資源和政治資本去解決一個根本不存在的問題呢？我對此感到有些困惑。我們面臨兩黨分歧，甚至潛在的兩黨分歧，例如美國的競爭性頻譜政策是什麼，以及如何重新授權頻譜管理，以便我們能夠跟上中國等國家的步伐，擁有不斷發展的經濟環境和巨大的創新，而我們卻要去解決一個不必要的黨派問題。對於那些無力負擔服務費用的人來說，普遍服務流程至關重要，而我們該如何應對這一問題，以確保其可持續性？

These are bipartisan issue that need to be dealt with and solved. I think that's where regulators should be spending their time. Now having said that, I think the facts are pretty clear. We will participate in the process with the FCC constructively. We're going to bring all this data to bear. We're going to demonstrate that this is, in fact, how the markets are operating. Hopefully, there's reasonable individuals that take that, get a good reading of it, understand it and decide to set policy consistent with that, that, that reality ultimately results in rational policy, and we see a reasonable outcome on that.

這些是需要處理和解決的兩黨議題。我認為監管機構應該把時間花在這上面。話雖如此，我認為事實已經很清楚了。我們將與聯邦通訊委員會（FCC）建設性地參與這項進程。我們將提供所有這些數據。我們將證明市場實際上是這樣運作的。希望有理性的人能夠接受、認真解讀、理解，並決定制定與之相符的政策，最終制定出合理的政策，我們也希望看到一個合理的結果。

And I haven't given up hope that, that could be the case. However, if what we end up is a heavy-handed approach of taking early 1900s regulation and applying it against the Internet and using it as a government influence to something that's working just fine in the public markets, I will tell you, as a company, we will do everything we need to do to ensure that the record reflects what the law allows the regulator to do and what the record supports. So that's kind of where I add on it at this juncture.

我一直沒有放棄希望，希望情況會如此。然而，如果我們最終採取強硬手段，將20世紀初的監管措施應用於互聯網，並利用其作為政府影響力，對公開市場上運作良好的事物施加影響，我會告訴你，作為一家公司，我們將竭盡所能，確保記錄反映法律允許監管機構的行為以及記錄所支持的內容。所以，這就是我在此補充的內容。

Our last question will come from the line of Frank Louthan of Raymond James.

我們的最後一個問題來自雷蒙德詹姆斯公司的弗蘭克洛森。

On the business side, can you characterize the decline year-over-year in terms of whether -- how much of that is weighted to slower or sort of weaker business environment versus exiting unprofitable or low margin products? And then secondly, on the international roaming contribution, where are we on that relative to sort of pre-pandemic levels as far as its contribution to wireless ARPU? And when does that comp start to get a little harder?

在業務方面，您能否描述一下同比下滑的情況？其中有多少是因為商業環境放緩或疲軟，還是因為退出無利可圖或低利潤產品造成的？其次，關於國際漫遊貢獻，就其對無線ARPU的貢獻而言，與疫情前的水準相比，我們處於什麼位置？什麼時候開始比較困難？

Frank, business side, here's how I would kind of rank the overall impact. One, the most significant impact that is occurring in the fixed wireline business is what I will call the secular change of technology. So it's the managed complex networking shift toward SDN, which means provision raw bandwidth and use software. And there's an effectiveness and efficiency issue that comes on with that. You shift -- you may keep a customer, you continue to do business with a customer, but you don't shift that technology dollar for dollar. That's probably our most significant.

弗蘭克，就業務方面而言，我會這樣排列整體影響。首先，固定有線業務中正在發生的最重大影響是我所說的技術的長期變革。也就是託管複雜網路向SDN的轉變，這意味著提供原始頻寬並使用軟體。隨之而來的是有效性和效率問題。你可能會轉變——你可能會保留一個客戶，繼續與客戶做生意，但你不會一分錢一分貨地改變這項技術。這可能是我們最重要的影響。

The second part is our decision to exit certain product sets that are low margin and are inconsistent with our ability to sell that core transport in that secular shifting environment. Whereas before, when we were engineering and provisioning highly complex and managed networks, we oftentimes had to bundle and bring things together, which -- to win the business, which oftentimes led us to distribute and layer on top of that other products and services, in this more of a streamlined focused approach on transport and the accretive aspects of transport.

第二部分是我們決定退出某些利潤率低且與我們在長期不斷變化的環境中銷售核心傳輸業務的能力不符的產品組合。而以前，當我們設計和配置高度複雜且可管理的網路時，我們常常不得不將各種產品捆綁在一起，以贏得業務，這常常導致我們分銷和疊加其他產品和服務，而現在我們採取了一種更加精簡的、專注於傳輸及其增值方面的方法。

The second dynamic that's occurring is us backing away from kind of layering on the resale of some of those services. I would tell you that the dynamic around business demand is relatively small, if nonexistent dynamic, in what's happening overall in our revenues. I think there's still a healthy demand in business. And I would point out that while we report on fixed business segment specifically, when you look at our aggregate business performance, it's a very different story.

第二個正在發生的動態是，我們逐漸放棄了某些服務的轉售。我想說的是，在我們整體收入中，業務需求的動態相對較小，甚至可以說是沒有。我認為業務需求仍然很健康。我想指出的是，雖然我們報告的是固定業務部門的數據，但當你看我們的整體業務表現時，情況就截然不同了。

So if you were to kind of take our wireless business component and add it to the fixed business, you have a relatively flat dynamic that's going on, and that's largely because of the growth in wireless. And I actually think we're on the front end right now of many businesses now understanding the wireless technology is their next strategic frontier of how they engineer their processes and their company. And I'm actually pretty bullish that what we saw in the early days of VPN where managed networks and managed capabilities and supported capabilities on complex networks were a big growth cycle in enterprise customers. I think we're going to see the same thing start to emerge on the wireless side. And I think that's just going to be growth. And when we have the presence we do in these large customers, the fact that we're calling on them with one set of services and we can sell both sets of services is really important for us, despite some of the secular headwinds we're taking and the technology shift out on the fixed side.

所以，如果你把我們的無線業務部分加入固定業務中，你會發現目前的動態相對平穩，這主要是因為無線業務的成長。實際上，我認為我們現在處於許多企業的前沿，他們現在明白無線技術是他們設計流程和公司的下一個策略前沿。我非常看好VPN早期的情況，當時託管網路、託管功能以及複雜網路上的支援功能在企業客戶中形成了一個巨大的成長週期。我認為我們將在無線領域看到相同的情況開始出現。我認為這將是一種成長。當我們在這些大客戶中佔據一席之地時，我們用一套服務來吸引他們，並且能夠同時銷售兩套服務，這一點對我們來說非常重要，儘管我們正面臨一些長期的逆風，而且固定業務方面也出現了技術轉移。

Okay. Amir, I'm going to take the liberty of maybe closing this if I can since you said last question. I'd like to thank, first of all, all of you for joining us today. And I would tell you, the way I feel about this quarter is that the pieces have largely fallen into place for us. We have the right formula across the board and the company that's delivering the type of value that we wanted to engineer this business to deliver. And I think, in fact, if you look at the numbers and what we reported, it is delivering. And I think what you are seeing is the results of consistency. Consistency of how we're executing in the business, our go-to-market approach and the focus, the focus on a select number of products and lines of business that is making the difference of how effectively we're operating the company.

好的。阿米爾，既然你提到了最後一個問題，如果可以的話，我可能就此結束。首先，我要感謝各位今天的參與。我想告訴你們，我對本季的感受是，我們基本上已經步入正軌。我們擁有全面的正確方案，公司也正在提供我們想要打造的那種價值。事實上，如果你看看這些數字和我們的報告，你會發現它正在實現。我認為你們看到的是一致性的結果。我們在業務執行方式、行銷策略以及對特定產品和業務線的專注度方面的一致性，決定了我們營運公司的效率。

And I'm really proud of what the team has done to get us to this point. It's not been an easy trail. It's been one that's had a lot of hard decisions. But it's nice to see those hard decisions paying off and the tangible results that drive returns back into the shareholder base.

我為團隊為實現這一目標所做的一切感到無比自豪。這條路並非一帆風順，我們經歷了許多艱難的抉擇。但我很高興看到這些艱難的抉擇最終獲得回報，並取得了切實的成果，為股東帶來回報。

And I can promise you, we're all focused on closing the year strong and sustaining the momentum that you're seeing in the third quarter. So I thank you very much for your interest in AT&T, and hope you all have a good Halloween.

我可以向你們保證，我們所有人都致力於以強勁的勢頭結束今年，並保持你們在第三季度看到的勢頭。非常感謝你們對AT&T的關注，祝大家萬聖節快樂。

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference call for today. We'd like to thank you for participating in today's earnings conference call. Thank you for using our service. Have a wonderful day. You may now disconnect.

女士們，先生們，今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您參加今天的收益電話會議。感謝您使用我們的服務。祝您擁有美好的一天。現在您可以斷開連線了。