reports
- Jonathan Chaplin
SATS quick thoughts following the 1Q25 call
In this note we touch briefly on all the main controversies, including progress in retail and wholesale, the prospect of a Cable MVNO, progress on the network build and FCC commitments, the return of the DBS merger, the direct-to-device opportunity, and the impact of tower lease obligations on valuation.
- Jonathan Chaplin
SATS 1Q25 Quick Take: Wireless making progress (but not enough)
Wireless results continued to improve, but not by enough to convince investors that the business will ultimately be worth what the spectrum is worth. We didn’t see any disclosure on the big strategic issues (spectrum sale; DBS merger; spectrum fight with SpaceX; potential D2D partner).
- Jonathan Chaplin
Winter for wireless 1Q25
This note explores the drivers of growth and market share shifts in Mobile in 1Q25. Industry net adds, switching, and upgrades all increased sharply. Investors are wrestling with whether the market is healthy or whether the increase in activity reflects a pull-forward of activity from later in the year driven either by consumers’ concerns over the impact of tariffs on handset prices or by unusually aggressive promotions. We suspect that activity was pulled forward (as do two of the carriers)...
- Jonathan Chaplin
Autumn for Broadband 1Q25
In this installment of our Autumn for Broadband series, we provide a quick update on trends in the broadband market based on what we have seen from the companies that have reported so far. Net adds declined from an already weak pace a year ago and are well below the pre-pandemic norm. The expected recovery following the end of ACP didn’t materialize. We ponder whether growth is structurally lower, or whether temporary ACP-related pressures have persisted longer than expected.
- Blair Levin
The Cost of the Deal: What Does the Skydance/Paramount Situation Tell ...
Paramount is entering into mediation to resolve the litigation with President Trump and remove a barrier to FCC approval of the pending acquisition by Skydance. In this note we update our thoughts on what the deal’s process tells us about pending and future deals can expect from the government approval process.
- Jonathan Chaplin
New DoD proposal on spectrum for carriers
The DoD has circulated a new proposal for repurposing federal spectrum for the carriers. Under the proposal, the DoD would keep the lower C-Band but vacate other bands that at least some carriers may view as less attractive. In this note, we detail the proposal and explain the implications for the carriers and for other owners of spectrum.
- Pierre FerraguÊ
NOW SERVICENOW INC.
TXN TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
TSLA TESLA INC
T AT&T INC.
MXL MAXLINEAR INC
LRCX LAM RESEARCH CORPORATION
INTC INTEL CORPORATION
GOOGL ALPHABET INC. CLASS A
NOKIA NOKIA OYJ
BSI BE SEMICONDUCTOR INDUSTRIES N.V.
2330 TSMC
6723 RENESAS ELECTRONICS CORPORATION
DLR DIGITAL REALTY TRUST INC.
ASML ASML HOLDING N.V.
DHER ASML HOLDING NV
MBLY DELIVERY HERO SE
IBM MOBILEYE NV
STM INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
BESI STMICROELECTRONICS NV
VRT VERTIV HOLDINGS CO (A)
HYUELE SK HYNIX
- Jan Frederik Slijkerman
- Jeroen van den Broek
- Jesse Norcross
- Nadège Tillier
- Timothy Rahill
- Jonathan Chaplin
- Jonathan Chaplin
AT&T: quick thoughts following the 1Q25 call
What’s new: in this note we cover the new share repurchase guidance for 2025, and why it fell short of our estimates; the implications of the share repurchase guidance on M&A; comments that speak to the likelihood of a Lumen fiber acquisition; the impact of tariffs on costs and capex, and potentially on mobile industry growth; the puts and takes to EBITDA, and why it wasn’t quite as good as it first seemed; and comments on FWA capacity.
- Jonathan Chaplin
- Blair Levin
BEAD Data Shows CMSCA Active in Many States
With all but four states having started and/or completed their prequalification process for eligibility for BEAD funding, there is new data showing high levels of participation by CMSCA and CHTR, with significant levels of participation by T and FBYR (to be acquired by VZ.) In this note we discuss that data and state of play as the states move forward and the Department of Commerce aims for a decision in about a month (which we think is likely to be delayed) for resolving how the BEAD should be...
- Jonathan Chaplin
EchoStar swapping some 3.45GHz for 600MHz
EchoStar is swapping 3.45GHz licenses in markets where they have excess licenses for 600MHz licenses in markets where they have a shortfall. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but we suspect that this was a straight swap of two similarly valued portfolios that doesn’t set a new mark for either band. The transactions, while small, suggest that EchoStar is still focused on improving their wireless business rather than on divesting spectrum.
- Jonathan Chaplin
Conflicting expectations in mobile and broadband
In our Broadband Trends report published this week, we show that bottom-up forecasts are well below our top-down forecast. The disconnect is all in Cable, and mostly in Comcast. We don’t have enough conviction in our top-down forecast to make a call on Comcast, particularly ahead of 1Q25 results where management has provided very clear context on trends, but we suspect results for the year won’t be as bad as feared. By contrast in our Wireless Trends report last week, we showed that our forecas...
- Jonathan Chaplin
4Q24 Broadband Trends: Our broadband forecast
In this report we highlight a disconnect between our top-down forecast and our and “Consensus” bottom-up forecast for broadband subscribers. Either market growth is much worse than it appeared at the end of 2024, or Cable adds will be better than expected. We also update our top-down forecast and reprise our work on competitive positioning of the operators based on relative cNPS scores.
- Jonathan Chaplin
- Jonathan Chaplin
4Q24 Wireless Trends: Expectations for net adds are too high
This report focuses on drivers of subscriber growth in 2025. Expectations for net adds are too high, though expectations for service revenue and EBTDA look fine. We also reprised our work on comparative NPS, provide a comprehensive review of 4Q24 trends, and update our long-term forecast
- Philip Burnett
A Signal for 1Q25 in AT&T FirstNet Connections?
FirstNet announced this morning that it has over 7MM FirstNet Connections as of 1Q25. That is up from 6.7MM connections at the end of 2024. Because of rounding, FirstNet net adds could be 275k-325k in 1Q25; this is generally in line with quarterly FirstNet adds over the past four years. While AT&T doesn't regularly disclose the split, at 2Q23 earnings they said that just over a third of FirstNet net adds were postpaid phones (the rest are non-phone devices). We would assume that there were 90k-1...
- Blair Levin
NSR Policy: Wireless Update: Kennedy Cancer Concerns
Plus, a Round One Win for T on 4.9 GHz, TMUS modifies DEI initiative, Carr Signals Hope for Reallocating Military Spectrum as CTIA Presses on Its Spectrum Needs and Its New Leader (Pai) Signals Splits with Carr on Merger Review Approach While there have been major developments in the last week on the future of USF, BEAD, and merger reviews, there have been smaller, but still significant, developments related to the future of wireless services. In this update, we cover those developments. The on...
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