reports
- Blair Levin
NSR Policy: The Prospects for a DBS Merger Review: This Time It Actual...
Last Thursday, the New York Times ran a story any investor in media could have written several years ago headlined “Satellite TV Is in Trouble. DirecTV’s Dispute with Disney Shows Why: While the Cable TV Business is Declining Quickly, Satellite TV is Decaying Even Faster.”
- Jonathan Chaplin
- Jonathan Chaplin
- Jonathan Chaplin
The deal Verizon or AT&T should do next
We published a note on the impact of a potential Verizon acquisition on Frontier’s shareholders yesterday. We followed with a note on the impact of a deal on Verizon shareholders later. Blair covered regulatory considerations. We wrote a quick note following the deal announcement. And we hosted a call where we talked through evolving thoughts.
- Jonathan Chaplin
FWA capacity: where we could be wrong (Verizon critique #1)
What’s new: we have published a series of reports that establish that wireless carries can support about 23MM FWA subscribers, and they can’t economically add capacity to support more (see report on capacity limits here and economics of adding capacity). In this brief follow-up, we address the critique that our FWA usage assumption may be too high.
- Jonathan Chaplin
2Q24 Wireless Trends Exploring how FWA drives EBITDA growth
In this edition of “trends” we show that FWA has been a major driver of EBITDA growth and will remain so, particularly for AT&T. We also made modest adjustments to our FWA capacity model that increased the number of subscribers the carriers can support on fallow capacity slightly. Industry trends remain strong with subscriber growth stable at 2%, ARPU growth accelerating and EBITDA growth above 5%.
- Jonathan Chaplin
The FWA Capacity Report Series, Volume III The cost of adding capacit...
in this report we show that FWA customers are valuable when added to a network with fallow capacity, but they don’t cover their cost if capacity must be added to the network to support them. This follows two prior reports that established that the carriers have enough fallow capacity to support just over 10% of households. Together these reports settle the biggest debate affecting broadband stocks.
- Jonathan Chaplin
SATS 2Q24 Quick Take: FCF beat; big questions still unresolved
Operating trends were ok. EBITDA and FCF beat consensus expectations (EBITDA by a little; FCF by a lot). The cash balance ended lower than we expected, but largely due to the timing of receipts from asset sales (plus some opportunistic debt repurchases).
- Jonathan Chaplin
Autumn for Broadband 2Q24
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. Industry net adds were down substantially from a year ago, but trends have leveled off sequentially and they look to remain stable in 3Q24 (adjusting for one-time ACP impacts). We continue to expect growth to recover once the ACP headwind has passed.
- Jonathan Chaplin
The FWA Capacity Report Series, Volume III: Wireless carriers may incr...
We published an important report that calculates the FWA capacity of mobile operators using fallow capacity. The analysis relied on the usage of consumer subs; we later learned that businesses use far less data than consumers. The mobile operators can support more total FWA subs than we previously calculated, though fewer consumer subs. An increase in FWA targets for business users is good for the mobile operators while being immaterial to Fiber and Cable operators.
- Blair Levin
Summer Interruptus: ISPs Obtain Stay of Title II Ruling
We hate summer interruptions, but the Sixth Circuit just made a major ruling in the case involving the ISPs challenge to FCC Title II classification. In this note we provide our key points for investors, including: - The ISPs are likely to win the case, with the Sixth Circuit likely to formally overturn the FCC order in the first part of next year. - We don’t think the decision is material as an economic matter to the ISPs. It does remove a cloud of potential problems down the road. - The ruli...
- Jan Frederik Slijkerman
- Jeroen van den Broek
- Jesse Norcross
- Nadège Tillier
- Timothy Rahill
Coffee, Croissants & Credit/AT&T, BT, Vodafone, Relx, IBM, Merlin, BPP...
Telecom: AT&T reports solid customer growth in 2Q24, BT reports soft EBITDA growth over 1Q25, Vodafone reports solid EBITDA growth over 1Q25. Technology: RELX reports strong 1H24 results, IBM reports solid 2Q24 results. Real Estate: Merlin Properties completes equity raise to fund data center expansion, Blackstone Property Partners Europe completes Milan trophy asset disposal
- Jonathan Chaplin
- Jonathan Chaplin
AT&T: quick thoughts following the call
The most interesting theme that emerged on AT&T’s call was AT&T’s focus on convergence. In this note we compare the convergence positioning of the three national carriers. We also reprise our analysis of growth in the mobile businesses at AT&T and Verizon to make the case for AT&T’s higher multiple. We touch on their ACP comments and the implications for Charter. Finally, we touch on AT&T’s increased fiber deployment targets and the prospect for share repurchases.
- Jonathan Chaplin
AT&T 2Q24 Quick Take: Financial results in-line; Mobile KPIs strong
In addition to a comparison of results vs estimates and consensus, and the trending charts, in this note, we cover: 1. Contrasting mobile trends at AT&T and Verizon (AT&T is just doing better) 2. What these contrasting trends mean for the stocks 3. ACP impacts 4. Results in fiber and 5. Results in FWA 6. Guidance
- Philip Burnett
US Telecoms Quick Take: The Lifetime Value of an FWA Subscriber
A question we frequently get from investors worried that the runway for fixed wireless access (FWA) adds will be longer than anticipated is whether the carriers can split cells economically in order to accommodate more FWA subscribers. In this note, we run through the math on customer lifetime value (CLTV) for subscribers across the wireless industry. We conclude that adding FWA subscribers by utilizing excess capacity on an existing network makes sense from the perspective of CLTV. However, the...
- Vikash Harlalka
2Q24 Broadband Preview
Broadband industry growth has slowed over the last couple of quarters. For 2Q24, we expect reported broadband net adds below last year and pre-pandemic levels. We estimate that after adjusting for the one-time impact of ACP related disconnects, net adds were still below last year but were in-line with pre-pandemic levels. We think consensus expectations for the quarter are a little too negative, especially for Cable, and we expect reported adds to be slightly better than expectations.
- Philip Burnett
US Telecoms Quick Take: Rumored Verizon Tower Sale is too Cheap
Bloomberg reported late last night that Verizon is considering selling 5,000-6,000 towers for around $3BN. We suspect this price is based on Verizon and AT&T’s tower sales a decade ago. Based on recent transactions and market comps, we estimate the assets could sell for close to three times the rumored deal value. Our only caveat is we don’t know what tenancy on Verizon’s towers looks like (if they are the only tenant on each tower – which is extremely unlikely – then the rumored deal value is f...
- Blair Levin
NSR Policy: What the Congressional FCC Hearing Taught Us and What the ...
Last week, the House Communications Subcommittee had an oversight hearing at which the FCC Chair and all the Commissioners were witnesses. The issues that we were able to learn more about included the 4.9 GHz dispute, bulk billing, and whether a Democratic FCC would attempt to pre-empt the New York State law mandating a low-income broadband offering.
Unfortunately, this report is not available for the investor type or country you selected.
Report is subscription only.
Thank you, your report is ready.
Thank you, your report is ready.