All right, so guys, good morning. Thank you for joining us again for day two of the 2023 Bank of America Media, Communications, Entertainment Conference. I'm Dave Barden. I head up telecommunications and comm infrastructure research for the bank, for the U.S. and Canada, based here in New York. We're very thrilled to start off day two with AT&T and their Chief Financial Officer, Pascal Desroches, joining us on stage. Pascal, thank you for being here. Good morning, everybody. It's a pleasure to be here. Before we begin, do you want to do any safe harbor? Yeah. Just, as you know, some of the comments I'm gonna make are forward-looking and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Please refer to our website for more information. That was awesome. Why don't we get rid of that? You know, that guy I hire sure looked better than I do. I don't know, man. You, you're a pretty handsome guy. So that's kinda... I want to kick it off before we kinda get into the, to the core business. Do you want to give any kind of forward-looking guidance on the third quarter, subscribers, cash flow, anything like that? Let's get into it. Okay, let's work. I'll work on that. Let's talk about some of the things that are in the headlines, though, first. I think something that we should talk about, just to kind of get it out of the way, is the kind of lead situation. I don't know if you saw, Verizon was here on stage yesterday. They made some information public about what New York State and EPA have been doing, on their website. You know, which I think is supportive of a position that says that this thing's maybe a little gone a little too far. Do you want to make any comments about kind of AT&T's evolved position on kind of lead exposure, and what it means to the business, and what we should expect from AT&T on a go-forward basis? Sure thing. Look, I'm gonna be fairly brief. As you know, in all likelihood, there will be litigation here at some point, so I want to make sure that I'm, I'm pretty measured in what I say, but let me try to break it down for you. Quick, first and foremost, when the Journal made allegations of a public health crisis, clearly that got our attention because we are really proud of our long history of employee safety protocols, and the health and welfare of our employees and the communities we operate in is always forefront in terms of what we're trying to make sure we never compromise. You know, with that said, you know, we tested some of the sites that the Journal alleged were problematic and didn't find that there were any issues. Perfectly safe. Third-party experts, who are reputable, went out and did this. New York State has gone out and done this in one of the sites. Mm-hmm. West Orange, New Jersey, another site. So, so far you have we and Verizon, who have tested sites independently and have found that those are not problematic. You have the EPA, New York State, also finding it not problematic. And the Journal has refused to share their testing results with us. So could we all be wrong? I don't think so. And so, look, this is gonna play out over time, and... but feel really good about our safety, record, and, we'll see how this all unfolds over time. So just two quick follow-ups. Number one, are you proactively working with the EPA, you know, on a large-scale basis to make sure that everything's cool? Absolutely. We are providing the EPA with all our testing results and the air. And so, this is something that we take really seriously, and so we are providing them with all of our test results. Is there a plan to maybe make any of this more public, any of these third-party findings or, you know, to kind of share what you, where you stand, at least your position, as Verizon has done? We have. It's in the public venue. If you go to our website, you know, we've been very clear about what we've tested, what we've found. So it's out there in the public venue. I'm sure our IR team could point you to the right portion of our website to go to, but it's all out there in the public venue. And our commitment is that as we learn more things, we are gonna put it out. Good. Okay, thanks. So, second, in the last couple of days, we saw a transaction between Comcast and T-Mobile for 600 MHz spectrum. So T-Mobile is gonna be leasing that spectrum and deploying it relatively quickly, with the eye towards purchasing it out in 2028. Is that, is that something that you got to look at, or did you kind of wake up and read the news like the rest of us? We read it last night, and you're gonna have to talk to T-Mobile about how they feel about why they felt they needed to do this, but we feel really good about our spectrum position. Wow! One of the things I don't think that gets said nearly enough is the quality of our network gets better each and every day and has improved significantly. And that's a big part of the success that you've seen in wireless over the last few years, is the quality of our network, and we feel really good about our spectrum positions. And, you know, it's not an asset we'd all looked at, and don't think we missed out on anything. Okay. And then the last one is, you know, obviously, the iPhone launched this week. You know, the press seems to have a short memory about, you know, how this industry works, and so, you know, we saw a lot of articles about $1,000 off a phone and all that sort of thing. So, I think that there's a tendency to kind of make mountains out of molehills, perhaps, but- You think? I think. That's my, you know, 30 years of telecom experience speaking. But how would you kind of react to everyone's iPhone promotions? How would you characterize how you see the landscape, you know, this week and its impact on competitive intensity, potentially? Look, here is when you take a step back, Apple has raised the prices, but the level of the promotions across the industry, I'd say, are unchanged. And if you, you know, every carrier is gonna approach it slightly differently, and, you know. But all in all, I would characterize the environment as really healthy. The competitive dynamics is very very healthy, very rational, and, we've, you know, we feel really good about our approach and the plays we've been running. And, that's, you know, one of the keys has been that, that we've been consistent quarter after quarter in our approach, and, I wouldn't expect any change to that. Okay. All right, so I want to zoom out a little bit. People who have been here for the last couple of days have heard me kind of make this kind of argument. But, you know, we've coming off a couple of years, 2021 and 2022, where we had record postpaid phone net adds, around 9 million a year. We've had higher prices in the industry for the last 18 months. We have the fewest number of real competitors in the industry than we've ever had, and everyone hates the industry. And, so, and I've kind of tried to dissect why it is, and I think that there's kind of three elements to it. Mm-hmm. You know, one element is that we're coming off the best we could do, so, you know, the pool of postpaid phone net adds is shrinking, cable's coming in. Number two is cable's coming in and taking a larger share of that. And number three is that the pool of opportunity for the telcos is shrinking, and then one of you will end up having to do something irrational to kind of move the needle at the margin. And so that kind of anxiety just permeates the sentiment around the space. So I want—I've been trying to dissect that a little bit as we've kind of gone through the sector, and you're batting cleanup for the sector right now. And I want to talk a little about the kind of whole pool of postpaid phone nets in the year. It seems like we're zooming in on probably something like with a seven handle on it, in terms of millions of postpaid phone nets. At the beginning of the year, I asked John on the fourth quarter call. I said: "You know, the, the, the world seems to think that the postpaid phone net number is going to shrink in 2023," and it is. And the world thinks that AT&T, who was one of the largest beneficiaries of the increase in postpaid phone nets in 2021, 2022, was going to be the guy that gave back the most amount of share. And he said, "No way. Not gonna happen. Mm-hmm. In fact, it did happen. In the second quarter, we went from 700,000 postpaid phone net adds last year to 300,000 this year. How does that make AT&T feel? Yeah, here, let's take a step back. We understood, whether it's 2021, 2022, that that environment was not gonna be sustainable. We're not gonna be operating at those levels. But overall, the industry is growing, and we are getting our fair share. I'll talk a little bit more about what that means. The industry is raising prices, and, you know, each of the competitors has different tactics that they're using, but the dynamics are really healthy. You have three players, largely, who are focused on sensible competition. And so you have growing industry, growing pricing, higher service revenues, higher earnings, and improving cash production. Check, check, check. Yet, ever since I started in this role, which was over two years ago, "Oh, this industry is going to hell in a handbasket." And yet, every quarter, this industry continues to grow, and you have a really healthy competitive dynamics. So, look, in terms of our performance in the second quarter, remember, we said that we were impacted by a decision we made to step away from an unprofitable contract, and that cost us around 75,000. You normalize for that, you know, you know, you should get a clear sense of where we've... that we've gotten our fair share in Q2, and we'll continue to get our fair share as you make your way through the year. In terms of cable, I actually think they're running a different play than we are. I think cable, largely, many of the subscribers that they are adding are prepaid to postpaid migration. There are free lines being given. It's a discounting mechanism. Wireless is a discounting mechanism for cable, and so I view that at. Look, in the end, if you look at cable, the average number of lines for their subscribers, one, maybe two lines. We have 2/3 of our base come with more than two lines. So, you know, we are playing a whole different game than they are. And look, cable's been part of the competition for the last several years, and I dare say we've competed pretty well during that time frame. We've grown service revenues more than anybody in the space. And so I take a step back. It's almost I'm trying to disprove that this is a bad business, when all the facts are that it's a great business, and people would die to be in this business, and there aren't a lot of people who could do that, or there aren't a lot of companies that can do that. So you take a step back and say, "Okay, growing revenues, growing earnings, growing cash, only three players can provide this at scale." I kinda like that business, and it's something not a lot of businesses have that characteristic. Okay, I gotta dig into a little bit of that. So, just in terms... So I think you kinda addressed the, you know, high level, I think, you know, going from 9- 7 something million postpaid phone nets, everyone can grow still. It's all good. You know, you've talked for some time, you guys were one of the first to talk about, you know, anticipating normalization. Do you agree that maybe what normal looks like is a world where maybe it's a 5 million-6 million type of postpaid phone net world? Or do you think seven is the new normal because T-Mobile has kind of created a new definition of what postpaid phone nets are? You see, here is the thing I would tell you: like, everyone in the industry count subscribers differently, so it's always hard for me to tell you exactly where it's gonna land. But do I think seven is probably what we're gonna see based on the way the industry counts? Yeah. But I look at, what is, what's the revenue growth in the sector over the last few years? The service revenue growth. And, judge us on that, 'cause that really, when it's all said and done, that's what pays the bills, that's what generates free cash flow. Mm. I really like our track record here. Okay, and I agree. I mean, I hear you. I think that, you know, you could make the argument that the whole industry is judged on one single number, which is this postpaid phone net adds, which is not really how people make money. I think that, but more than simply a barometer of business health, I think it's also a leading indicator of how people perceive companies may behave in the future. And that when faced with the threat of going from 300,000 a quarter to zero net adds a quarter, companies might react and do things to impact that and do things that are unnatural to preserve that. But if service revenue growth is the North Star, then volume is only one potentially small piece of that. Yeah. And look, don't get me wrong, volumes are important, but real volumes, real business with... and so we always said that the 9 million clip that we were seeing in 2021 was not gonna be... It was not sustainable. It was probably, there were certain idiosyncratic reasons coming out of the pandemic that were driving that. We have normalized now, but in that normalized environment, we are getting our fair share of the growth, and, I love the quality of the subscribers we're seeing. I love the fact that even within the existing base, we're able to move people up the ARPU stack to garner more economics out of the base, all things that are gonna drive long-term value for the firm. All that is happening, we're getting our fair share, and we... Across the industry, you're seeing pricing movements. You know, Dave, I don't know. It's sort of like, it's really hard to disprove all the boogeymen that are around the corner, whether it's Amazon or Dish taking over the entire wireless industry. That won't happen. Yeah, it's just, it's irrational, and, as I said, look at the facts. Yeah. Look at what's happening. Look at the offers across the industry. Do you see- Right ... irrational competition? I don't think so. So let me just go back to the cable dynamic real quick. You know, John has said a few things about the likely limits of cable's ability to make long-term headway in the mobile industry. One of the things he said is that he believes that the cable MVNO is a variable cost model that will eventually get unprofitable for the cable industry. And the second is that he believes that the relationship between cable and Verizon, as it exists today, could easily change at some future time. Why does he believe those two things? Look, here is what I would tell you. The demand for bandwidth goes up each and every year, call it 30%-40%. And in that environment, if you are riding, if you are riding on a variable consumption model that you're paying more, it becomes incredibly expensive. As I said at the outset, cable is using this as a discounting mechanism. Why do you believe that they have a variable cost model? We understand the construct of MVNO agreements. Look, we, you—as you would expect, when that agreement was entered into, they, they looked at us along with Verizon, and, you know, ultimately, Verizon got the business, but, the terms that we, that we think they ultimately got were- Okay. We understand. So you were on the other side of the table. You were the second-best option to the cable industry, who chose Verizon. You kind of have a sense as to what maybe Verizon was offering, and that informs the view. I wouldn't say we were the second-best option, 'cause, you know, well, a negotiation goes two ways. It may have been we weren't willing to go to where ultimately Verizon went. And so that's how... You know, ultimately, what I could tell you is the economics, I'd be surprised if they were not a variable model, because that's, that is typical of an MVNO agreement. Mm-hmm. Look, you're gonna have to talk to Verizon for specifics. We try. Yeah? Yeah. All right. It doesn't work. Okay, so, okay, that's the, that's the cable element. So then let's talk about the kind of internecine battle between the telecom companies. You know, round numbers, we've got an industry per quarter where T-Mobile is getting 700, AT&T is getting 300, Verizon's getting 0. And zero doesn't seem to be where Verizon's very happy. Verizon wants more than 0, which says that all things being equal, you know, it probably has to look more like a 600, 250, 150 world. Can AT&T live in that world? Is that a failure for AT&T? Does that mean that something bad has to happen to the industry for that to occur? Or do you think that that's not gonna happen because Verizon just can't do it? We've been operating under this construct for the last two years, and we've seen what has happened. And even though T-Mobile is taking the majority of the sub growth, I'd like ours when you look at our Service Revenue growth versus theirs, that's how you can judge real performance during that time period. That's backward-looking. What about forward-looking? What makes you believe that things are gonna change? What are you seeing in the marketplace to make you believe that things are gonna change significantly? Well- There is nothing in the offers that would suggest that that is happening. What are you prepared to do to stop things from changing? David, I'm not gonna speculate on, well, on how the market may evolve. Needless to say, no one has an incentive to degrade this market. There is enough really profitable growth to go around. Verizon has decided to take it in part through an MVNO agreement. That was their judgment, and that's how they're getting their profit share. We're doing it the good old-fashioned way. Okay, so that's the good old-fashioned way for the last 18 months has been- I'd say for the last three years have been Yeah ... really, really good. True, but specifically in the last 18 months, we've been raising prices in the industry. And I think that that's got to be the biggest barometer of industry health out there. I think that the question then becomes, you know, I would argue. I would make the assertion that most industry street models out there don't have price increases, you know, in 2024, in 2025, in 2026. But companies like AT&T and others have made the argument that, yeah, it all started maybe with this idea that inflation was informing price hikes, but now there's a sense that the industry's seeing the market absorb these price hikes and is starting to appreciate that there's a lot of value that the wireless industry brings to people's daily lives, to businesses, and that maybe you're entitled to some of that value for yourselves. So is price increases a part of the industry fabric now? Should we be looking at our models and going: "Yeah, prices are going up? Why, why wouldn't they? In your average life, prices go up, and this is about as critical a service as anything right now, given how we all live. And so why wouldn't prices go up? Especially, we are providing more bandwidth each and every year. So it's not like the consumer's not getting a great deal, 'cause we are giving them more each year, and we should be able to price up for that. So now, that being said, the cable industry being, you know, as you mentioned earlier, such a discounter, does that represent some sort of gravity where there's a limit to what we can do with price? Like, have we reached a plateau for the time being until we see how the whole industry digests what we've done? Is there a risk that if we keep pushing that price lever, you know, cable will kind of take more and more share, and churn starts to go up, and then that's like a warning sign? Yeah. I think it's fair to say cable has grown subs the last several years, right? I look at our porting ratio versus cable. Hasn't moved. So it's not like anything that is happening out there is new. We've been operating in this way largely for the last three years. So again, it's sort of like trying to disprove something that when the facts are very clear that that's not what's happening. So, Dave, I know, I know you're trying, you're trying here, but it's like, look at the facts, look at the offers, look at the market dynamics, and I think that will give you the answer in terms of what you can expect as we, as we move forward. Great. So, you know, in the, you know, subsequent to John's kind of streamlining of the business, wireless, obviously, you know, kind of the key. I think the business seems to be doing pretty well. Let's shift gears then to the, to the broadband or the wireline broadband business. So, kind of give us an update as to what's happening there. Because I guess what's been happening is that there's been, as, you know, cable's also had this issue, like, there doesn't seem to be a lot of home movement, so the switcher pool hasn't been as high, so there hasn't been as much opportunity to win market share, and the fiber business has been mostly cannibalizing your copper business. Not in a bad way. Mm-hmm. But is that a fair kind of assessment of what's going on in the consumer broadband business? Here's what I would say. Well, fiber is an incredible product, and where we have fiber, we love our chances of competing, and we will get more than our fair share of the market that's available. Now, clearly, when I look at Q2's numbers, Q2's numbers were impacted by seasonality. We expect a seasonal uptick, as you typically see in Q3. With that said, we are operating in a move environment that is suppressed, so that's impacting some of the dynamics. But all in all, where we have fiber, we take share, and it's an incredible business. You make the investment upfront, and it's an annuity for a very, very long time. I made a mistake and asked you about fiber, when I really meant to ask you one more question about wireless. All right. which is, in June, you came to our London conference, thank you very much, and you made, you noted that in that quarter, in the second quarter, that you would probably do something in the low 300s postpaid phone nets, and that that number would be impacted 75,000, as you said, by the loss of the VA contract. And also there was about a month or so where there was some disruption related to- Mm-hmm ... the new launch of T-Mobile and Verizon plans. But you said at the time, this was the third week of June, that by the end of June, things had normalized. Mm-hmm. And so I did some math, and I said: Okay, well, if we're gonna do low 300s in postpaid phone nets, and 75,000 is kind of a one-time event, and the Verizon, T-Mobile thing is kind of a one-time event, maybe 25,000, 30,000. So I should add 100,000 to that number, and that would be a normal number. I said, "Should the third quarter number have a four handle on it?" You said, "Well, that math holds up." And, I'm gonna ask you again, does that math hold up? Look, you've got the factors appropriate, and I will leave it at that. You know, I can't give you... I can't break news every time I'm with you. Just, but you, you said, "Let's go there," at the beginning. I'm just trying to lead you down the path. I've given you the factors. I mean, you- Yes, I've confirmed the factors. Okay. As long as we agree that math is math. Okay. So let's go back to that fiber thing. Mm-hmm. So, you've got kind of a couple different strategies in the fiber business. You've been. So, but primarily what we've been doing has been growing the fiber business through kind of overbuilding the copper business, and I think, I think last year, actually, we talked about this, and that there was kind of a maybe a 15%-20% uplift in ARPU when you move from a copper business to a fiber, and that that's kind of the opportunity. Is that still true? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. So... Okay, there you go. There's another number. That's two. So then there's this other kind of strategy, which is you're kind of partnering and, and working out of region, and you've been talking about this, this partnership and kind of seeing it through to the year-end and making bigger decisions. What, what are you learning, you know, in, in that Phoenix area with this, I think it's called... Is it called Gigapower? Gigapower. Yeah. Gigapower is. It's our JV with BlackRock, and it is. You know, I would call it. What we're trying to do there is we know how great fiber is in our footprint. We're testing to see how attractive it could be outside of our footprint. Gigapower, we couldn't be more pleased with how things are going, but it's really early days. I mean, I think we, the deal with BlackRock closed in May, so it's still early days. But, look, there's nothing that we are seeing that would suggest that our theory of the case is not so. So it's things are all in all, we're pleased, but it's early. I think another thing that we're early on, but I'm just interested in your views, is where the BEAD funding is gonna land. Is this something that needs to be informed by your partnership with BlackRock, or is this an independent thing that you're gonna evaluate separately and distinct? I think it's fair to say both Gigapower and us will be bidding on BEAD funding. But even with... Look, it's a great opportunity to really help bridge the digital divide. The way we're thinking about it is no different than we think about overall business. It's about trying to make sure that we are bidding and winning bids in the areas that make sense for us, that really drive long-term economic value to the firm. We are not getting dollars for the sake of getting dollars. We want to make sure that we can get an appropriate return on those. And kind of the intersection between the two businesses is the fixed plus access, you know, attempting to kind of do kind of a wireline broadband with the wireless opportunity. You guys have kind of definitely been more conservative in terms of your, your, your thought process on this, but it appears like we're seeing more conversation coming out of AT&T with respect to, what, what is it called? Internet Air or something like that. Can you kind of refresh where is AT&T landing on fixed plus access as an opportunity? Yeah. Look, if you go back a few years ago, everybody was saying: "Well, this is going to be a major, major opportunity, and we were the only ones at the time said, "Look, this is long term. This is the cost of providing bandwidth is going to be much higher through that product than a traditional fixed line," given all the demand trends that we were seeing. So, I think as you've seen it evolve the last two years, we were right in that regard, and everybody's being much more - our competitors are being much more measured than they have with- Yeah than they were a couple of years ago. With that said, we've said we're going to. There are places where it makes a lot of sense. There are homes that we're going to ultimately get to with fiber, that fixed wireless may be a perfectly fine stopgap product, and that is the logic behind the introduction of our new product. And in areas where we are, where we don't have the population density, again, it may be a fine option and we have available capacity, but our priority, let's look, let's make sure, our priority is fiber. So no change? No change. So, I got to try to get all the free cash flow guidance out of you now. All right. Are we reiterating again $16 billion or better for free cash flow for 2023? Yes, yes, yes. Good to hear. All right. I'm not going to fast forward. So let's start there. Well, of that 16, we only got five in the first half. How do we get the other 11 +? Look, the first half of the year, you had a peak level of device spend, we had peak levels of capital, and we had our annual compensation bonus. If you normalize for those items, you can really get a sense for why we are so confident about the back part of the year. We said at the very start of the year, first quarter was going to be the lowest, followed by second quarter, followed by third quarter and fourth quarter. It is playing out exactly as we thought. This quarter, Q3, as an example, you know, when you look at the fact that we're going to have lower, significantly lower device spend than we did in Q2, lower capital spend, higher receipts from the growth that we saw in the first half of the year, all those things, you put them together, and also probably expect a little bit more from DIRECTV. Mm-hmm. Oh, you put all that together, it should put you in the $4.5 billion-$5 billion range of free cash flow for Q3. You're welcome. That's awesome. I knew I'd get it. So that's awesome. Thank you. So now, 2024, the moving parts, You are never satisfied, are you? No, I was very satisfied with that, so thank you. I just, you know, I'm a little greedy. So this is something. So this is the debate we're having, you know, on our side. So both AT&T and Verizon kind of said that when they were done with their C-band, kind of, you know, baseline spending, that they would return to a kind of a business as usual CapEx spend. So Verizon has guided that they're going to go from $22 billion to $19-something to $17-something in 2024, and that $17-something in 2024 looks an awful lot like what CapEx looked like in 2019 before the C-band spending began. AT&T has been spending around $24 billion last year, $24 billion this year. But the problem is, we're not sure what business as usual looks like for AT&T anymore, because if I looked at what you guys used to spend, which was kind of 19-20, but then I figure you're now in the fiber business in a way that you really weren't back then, I got to add something for that. What is business as usual CapEx for AT&T as a target coming off the 2024 peak? Here's what we have said, and we've been very clear about. We expect over time to get to a mid-teens capital intensity. That's what we've said. And John has been very clear about that, that we are at peak levels in 2022 and 2023. That we will, as we exit 2023, you will begin to see moderation in our cash and, with the goal of getting to mid-teens. And, Some, like, two or three or four-year timeframe type of thing? Like a glide path type, like for Verizon's kind of glide path down to BAU? Yeah, look, I think it's fair to say we may not get there overnight, but it's one that we are committed to. If I put, like, just for the sake of argument, if I put, like, a $22 billion CapEx number in my model for 2024, you'd be like: "Dave, that's stupid. You are greedy. I'm not- But again, so that's like a big tailwind. Obviously, I think we know that DIRECTV cash flows inbound are going to be a headwind. They are, but look, the thing I would say is, since we've separated, we've pulled out over $15 billion by the end of this year from DIRECTV, so those cash flows are much more resilient than many believe. And look, we're really happy with the way the business is being managed. So, yeah, we do expect it to moderate over time, but it's still gonna be a fairly meaningful portion of our cash. And just on that, I mean, you know, we've, we've been talking about the Dish-DIRECTV merger for a long time. You know, Dish is in no position to do an acquisition. Dish could well become the target. You're only a 50% controlling shareholder, so you don't really control DIRECTV. You can't tell them what to do, but- We can't tell them what to do, but we get 70% of the economics. So would you hate it if DIRECTV bought Dish? Here is the way I think about this, very simply. We know we have really good visibility in terms of the cash production over the next several years. The trends, you can trend it out based on the information that we have about the business, and we feel really good about what the cash production on an ongoing basis. And so if we have an opportunity to improve upon that cash production, yeah, we will absolutely do that. But, absent a objective transaction that will improve that position, we're not gonna do anything. There's no reason to. Mm-hmm. All right, and then just, you know, touching on the other item out there, U.S. Cellular, appetite, interest? Look, Dave, as you would expect, anytime an asset comes to market, we have a responsibility to look at it, but we really like our wireless business, and I, I don't think that particular asset would change anything demonstrable for our business, because we already have a nationwide footprint, and we feel really good about the asset we have, so. I think that's a great place to leave it. Pascal, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. I really appreciate it. That was amazing. Thank you, man. Thank you. It was awesome.