CHTR - NASDAQ

Hello, and welcome to Charter Communications' fourth quarter 2025 investor conference call. We ask that you please hold all questions until the completion of the formal remarks, at which time you will be given instructions for the question and answer session. Also, as a reminder, this conference is being recorded today. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I will now turn the call over to Stefan Anninger.

Thanks, operator, and welcome, everyone. The presentation that accompanies this call can be found on our website ir.charter.com. I would like to remind you that there are a number of risk factors and other cautionary contained in our SEC filings, and we encourage you to read them carefully. Various remarks that we make on this call concerning expectations, predictions, plans and prospects constitute forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from historical or anticipated results. Any forward-looking statements reflect management's current view only, and Charter undertakes no obligation to revise or update such statements. As a reminder, all growth rates noted on this call and in the presentation are calculated on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise specified. On today's call, we have Chris Winfrey, our president and CEO, and Jessica Fisher, our CFO. With that, let's turn the call over to Chris. Thanks, Stefan.

In 2025, we continue to compete for customers by delivering great products. Video customers despite well-known headwinds. The video product improvements we've made over the past two years which improved connectivity relationships, are having an impact. In Internet, competition for new customers remains high, but customer losses improved year over year. Driven by customer losses, our revenue was down about 0.5% in 2025, and a challenging political advertising comparison. While EBITDA grew by about half a percent. The operating environment for new sales, in particular Internet, continues to reflect low move rates and higher mobile substitution. Along with both expanded cell phone Internet competition and fiber overlap growth similar to earlier in the year. Collectively, that drove fourth quarter Internet sales slightly lower year over year. Churn improved year over year, as expected, given last year's ACP-related impacts. And Internet churn, including non-pay churn, remains at low levels. With 2026 in full swing, our shareholders should know that we are a highly competitive group, and we intend to win in the residential and business connectivity marketplace. In this environment, getting back to positive net additions is a game of inches. We're incredibly focused on one, while clearly messaging our superior value and utility and two, providing the best quality service in the market in a way that is recognized by our customers and our service is a competitive advantage. Let me go through how I believe Fortinet Assuming regulatory approval of Cox, Spectrum will cover over 70 million households, which gives us additional scale to develop new products and services serve more business customers, and save customers significant money. In 2026, we'll nearly complete our rural build-out providing us with over 1.7 million new subsidized rural passings with growth for years to come. As well as upside from the densification of higher growth areas in places like Texas, Florida, and The Carolinas. We're gig capable everywhere. And by the end of this year, 50% of the current spectrum network will be upgraded to symmetrical and multi-gig service. With significant work on the remaining 50% in flight and moving to completion in 2027. Those capabilities matter long term, as customer data usage continues to increase. And we're working with content owners in Silicon Valley to create applications and next-generation products like Spectrum Front Row, That's immersive content with Apple and the NBA, that makes full use of our ubiquitously deployed largely fallow fiber-based network. Bandwidth-rich products have always followed our network capability, And think of the last few 100 feet of our fiber-powered network as 1.8 gigahertz of contiguous spectrum. Delivered at full capacity to each individual home and business. With the ability to place cellular radios nearly everywhere along the way, fiber deep, power, and right of way. We already have a fully converged connectivity service in 100% of our footprint. Now with expanding hybrid MNO capabilities, through CBRS and Wi-Fi to drive our seamless connectivity advantage, at gigabit speeds wherever you go. So data usage will continue to increase for both wired and wireless networks, and customers don't know or care which network they're on as they move about. It just has to work. That is the service we uniquely provide. In mobile, we have a structural and strategic mobile reselling agreement with Verizon for current and future services. And we'll launch an additional MVNO for business with T-Mobile in the next six months. Nearly 90% of Spectrum mobile traffic goes over our network already at higher speeds, making us the fastest mobile operator with the best prices. Mobile's profitable, It'll continue to grow. And improves broadband churn meaningfully with the opportunity to drive more Internet sales. Our network carries more mobile traffic than any operator in our footprint. So we are a facilities-based provider of mobile services. With five gs macro cell towers as backup. Our owners' economics of a differentiated network create long-term advantage, which means we can save customers over $1,000 in a single year with Internet and mobile. And now we can do the same with video. Our video product and platform is now a killer app. When our video customers activate their included apps, video and broadband churn improvement is meaningful. Our video product can become another unique selling tool. Seamless entertainment with all the key programmer apps included as part of our service over $125 of value per month. And finally, customers have a platform in

Before covering our results, I want to mention that we made several reporting changes to our customer and financial data this quarter, which are detailed in the footnotes to the trending schedule we issued today. To better reflect the converged and integrated nature of our business and operations, we now present our customer relationships statistics inclusive of all mobile customers, including mobile-only customers. We've also added a total connectivity customer section to the trending schedule, which represents all receiving our Internet or mobile connectivity services. We've also revised our mobile lines reporting methodology better align with how we report our other services. Please also note that any forward-looking financial or customer information that we provide in today's discussion or presentation does not include Cox or any transition costs related to Cox integration planning consistent with how we reported during the TWC BHN transactions. Now let's please turn to our customer results on slide nine. Including residential and small business, we lost 119,000 Internet customers in the fourth quarter, better than last year's fourth quarter with lower connects year over year. More than offset by lower disconnects driven by last year's ACP-related disconnects. In mobile, we added 428,000 lines, with higher gross additions year over year and higher disconnects on a larger base. Net adds in the quarter were lower due to heavy device sub subsidy activity by the big telco competitors, including the new iPhone 17 through the holiday sales cycle. Video customers grew by 44,000, versus a loss of a 123,000 in 04/2024. With the improvement primarily driven by lower churn year over year resulting from the new pricing and packaging we launched last fall

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please click on the raise hand button, which can be found on the black bar the bottom of your screen. When it is your turn, you will receive a message on your screen from the host allowing you to talk, and then you'll hear your name called. Please accept, unmute your audio, and ask your question. As a reminder, we are allowing analysts to ask one question today. We will wait one moment to allow the queue to form. Our first question will come from Craig Moffett with MoffettNathanson. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thank you. Good morning. Let me start with wireless. First, you signed a new agreement that both Comcast and Verizon have talked about. I wonder if you could just say anything about what that new agreement looks like and whether it has any impact on your strand mount and offload strategy, And then on that point, Chris, you said that you're close to 90% offload. I think you had previously said 85 a couple of quarters ago, and then last quarter, I think, said 88. That already is a 20% reduction. In how much you're sending over the wholesale network that you're leasing from Verizon is the 90% just a reference to that similar to 88, or is it gotten even has the offload gotten even better since then? Sure. Look.

For obvious reasons, we'll stay consistent with what Comcast and Verizon have said as well. But you know, that's for the most part, we've amended and modernized our long-term MVNO agreement with Verizon, and continued to support profitable growth for both Charter and Verizon. It is a very good deal for them and a relationship for both. You know, as you know, it's long-term, and, you know, the market evolves over time. And so it's just natural that you have, you know, partners inside of a deal take a look and want clarity on certain things. So I'd look at it more as in that context as opposed to anything else. You know, we have a structural and long-term, you know, agreement that underpins everything that we're doing here, and that hasn't changed. On the 90%, you know, I think it's around 89% or something like that. It's bumping in that area. So it's moved up bit. It's but it's on a steady climb. And as we've always talked about before, the reality is that we have a very attractive structure and partnership with Verizon and so we can be opportunistic here. But because of the favorable economics that we've always had with Verizon continue to have know, there's a balance there in terms of the pace of 23 markets last year that we talked about for CBRS. Probably do, I think, maybe 20 or so more, but we'll be in all the states where we have you know, CBRS power licenses, you know, within this So we continue to roll out there at an opportunistic pace. Thanks, Craig. We'll take our next question, please.

Your next question from Ben Swinburne with Morgan Stanley.

You know, Chris, you guys have been competing in the market with the converge strategy for a number of years now. I'm wondering if you could maybe assess the position of spectrum Mobile in particular in the market with consumers. You guys have been marketing the product for a long time. You've got very attractive price points. But, you know, you've been building a new product and new brand for some time. Where do you think that sits with consumers today? Is there more work to do and maybe tie in how the how the sales force is, is executing in your mind on on you know, selling that into the base, into new customers. Obviously, it's core to the long-term growth of the company.

It is. So the conversion strategy is working. You can see that in our results. You would one hand, you would look and say, well, the net add rate ticked down a little bit, but it ticked down in environment with a tremendous amount of, you know, flooding the market subsidies that we didn't match, and yet we continued to grow, which shows and demonstrates the value of the product that customers perceive that we have. I don't think that customers are ultimately, at the end of the day, fooled. They can be entertained with an offer at one point in time, but at the end of the day, you look at the total amount that's on your bill. And if you compare that with our competitors to what our bill looks like, you can buy a lot of advanced telephone. Telephones, cellular devices, with that savings that we provide. So we're the all in you know, best product for both speed as well as savings. Now your question about market perception, Spectrum Mobile is still a relatively new brand in the marketplace. And Yeah. And getting that product from your cable providers and, you know, still relatively new concept. So our brand awareness continues to go up every year. The reputation of the product continues to improve and settle in. The savings recognition and the word-of-mouth I think, is improving. But it'll take time for that to continue to develop. And if you think back to some of the things that we did around video, there are other products broadband, video, and you can phone, can both be an asset as well as can be a liability to the mobile reputation a particular moment in time. And so, you know, when we have programming related rate increases that go through on the cable bill and impacts the spectrum, customer there. It flows through a little bit to mobile. So that's a piece that we try to manage and think through as well. But I think the do I think there's more that we can do? Of course. And but we're on a steady path to increasing brand awareness I think the increasing capabilities, the convergence, is recognized. Most customers still today haven't picked up on the fact that as you're moving around across the country, both inside our markets as well as other MSO cable markets that you're actually connecting to faster speeds through Wi-Fi. And for those of our investors who live in, for example, New York City or LA, I just encourage you as a Spectrum Mobile customer to drive drive around walk around, and what you'll notice is that you're actually attached not to a five g network, but you're attached to a Spectrum mobile. At a vastly superior speed than you would have gotten with five g. And we haven't in my mind, we have work to do to really show and demonstrate that product capability in the way that we go to market, and I think that's upside for us. Because it is better speeds. It's at a better price. So eventually, word-of-mouth gets around that it is a great product. It's better than anything else out there, and it saves you money. So I'm positive. And the fact that we can do that in an environment that had so much, you know, as I said, flooding the market with subsidy know, I think gives us a lot of confidence.

Got it. Great. So much.

Yep. Thanks, Ben. Operator, we'll take our next question, please.

Your next question will come from Vikash Harlalka with New Street Research.

Hi. Thanks so much for taking my question. I have one for quick one for Jessica. Quick, could you just provide us any details on how your market share has trended in markets where you're competing against fiber operators for a few years now and how do you see that evolve over time? And then one for Jessica. Jessica, you said you expect EBITDA growth to be slightly positive this year. By our estimate, political advertising adds about a percentage point to EBITDA growth. Could you grow EBITDA higher than 1% this year?

Sure. So I'll take the first question related to fiber competition. I mean, we've competed well against fiber for many years. We expect to continue to do so. The reality is that's been going on for fifteen years, so we have a lot of experience, and we have a lot of data and trends there. We have greater penetration than our fiber competitors, even in mature fiber markets. And, you know, when it happens, overbuild impact tends to be limited to a few percentage points Internet penetration during the first year. Of a new overbuilt vintage, as it were, coming online. It's not ideal for us, but, you know, the pace of that's tied to the pace of overbuild. And that's been, you know, fairly consistent. And the meantime, as a result of all that, you know, we really don't see overbuilders reaching their ROI goals within our footprint now or in the future. The piece that I would, you know, add to that is you know, and I know you've done some analysis around this. Obviously, the introduction of fixed wireless access you know, has impacts on everyone's penetration. I think that needs to be factored in as well. But inside of our footprint where we have a lot of experience, a lot of years of fiber overlap, As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, that's not new. And while it is new competition and that in and of itself presents some challenges, it's one that we've dealt with over time. The bigger issue over the past three years is the macro environment in terms of housing, low moves, and the introduction of even though it's an inferior product, it's a brand new competitor in the marketplace with expanding footprint through phone, Internet, or fixed wireless access.

So on on your second which I think is will we grow EBITDA when excluding advertising, think the answer is maybe. It's certainly our goal. Look. EBITDA growth has challenged in 2026 given the headwind from broadband subscriber declines. But we think we can overcome that with the combination of mobile growth changing mix of Internet driving positive ARPU growth, continued operational improvements, and attentive expense management in addition to what we see from the from the political advertising space.

Thank you.

Your next question will come from Jessica Reif Ehrlich with BofA. Thank you. I guess two questions. Of course, I'm gonna ask on video. Chris, what do you think the sustainability of the video sub gains are? And is there any color that you can provide on first quarter trends And then just to follow-up on your comments, just something really quickly about Silicon Valley. Can you you give us some color on what the what you're doing you know, what the endeavors are, what's the goal, and, you know, what's the timing of of maybe some products coming out?

Sure. Look. For video, I wanna be really clear. Our north star here, our goal is not to have net gain of video just for net gain stakes. Our goal is to have a video product supports broadband acquisition and broadband retention, and I think it's a powerful tool to do that if we can provide value and utility for customers. I do and I know you spend a lot of time in this space. I do think it's good for the ecosystem, everything that we've done. And, you know, of course, we pleased about that, but that's you know, that's not what our shareholders ask us to do, and so it's a nice side benefit. But in getting there, I think does help broadband You know, I think it's important to thank the programmers here. And particularly some of the key execs. I'm not gonna name them out, but it's a handful, and they know who they are. They leaned in, and they continue to lean into help us. I think they believed in what we were doing. It wasn't easy to get there, but, you know, eventually, you know, did believe what we're doing. And the reason is because you know, again, with the viewpoint of solving for our broadband customers, we're really solving for customers first and providing that value. And we're unique. In a relationship with the programmers because we bring a broadband distribution capability that most others don't have, and that means we can serve all of these customers with the programmers product, whether that's a skinny bundle, whether that's the full expanded product with apps. You know, we get to put in ad free upgrades that, you know, benefits the customer at a much lower incremental cost as well as the programmer. Then you know, from their perspective, the direct to consumer apps that we sell a la carte to our 30,000,000 customers now. And that's gonna be an increasing component. And so what we've been able to do with video is create the best economics and choice for the customer which means that we're actually I think we're the best channel distribution path to maximize the opportunity for the programmer as well. And so back to your question about video growth. I mean, the ecosystem is still really challenged. Programming costs, you know, continue to go up and particular retrans is is a real problem. And but around that, I think you'll see us continue to innovate We do have some new product ideas. You know, we'll talk to the programmers about that in the course of this year. But the key, you know, for us to go back to, you know, connectivity, you know, acquisition insurance. So I on your net gain question, it's not the goal that you're on the razor's edge. You know, if you use that parallel, There's and you say, well, what happened in Q4? Q4 was really no different than Q3. So You know, there's a slight difference between Q3 and Q4 that went from net loss to net gain. So can just as easily, you know, float back into the net loss category and it's you know, the net gain isn't our goal. I think the parallel there is you know, when you're on the edge, and you have a high amount of gross adds and a high amount of you know, gross or disconnects, it's a dangerous place to be in terms of volatility. I think there's some parallel there to Internet in a way that we need to get ourselves out of that space. And when I talk about game of inches, you know, that really applies to all subscription businesses. And you know, if you can get a more commanding lead through the things I talked about, the ways I think we win, I think that helps us in Internet, which really is the goal here together with mobile. Silicon Valley, the big overarching thing that we're trying to do there is communicate to the people who develop products and software that they should stop developing to the least common denominator in terms of network capabilities. That because the cable ecosystem covers nearly the entire country, unlike fiber overbuilders who do a lot of cherry picking redlining, You know, we upgrade everywhere. We have already, we have a gigabit everywhere we operate. We're upgrading to symmetrical and multi-gig speeds. Effectively nationwide. And that's the platform with low latency, by the way. And that's the platform that software developers and product developers should be developing to. They have, you know, unfettered access to that network. Convergence multi-gig, and the product capabilities that come about as a result of that I think, are significant, and our networks put us in, you know, a unique place to go deliver that. And so the product that we supported Apple in the NBA with Spectrum Front Row Do we need to own those rights? Do we need to own that product? No. Absolutely not. In fact, what we're just trying to do is show the way that a ubiquitously deployed network in The US exists that can carry that type of eight k or 16 k product provides an immersive experience. That can actually have caching you know, at the local edge in a way that hasn't been thought of before. And given the fact that just a charter loan, we have a thousand hubs or data localized data centers. That provide local edge compute. And so we have a lot of assets that aren't being used today Our experience has been once people understand that these networks exist and their capabilities there, that they'll develop products to go do that. And so our time out in Silicon Valley has really been spent around making people understand that this platform has been built for them There there are things that we can do with it. If you take a look at what we've done with you know, Amazon in terms of convergence and offloading. Think about the things that we could do in the electrical vehicle market in terms of offloading. In a way that's attractive for them and and really make use of the tools that we have So that's that's the major goal. The biggest one is, you know, we've internally, we've called it the fill the pipe tour. And to go really explain to people that this network's available there for them, and they should develop to

Thank you.

Thanks, Jessica. Operator, we'll take our next question.

Your next question will come from Michael Ng with Goldman Sachs.

Hey, good morning. Thank you so much for the question. I wanted to ask about operating expense growth next year and investment opportunities. You guys are obviously seeing really good momentum on the video side and streaming app inclusions and obviously, also with convergence and Spectrum Mobile. So how are you balancing the commitments to EBITDA growth with the potential to you know, invest to drive these opportunities a little bit faster And, you know, how do you balance that with efficiencies that you could potentially realize? Thank you.

I think Jessica can chime in for a second. But if you know, strategically, if you step back we've made the investments. So if you think about the place we're coming from, we've made the investment by keeping our pricing low We've made the investment by having a fully US based in source sales and service capability across the country. We've made the investment in our technology platforms And so that gives us the ability to have increasing efficiency through the business and still be able to innovate and develop new products along the way and to be able to manage both your foot on the gas and foot on the brake at the same time.

Yeah. I think that's right. And if you think about how that translates into you know, something like cost to service customers, like, ultimately, I expect that to service customers to be slightly down over the year. In the year versus last year. But a big chunk of that is related to improvements in operating efficiency, and in the way that we utilize technology to make our services more efficient. I guess top of that, you know, in in marketing and resi sales, last year, we had seen some substantial growth in the year over year I expect that to be meaningfully slower this year than what we saw last year, largely related to of investment that we already made sort of bringing the expense rate up and and and then changes that we've made that I think Chris talked quite a bit about inside of last quarter. To really try to find the right way to drive our message into the marketplace. And to do so efficiently. And so I think with those you know, we we we believe in our ability to generate EBITDA growth while still doing the right things for the business. To drive medium and long-term growth, which ultimately has always been sort of the strategic goal of the management team.

Great. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Jessica. Appreciate the thoughts.

Thanks, Michael. Operator, we'll take our next question, please.

Your next question will come from Michael Rollins with Citi.

Thanks, and good morning. There's been a bit of discussion lately around pricing strategies for these services, and what are companies should move to everyday value pricing versus that you know, lower, higher promotional stack? And just curious, Charter's latest views on how you're approaching pricing in that strategy and the sustainability for what

Sure. You know this, but by way of background for for everybody else, in September 2024, we introduced new pricing and packaging Bundled. At those lower prices. And despite that, we've been able to maintain consistent ARPPUR in many cases growing. And in parallel, use that to first reactively and then proactively migrate good portions of the existing base to lower product pricing. And and but in the meantime, maintain or actually grow customer relationship ARPU through that process. Absent some of the video tier mix that is well known. Because people are taking more products per household. And so that's been a long-held strategy at Charter that can keep your product pricing low and you can have higher customer relationships ARPU by getting higher product penetration And that's that was the goal of that pricing and packaging. At the end of 2025, we were about 40% of our footprint had that new pricing and packaging. We'll probably be at 60% at the end of this year. And so we've been able to manage an environment where you are really lowering your broadband pricing at promotion and at retail. Both in standalone, but more importantly, in bundled pricing and packaging in a way that creates significant savings for customers. And whether that's mobile where we save you, you know, over a thousand dollars a year, or it's in video where actually now we can also save you over a thousand dollars a year because the inclusion of the apps We're using these tools that we have that are really unique in the marketplace. We can offer mobile everywhere, we can offer video everywhere. And I know, you know, you didn't ask it, but so I was thinking about mobile everywhere. I know one of our large competitors the other day mentioned that in a in their wireline footprint, you know, which is limited to where they offer mobile, they thought they could get mobile penetration to 75% to 80%. I thought that was interesting because if that's true, and it was said by one of our large competitors, I mean, the the implications for Charter and Comcast are, I think, dramatic. If you can get 75 to 80% penetration, you know, on our broadband footprints and that's sustainable. You know? You would say, well, you know, maybe to the earlier point, we don't have the brand you know, to go do that. But we have a structural advantage without the same macro cell tower and spectrum investments that's required out of the big telcos. And 90% of our traffic goes on a much faster multi-gig network. So yeah, we have a we have a product advantage and we have the ability to offer those products. You just ubiquitously. We cover all of our DMAs, essentially. And so that provides a marketing and service advantage. And then we can save customers a lot of money with the pricing strategies that we have back to your original question. So we're we're pleased with where we're heading. It's you know, there's this is a you know, it's a tough migration path to manage, but we've got a lot of experience doing it, and we've done it many times. And we'll we'll actually end up doing the same thing with Cox and look forward to doing that assuming we get regulatory approval there. And Chris, maybe that'd be helpful there and translate

a little bit of that into financials as well because I know folks are focused on sort of what does that mean for ARPU across the business. And we don't often talk about product ARPUs, but I'm gonna go there because I think it's helpful in this context as we're sort of doing the pricing migration. Ultimately, I think we expect Internet ARPU grow this year, though more slowly than it has in prior years. As we drive spectrum pricing and packaging through the footprint. I think mobile ARPU has been declining as more customers take our gig product, which includes unlimited press plus at unlimited pricing. And as we see some contra revenue from phone balance, dial plan, I think that we're at a low point there. And so there might be additional mobile ARPU declines in the year over year going forward. But sequentially, I think that we've we've bottomed out on that front. And then, you know, there are multiple headwinds that impact video ARPU. That make that one difficult. You've got programmer streaming app allocation which continues to accelerate. You have some more unfavorable bundled revenue allocation. And you have a higher mix of skinnier video tiers. If you think about that together with programming and programming cost per video sub, I expect that programmer cost per video sub will be up in low single digits when you that program or streaming app allocation. And we did pass through some programmer costs in our video pricing at the beginning of this year. So ultimately, what what happens then, you know, to think about it in March, instead of individual costs. So you might have video ARPU continuing to decline But it's really based on those impacts.

Very helpful. Thanks. Thanks, Michael.

Thanks, Michael. Operator, we'll take our next question, please.

Your next question will come from Steven Cahall with Wells Fargo. First, Chris, just going back to fiber. You know, you said you don't expect the fiber overbuilders to reach their ROI goals, and we haven't necessarily seen that pressure translate into a slowdown, especially from the telcos. Don't know if that's due to lower cash taxes or something else, but I was wondering if you could just speak to how you expect you know, the competitive environment to play out when we might actually see a slowdown in that activity that could lessen some of the the competitive pressure? And then also just on the promotional environment, I thought slide five was interesting with, maybe a $40 gig offer in the market. Was just wondering if you see a really attractive to be more promotional this year or if I'm misreading that slide, But if you are, what you think that could do to subscriber trends as we move through the year? Thank you.

Yeah. So let me start with that one first. The $40 gig is when bundled with either two mobile lines or video. That's been in the market since you know, since September 2024. So that's that's our, you know, everyday pricing that's out there that's been in the market. And clearly, it's had a big impact on the percentage of gig uptake in in in amongst acquisition. So it's not new, and and we agree with you. We think it's positive. The ROI question I mean, I've said this for twenty five years that when we take a look at ROI, we think about classic IRR cash from cash payback. You know, years for that return to take place. And I guess the danger is always that other people's ROI may be based on a going concern, That as opposed to a real financial ROI. I'm not sure that you should be investing for growing concern ROI because I think most shareholders would say, you know, we'd rather have that capital back as opposed to deploying it in a in a poor return way. But that's not new. I mean, that's existed in with telcos for at at least I've been in it for almost thirty years, and it's always been the case. So that makes it dangerous. When your competitor isn't focused on traditional financial returns, and shareholders are, you know, either confused or willing to look the other way and and not insist on, you know, understanding what those ROI ROIs are. I think that's and and know, that's not me complaining. That's just saying I think that's what the case is. I don't think it's gonna change, and we have to be able to compete irrespective of that. And we do. And we've been doing that, you know, for know, for a really long time. So you know, given what I just said, I don't know when the competitive slowdown occurs I do know that as you get deeper into the market, density gets lower. And the cost per passing ultimately has to increase when the density gets lower so there's a natural throttling mechanism that exists there relative to what they've done in the past. You know, whether it's taxes or interest rates that, you know, put an additional lever on that, I'm not sure. But we're that's not that's not our job. And so our job is to go compete against whatever's you know, being brought to us, and that's what we've been doing since fiber's been doing overlaps for the overbuilds for the past fifteen years or so.

Thank you. Operator, we will take our last question please.

Your last question will come from Frank Louthan with Raymond James. Great. Thank you. When you looking forward here, on as far as some of the promotional activity that you have, how how long do you see the need for for price locks? And and what is sort of your your thoughts on that as a long-term solution? And then how quickly do you think you can get the charter the Cox customers up to levels wireless penetration that you experience in your your base footprint? Thanks.

Look. We don't have any change you know, plans to change our pricing strategy. I think the price locks is both a a good competitive reaction on our part it's something that gives customers a lot of comfort and the ability to switch. And so I think that's here to stay. You know, could you see over time that you know, we evolve that further into a next evolution? Yes. But we're not not at that stage today. You know, we actually think what we have is is working and will work. But we'll always continue to modernize our our pricing strategies So I don't see any big change today. On the wireless or the mobile penetration at Cox, I think you should take a look at you know, maybe not our early days of spectrum mobile penetration, because we were still putting the product together, getting, you know, larger brand awareness. So but I think you can take a look at the Spectrum mobile penetration at CharterCurve, I think that's a good indication. I would expect the earlier days to be much faster. Than that simply because we were a better operator in that space than we were whatever it is six, seven years ago. In terms of our platforms, our sales channel, our marketing, our, you know, national brand awareness it's all in a much better place. But I think an improvement to that original curve is probably a good starting point for people to think about how we can get into into the market there.

Alright. Great. Thank you.

Thanks, Frank. Operator, I'll pass it back to you to close out. Thank you.

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect.