Thank you all for attending the last presentation of the 2026 Bank of America Telecom and Media Conference. Really happy to have AT&T helping us wrap up this year and excited to have Pascal and Jen join us here this afternoon. Thank you both for being here.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you.
I think you might have a safe harbor that you wanted to show, Pascal.
Yes, indeed. Can we pull up the safe harbor? Some of the comments today will be forward-looking and are subject to risk and uncertainties. Please refer to our website for more information.
Great. Thank you, Pascal. I want to cover a broad range of topics, but I want to start with priorities and momentum in the business and going back to the second quarter. Big picture in the second quarter, AT&T reported faster growth in service revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS than in the first quarter. You also reiterated your full-year outlook. I would love to hear from you, Pascal, what has improved most meaningfully in the underlying business, and what gives you confidence in that momentum carrying through to the second half and even longer-term guidance period?
Yeah, look, I think we reached a tipping point in the second quarter, and we expected that. I will take you back. The last several years, we have been investing against priorities that we have deep convictions against. It is our belief if you want to be the best connectivity company, you need to have the very best technology. That is, for us, fiber and 5G. We have made enormous investments in both bolstering our spectrum position, modernizing our wireless network, and deploying fiber. Last year, we significantly increased, enhanced our position by mounting the acquisition of the Lumen consumer assets and the EchoStar spectrum. Together, those assets positioned us for accelerated growth. We said it at the time we did those deals. Those deals have both closed now, and we expect to see an acceleration in broadband revenue growth, both fiber and fixed wireless.
When we acquired EchoStar spectrum, it allowed us to open up more areas with fixed wireless. The combination of those two acquisitions, plus our organic build, that fiber that we have been at for several years now, really has increased the opportunity set for us to drive converged relationships. Our consumers have told us very clearly, they want to buy from one provider, and if we can provide them the very best services at a compelling price point where we have onerous economics on both sides, we believe that is a critical advantage. Ironically, in many ways, we are an insurgent in broadband and that for years, our cable peers have enjoyed a virtual monopoly, and we are overbuilding in their areas. We are able to bring a better product at an attractive price point, knowing that we can trade economics between wireless and fiber.
It is a great play and a great position to be at, and we think there is a lot of room to run. As you know, we continue to build out significant fiber locations both in our historical footprint, plus in the footprint that we acquired from Lumen, and that is going to continue to give us nice runway. We sit here today, AT&T, we have guided for the next three years to grow earnings double digits, EPS double digits. We said this year that we are returning $18 billion back to our owners in the form of dividends and buybacks. Over the next three years, we expect to deliver $45 billion back to owners, plus double-digit EPS growth and accelerated EBITDA growth from here. All in all, I am so incredibly proud of the organization and the position we find ourselves in.
You touched on convergence earlier, and I want to come back to that in a minute because it is really central to the story and even the evolving debate around telecom versus LEO and that entire thing. I wanted to focus on maybe wireless and competition for a second because we entered 2026 with expectation for elevated competition. I think in part because in 4Q, you did see some carriers out with relatively aggressive promotions, not AT&T, but others. In the second quarter, combined, what, 432,000 postpaid phone net adds, higher ARPU, lower year-over-year postpaid phone churn.
Maybe contrary to some of the expectations that the market had entering the year, I would love to hear what changed during the quarter and how much that performance reflects AT&T's specific execution versus moderation industry switching activity. It is kind of a long question. If you look beneath the headline numbers, what customer behavior has changed? Are they switching less frequently? What has changed in their behavior, their activity?
Let me start, and then I will have Jen jump in. There were several things we knew was going to accelerate our momentum. Remember, we acquired the Lumen assets in February. That first quarter, we knew we were going to have to invest significantly to ramp up our distribution. That was a headwind we had called out, and we expected that. Two, we only had two months of Lumen operations in the first quarter. Mechanically, in the second quarter, when you having a full quarter would also add to our growth rate. One, we also had pricing actions planned for the second quarter. On top of that, we knew as we scaled the Lumen assets, as we managed those assets and put more marketing muscle behind it, that those assets were going to produce more than they have historically.
All things that we are seeing and we are benefiting from that have really helped the momentum and all those plays. That is a lot of room to run on top of a great performance by our business segment, which has also reached a tipping point that, for years we have been saying we are going to achieve service revenue growth. We grew service revenues 1.8% last quarter, and we are guiding to our growth for the foreseeable future over the next three years, both single digits. A lot of things are working well, and as we scale our fiber footprint, as we scale the Lumen acquisition, we have a lot of room to run.
You touched on execution of AT&T strategy and things that you are actively doing. I am also curious, if you are seeing the consumers are switching less frequently, holding devices longer, maybe placing greater emphasis on network quality service, what you are seeing with customer behavior and how that is affecting the metrics that you posted.
Yeah, I will build from where Pascal just was, which is, we certainly are seeing behavior that is similar to last year with respect to switching. We are seeing same levels. I would say the industry is very healthy with respect to competition. It is as competitive out there as it has been. Switching levels we have said is they are on par. I would not say they are higher or they are lower. They have held steady as we have gone through the year. What we are very proud of is that our thesis is holding across three fronts. One, the converged strategy is working. Anchoring the home with converged absolutely gives us the opportunity in areas where we are under-penetrated in fiber, such as the new Lumen assets.
We can go build off the home, pick up the fiber, and then grow wireless where we have not historically had as strong of wireless share, like in the Lumen footprint. That thesis is holding out. We also hold on to our wireless subscribers in fiber areas, so that grows the value of the household. The second thing that we have done, and we did exceptionally well in the second quarter, is the team has executed very well and consistently on our pricing. We rolled out new pricing constructs earlier this year. Customers have been very receptive to that.
We refreshed our plans, and we have gone out there and listened to customers on their pain points. AT&T is uniquely positioned in that we are listening to customers who want choice. Customers do not want to pay for more than what they need. In our traditional plans of Unlimited Your Way, we are leaning into the mix-and-match view that we uniquely do. Customers truly can go into their family plans where we have large share and mix and match uniquely to the lines they have. With our Build-A-Plan, they can uniquely go in at $15 a line and only add the features they want. We look at that and say we will build to the household only the plans and features they want. It has been very receptive. You mentioned it, and Pascal mentioned it, we grew ARPU. We lowered churn.
At a time when we added all of those lines, we actually had the highest account growth in the second quarter than we have had in over three years with postpaid phone accounts. That is demonstrating the value of converged. It is demonstrating our execution on price. The third thing I would say is that we are absolutely leaning into the value proposition of the AT&T Guarantee.
Yep.
Customers are saying and showing us with that growth that the AT&T Guarantee value proposition makes sense. Staying consistent with leaning into choice, staying consistent with showing them that our network assets and the fact that we are willing to back up our network assets and our service with the AT&T Guarantee is building trust.
Yep.
That shows that customers value that trust, they value choice, they value the price equation that we are giving them. So those things are working, and they are positioning us better as we look forward.
Can I build on that for one second? Because one of your competitors actually called out expectation for higher churn in third quarter, and I think in part because they had made some plan changes, some pricing changes. I think it speaks to maybe difference in execution and very deliberate choices that are made by AT&T and how you touch the customer and how you make those changes. Can you just walk me through briefly how you think about making those changes, interacting with the customer to make it a lower friction, less churn-inducing event b ecause obviously there is a good way and there is a bad way to do it, and it seems as if you are doing it in a good way?
Right. When we look at our pricing actions with customers, we have three pillars that we have stayed very consistent with for the last several years. The first is that if we take a pricing action, we ensure that any pricing action adds value for the customer. That is first and foremost what we start with. The second is that we are going to be very transparent with the action so that customers understand what is happening. They know what is happening in advance and what value is being presented to them. Then the third is that we come back to choice. We will always present it in a way to the customer that says, "Here is the value that is coming to you. Here are the choices you have within those plans to either stay with the plan you have at the new price point.
Here is what you have available to you that might be at a higher price point to fit you better or at a lower." What we have been able to do over the last several years as we have executed these pricing plans, is learn that customers often stay with the plan they are on. Some choose to move up and some choose to move down. We are able to model that with a lot of confidence and able to build that trust with customers. We are able to then look at and model the churn that we anticipate. Our business cases for these pricing actions tend to be much more conservative with the churn we would expect. That is, we model higher churn to make sure that we're willing, on the sensitivities, to take the action.
That you can accept the consequence-
We can accept the consequence
...of the action. Yeah.
Exactly. We tend to come in lower than our expectation on churn.
That's great. So Pascal, on choice, right? Big choice to make in fourth quarter of this year. New iPhones announced yesterday, the long-anticipated foldable iPhone, but I think even the lower-end devices, average MSRP went up like $100, something like that. That's not inconsequential when you're thinking about profitability, and we've run the math on it, right? I think you and others have said that, look, we are not going to keep on increasing subsidies, or the consumer needs to be re-educated, right? Heading into the holiday season, what is your thought process strategy around devices, around device promotion? I know you can't tell me exactly, but just how are you thinking about subsidy, especially with the higher device prices?
I'm going to phone a friend next to me since she is the one making those decisions.
Okay.
You made a point that's an important one. We are living within a subsidy budget. Just because the manufacturer has decided to increase prices for a variety of reasons, doesn't mean that that changes our subsidy budget. We have to figure out how to live within that budget envelope. The team does a really good job of looking at various things in making sure on the one hand we're competitive, but on the other, that we are living within that subsidy budget. Jen can take you through some of the considerations.
Yeah, I'd love to hear more detail on the subsidy budget and how you construct that.
Absolutely. Well, you're getting a front row seat to our regular meetings here. Look, the customers are going to set their demand for the new devices, and we are there to serve customers first. Then we look at it and say, "Okay, how do we make sure that the AT&T value proposition of network and the AT&T Guarantee is first and foremost why a customer would choose to come to us?"
Then let's make sure you have the portfolio of devices you want to choose from, and that we're competitive in the market. But within that, we're doing it profitably. We're not chasing volume for volume's sake. Our goalpost is to win in service revenue. That is how we measure success. So with higher-cost devices, we would anticipate, as with anything else, there could be some suppressed demand. We'll see how customers take us w here we look at it with offers is that we are going to match and produce our offers relative to the customer's value.
We use, you'll see high-level marketing messages, as many do. High-level marketing messages grab attention, they drive traffic, and then we construct the offers underneath that to ensure that our total cost fits within the envelope. So you'll see a strong message that's competitive at the highest level will generate traffic, and the levers we have below that tend to come from these avenues. First, we can look at the value of the device that gets traded in, and we can tweak that. The newer the device that's traded in, the higher the value. I mean, that's intuitive.
The second thing we can do is use rate plans. The service rate plans that customers purchase from can gate the eligibility of the higher-tiered offers. So if you're on one of our higher-tiered rate plans, you then get a higher trade-in eligibility of your device for the higher-end offer. The third thing we have at scale that our competitors don't have is a converged, scaled base. The ability then to use these offers to drive scaled converged growth. The more value on the household account itself, the more value we're willing to give on the offer because the long-term value of the account grows.
You're solving for CLV.
Absolutely.
That's what you're solving for, right?
At the end of the day.
That's all it, right. You're not solving for net add. You don't have a net add target anyway, so you don't have to worry about hitting-
Right
...a net add target.
That's right.
We are very deliberate in that regard.
Very deliberate. Yeah. That's clear. Mike, just on the consumer growth and share gains, you added 147,000 consumer postpaid wireless accounts in 2Q. From where are those new relationships coming? Is AT&T sustainably gaining market share among one line, two line, and even value-oriented households where historically, I think you've actually been under-penetrated in those different segments of the market. I guess my question is from where are you seeing growth, and is it primarily from historically under-penetrated?
The growth that we are seeing is from our value segment. We've been open about that is where our under-penetrated segment is. It's where our opportunity is. I would say it is still an opportunity. That is a runway in front of us where we still under index. But absolutely, the accounts you're referencing, at our highest in three years, as I mentioned, is where we are seeing the majority of that growth. What I would tell you is the growth that we look at is in this formula, the right product at the right price and the right offer to the right customer at the right time.
Making sure that we take our converged formula of Fiber and Internet Air, our fixed wireless product, plus Wireless, target it at the right price construct and offer construct towards one and two line accounts, versus our very valuable base that has multi-line accounts, and then mirror that against our pricing constructs of Unlimited Your Way, of Build-A-Plan, of our new OneConnect plan that we're testing, and mirroring those out across the segments such that we get the highest, what we would call LTV, CLV, such that we are growing converged households at the end of the day, that is the formula we're solving for. Yes, we're seeing growth here. We also see growth from protecting the base.
Okay. That makes a lot of sense. You have mentioned FWA a few times, both of you have. I want to go back to second quarter and make sure I understood some comments, because I am an analyst who is always interpreting things probably incorrectly a lot of times. I think John Stankey said, and I paraphrase here, because he will probably correct me, that you would be prioritizing Fiber in markets, which is not surprising, where you have Fiber in those markets.
Maybe less emphasis on FWA in the markets where you have Fiber. I wanted to interpret that. I thought maybe that meant less emphasis, less building out of FWA, and an even greater focus or acceleration in Fiber, given this potential competitive threat that we have all been talking about. Am I reading too much into that comment, or is there some greater emphasis focused on Fiber deployment, maybe less emphasis on FWA?
Let me give you our logic, and it is fairly straightforward. Our belief is this: when we invest in Fiber and we are successful in deploying it is the very best product that drives the best consumer experience. You couple that with, it is our lowest cost to serve. The incremental cost of delivering a bit in Fiber is lower than any other technology. So it stands to reason that we would prioritize putting as much traffic as possible where we have invested to build Fiber. In turn, where we do not have it, we think fixed wireless is a fine solution. Especially in those areas where we do not have Fiber, we tend to be under-penetrated in Wireless.
If we can bring a combined offer of fixed wireless, plus Wireless to get a share of the population that we otherwise would not have a relationship with, it makes all the sense in the world. We are doing it very deliberately, recognizing that it is long term. It is expensive to support a growing fixed wireless base. We do not ever anticipate having the size of base that some of our peers have. Do we have a lot of room to still run?
Yeah, absolutely. We do not anticipate it because we are being very surgical, and we are trying to build a business that we believe is going to be sustainable long term. One with a great cost profile, one that allows us to increase our share of the connectivity budget in each household, but one that we could make a really nice return on. It is balancing a lot of things when we are trying to do that.
Okay. I am inching towards the questions about convergence because we are kind of getting there in the conversation. I wanted to talk a little bit about ARPU trends in the quarter, because they are the discussion point, I think at 2Q. An area of focus was the divergence between the improving ARPU for wireless and then the pressure on fiber ARPU, and that there were a lot of questions on, and then even after the call on this topic. Historically, investors look at these trends independently. Right? Your comments suggest actually economics are becoming more interconnected, especially as convergence grows across your portfolio. So, how should investors think about these ARPU trends together, maybe more interconnected going forward? What would give you confidence that the overall customer relationship becomes more valuable over time?
That is my favorite question.
Is that-
It is.
That one yours?
Well, we'll-
Okay.
...both tag team it because it really does, it highlights the value of convergence, and it highlights the value or the potential for growth. I think of it this way. First, from a fiber perspective, when we look at this, the ability to anchor the home and come in, as Pascal said earlier, we're an insurgent, we're the disruptor in the broadband space. Going after cable that has enjoyed 80% or so market share. If we go head to head with a better product, we win. If we can go in quickly as the disruptor, anchor homes, and we take a little bit of fiber ARPU dilution to do so, because those homes come in and we have a higher likelihood to converge, we're going to do it. The reason that makes sense is a converged household has higher lifetime value.
We experience lower churn with those customers. We are more likely to pull wireless with it, either because we are protecting wireless that is there, or we are growing wireless, especially in areas where we have had historically lower wireless share, like the Lumen footprint. From a fiber perspective, we anchor the home low and we give ourselves an opportunity to grow that value over time, knowing the household value grows. From a wireless perspective, we are protecting our growing wireless as well and getting converged. For our business, the model makes sense because we have both of those individual ARPU or P&Ls to work from at the household level.
We are moving away from thinking about these as individual products because a scaled owners economics of the networks allows us to say, "We will take a little bit of fiber ARPU dilution over here to grow the total value of the household now and over time." That is the benefit we have sitting in this seat. If it is more competitive to do so right now with the fiber dilution, we will do that. If we need to make other trades, we can do it and still grow total value of the household.
That makes a lot of sense. I think some investors was surrounding the accounting around it as well and how that was impacting the ARPU.
The other thing is, I think we have shown a history of being effective at pricing up the back book for both wireless and fiber. Look, it is something that we do periodically, but we are in a unique position where we are an insurgent. We are using the investments that we have made in both fiber and spectrum to really allow us to take share from competitors that have benefited from a virtual monopoly the last several years. It really is a great position to be in. Especially when you have fiber, you have a better product that you can offer to consumers at a more competitive price point.
That was great. Thank you. I want to, I guess, focus even more squarely on convergence for a minute and some of the penetration rates. I am going to throw some numbers out here that end of 2Q, I think, what, 42.5% of internet customers had postpaid wireless and 45% ex-Lumen footprint, right? I mean, obviously, a large portion of your base is now converged. How far can that penetration ultimately go? As you think about driving that penetration, what are some of the key operational constraints on moving it higher? I guess even how do you address those operational constraints?
Mm-hmm. We have said, I think our last Investor Day, we said publicly, "Look, our target is 50%. I believe that John Stankey has put an even bolder target out there and said, "Why wouldn't every fiber customer have our wireless?" I would say we've publicly stated 50% is the target. We've been given a stretch goal publicly as well, higher than 50%. It will land, I am sure, somewhere in between. But I've committed to 50%.
Okay.
Mike, I think what's important too is, we're in a period where the denominator of that ratio is increasing significantly.
That was my question.
Yeah. All right.
It will vary.
Yeah.
The math will vary over time.
Yeah. Even though it may not appear that we are making significant progress as you are expanding the denominator and you are increasing the percentage at the same time, it implies more and more converged customers coming on board.
Acceleration in the absolute number, right?
Yeah.
Right.
As you ramp up your fiber builds, right?
Right.
There could be some quarter-to-quarter choppiness in that percent number as maybe you add more or less fiber-
Exactly.
...almost past each quarter, but it should continue to ramp and march higher over time.
Yeah. Importantly, we do not talk about nearly enough, we are over 50% already on fixed wireless.
Yes.
The play is working, and it has been proven, and our customer research supports that is how they want to buy.
Have you seen any differences in the churn rate of converged customers over time as you have grown the converged base? I know you have thrown some statistics out historically about kind of a 50% reduction in churn, or have you seen changes in the churn rate as you have expanded that base?
Jen?
Is that something you could comment on?
I don't remember precisely what we have said.
Yeah.
Why don't you talk a little bit qualitatively about what you see when we have a converged relationship.
I'll-
Both in terms of churn and overall value.
Right. What I will tell you that converged customers do is this: They have stayed consistent in that they do stay longer, whether that is a fiber plus wireless customer or a fixed wireless plus wireless customer. Fiber customers being stickier with the wireless because the fiber customer stays in their home longer. The converged customers tend to buy more. Those customers have more wireless lines with us. They tend to have a higher value account from the perspective of the add-ons they have, whether that is on the wireless side or the fiber side. The total value of the account is higher.
Okay.
Both in survivability, but also in the value of the service plans and add-ons.
Okay. I think you already answered this in part earlier, so I apologize, but you have mentioned a number of times the higher value for converged households. It is a natural extension of that to think that you really focus your promotional dollars, right, enhance the promotional dollars on the converged offerings, and maybe we just see less promotional dollars towards wireless-only accounts every time. Is that a logical way of thinking about this?
Yes, I think you should absolutely equate our offer spend with the higher value of customer.
Okay.
Yep.
Okay. So maybe less directly in kind of the wireless-only marketplace competing there around the holidays, and much more focus in the areas where you do have converged fiber and wireless. To attack and lock down that base with a longer-term focus on customer value.
Yeah. You should expect we flex that on and off depending on buying season and elsewhere, but the general modeling I would do is absolutely highest value customer, highest offer we give.
Okay.
And that we lean into our value proposition of the network service and connectivity is what we offer, and moving away from device subsidies as much as we can.
Yeah. That's very consistent with what John and Pascal and the entire team have said for the last several quarters.
Yes.
Moving away from the device subsidies. It will be interesting to see this holiday season, given the new device introduction I just mentioned, and especially the price tag for the affordable iPhone, being effectively 2X the regular iPhone. I'm curious to see the volumes for this holiday. I wanted to hop over to the Lumen integration for a moment. Pascal, you had mentioned Lumen acquisition earlier. That acquisition does seem to be an important test of the convergence playbook that you've both laid out here. Those territories traditionally had much lower fiber penetration than legacy AT&T, and obviously also lower wireless convergence. What have you learned so far? I know it's only been a little while since the deal closed, only so much you can learn. How quickly can those markets approach the penetration and convergence of legacy AT&T territory?
I'll start, and Jen could provide a lot more texture. I think the points embedded in your question are the right points and are part of the theory of the case. We acquired about 4.5 million locations, consumer locations from Lumen. They were about 25% penetrated as compared to 40% in our owned and operated. We viewed that as a significant opportunity to increase penetration with our distribution, with our brand. What have we done so far? The first quarter, we had the asset for two months. We had to start to invest to really be in a position to meet the demand that we knew was going to be there. What does that mean? The Lumen team historically hadn't had the level of subscriber demand that we were anticipating. Lo and behold, as we started to market, it was a lot of demand.
We're still catching up somewhat to b e in a position to service that demand, to do the installations, to go out and make sure that the consumers get the experience they deserve. That is still a work in process. We started in Q1, a little bit better in Q2, and we continue to make progress. That is one. Two, in order to put an AT&T brand on those services, we have to ensure that the customer is going to get the same exact experience as our footprint. That means the same customer equipment in the home, all things that they did not have, but you have to go off and do. You cannot turn it on a switch. What I expect, there will be gradual improvements over the next several quarters as we get more and more of that in place.
In addition to our retail stores, building feet on the ground to be in a position to drive further penetration and to service customers the way they want. Jen could probably add a little bit more, but there is a lot of work to get this right. Our theory of the case, it is early days, but we are really pleased with the reception and the demand for the brand in those territories.
I would love to hear more details, Jen.
Sure.
Specifically, what you and your team are doing just to build out the capability, I guess, smooth out things that were not working the way that AT&T traditionally does them. I would love to hear more details on that.
Yes, you bet. We think of it, I would put it in these work streams. As the network team comes in and does exactly what Pascal is talking about, they have their plans. We had essentially three of our own. One is get the brand out there and then get the marketing and awareness going, and then also get the distribution in place. We had that in two parallel efforts. There was pent-up demand that we could simply go take existing AT&T assets and apply to the Lumen Quantum Fiber brand, and just say, "Let us just take our distribution assets and see what kind of lift we can get." That's essentially what we've done so far. That's the first set of improvements that you're seeing ramp.
That is taking our retail presence, it's taking our extended third-party sales channels and applying it to the Quantum Fiber brand. Then saying, "Now let us go reach out with marketing to our existing wireless base and add Quantum Fiber to it." That's simply applying plays we know how to do at scale. Play one. Work stream two or play two is then say, as the network team works through their efforts, and we know we can apply the AT&T brand and the AT&T Guarantee to an AT&T Fiber product, then we'll come in and we'll execute a full-scale brand launch, marketing launch of AT&T Fiber plus AT&T Wireless into a market.
That'll take time to scale brand awareness and get the halo lift, but we'll apply our same playbook that we do in all of our other territories that we know works, and we'll be able to get the additional lift from that effort as well, and we'll see the full power of AT&T Fiber at that point. But we're not waiting.
When do you think we get to that full power point where you're executing the same velocity where you have in legacy AT&T territory?
Several quarters to get the network efforts going-
Okay.
...to scale. I wouldn't.
So it'll be more back half 2027, is that roughly the way I think about it? Not trying to nail down exact timing, but-
We haven't put a timeframe on that. I'm going to let our network partners get through the rights.
Yeah. Mike, it is happening market by market.
Yeah.
It is not one big swoop.
A big lump.
There are markets where we have done that, but it is going to take us a long time to get through the entire footprint that was acquired.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Let the marketing soak in and move.
Okay. Makes sense. I think I might have time for maybe one or two more if I read fast, so I will try to get through a couple more here. I wanted to maybe just try to close it with the fiber build and rising cost associated with that. As you accelerate the construction and progress towards your goal of 60 million, I think, plus fiber locations, are you seeing any inflation in cost per passing? We have heard a lot about, obviously, labor costs, inflation, equipment cost inflation. Any change in permitting materials? Anything that would be increasing or causing that cost per passing to increase?
We have said this before, and I think it is worth underscoring. There are several things that are involved in terms of the overall profitability of the fiber business. One is the cost to pass, two, it is the cost to connect. The cost to pass, we have long-term commitments for fiber, and we have had them for a long time. We have a great relationship with our fiber provider. The costs there are quite reasonable given the broader dynamics. Two, we also have agreements with our contracting partners, along with our labor unions, that allow us to have great visibility to our overall cost profile.
In terms of cost to connect, as more and more homes are already connected, the second, third, and fourth connection can be done via self-service, which reduces our overall cost profile. The cost to maintain is the third piece of it. This is an incredible technology in that the maintenance profile is so much better than what we see with copper, and the energy that it consumes is significantly less, so we're seeing those benefits. All told, we're very comfortable we can continue to build that scale and manage within the budget portfolio of capital that we have highlighted to you.
I would love to see a metric over time, and I know maybe you're not going to give it to us, but even the percentage
Maybe my successor will.
Exactly. Even the percentage of fiber gross adds that are first time connections versus second, because that would at least help us on Wall Street put some math behind the cost per gross add. Just something to think about over time. Pascal, Jen, thank you all so much for coming out today, and thank all the investors who showed up.
Thank you very much everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.