Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us for the 11th Annual MoffettNathanson Media and Communications Conference, and thank you to those who are joining by webcast. This is our murderers' row this morning of really great companies and great conversations, and T-Mobile is another company that I'm happy to say has appeared at every MoffettNathanson conference we've ever had. I was just saying to Peter that his magenta T-shirt, for those of you that are only listening on the web and don't get to see it, is good, but it's not as good as the old feather, the Magenta feather boa that Braxton wore 1 year, maybe 10 years ago. So listen, I wanna start first, thank you for being here.
Yes.
I wanna start with where I almost always start, which is thinking about the sustainable growth rate of the phone market, and really thinking about this top-down. And as you know, I tend to think of prepaid and postpaid together. So help us think about why it is that we're still seeing such a divergence between the industry growth rate and the population growth rate over the couple of years?
Absolutely, and thank you for having us. It's wonderful to be at the conference every year. I guess I need to wear a feather boa or something unique. Do wanna start with the, you know, I'll be making forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as maybe discussing non-GAAP items and refer you to our filings for that. You know, Craig, I think we've talked about this a few times, and the answer is, we can't explain all of it. I think prepaid and postpaid together is the right way to think about it. There are certainly legitimate areas that go beyond just population expansion that have driven some of the growth, certainly age demographics, both up and down, in age, business formation.
Those are, those are things that drive a little bit more than just population growth, as the overall growth perspective. I think there's also a little bit of a question of, well, not everybody actually discloses the postpaid phone component, so how much of cable's total nets are postpaid phone versus others? That may help normalize some-
Mm-hmm
... of this as well. But, you know, what we've always said all along is, there will be a period of time where things start slowing down, and we saw that a little bit of moderation in the latter half of last year, and we saw more of that in Q1 of this year. You know, postpaid phone or plus whatever else is in, in cable's numbers, total nets for the industry were down double digits. And within that, what we said would always happen is, because of our unique combination of the best value, the best network, and the under-penetrated market segments that we're allowed to play in, we would be the out-performer in that. And what you saw, basically flat year-over-year postpaid phone nets from us, higher percentage of, of total net adds, even as the industry went down.
So I think we'll see continued normalization for the balance of this year, and ultimately something lower than what we saw in the pendency of, you know, the last few years. But we have the sustainable playbook that allows the out- outsized growth to continue.
Well, I wanna dig into that because what you're as we think about that market growth rate as the framework for the size of the pie. I've historically thought about your market share in context of small markets, rural, and we'll talk about business later. You've now disclosed your market share in rural, small and rural, as having increased from 13 to 17.5 now. Is the north star for that market share eventually 30%? Is it 40%? And do you see cable as a real competitor in those markets-
Mm-hmm
... particularly for the value segment of those markets?
Yeah, and just to remind, the way we segment things, you know, we sort of say smaller markets and rural areas, but really it's our top 100 markets, and everything else outside of those top 100 is smaller markets and rural areas, which is about 40% of the U.S. population, so it's a very large cohort to play in. And ultimately, you know, what you've seen now, as the network has expanded, distribution has followed, and the value proposition continues, is our share of switchers in those markets are actually double that 17.5%. So there's a lot of room to run, being one of those under-penetrated market segments for us. You know, what the ultimate end goal is, you know, certainly one could see that at a minimum it should be our fair share of a third of the pie.
And I think when you see those dynamics of where we are, the growth, as well as the share taking of switchers, there's certainly room to believe that we're gonna continue to run long beyond that 2025 goal of 20%.
One of the great tricks that I and every other consultant in their consulting days used to always do was, never compare yourselves to your average, 'cause your average includes your below-average markets. So only compare yourself to your above-average markets, and your goal is therefore your, call it, 36% or 37% market share in urban. Is that a fair way to think about it, that your fair share is actually well above 30%?
Yeah. Well, you'd do well on the management team at T-Mobile, because certainly what we look at aspirationally, whether it's within smaller markets or rural areas, or even our top 100 markets, you know, we're sitting in New York, which is a very, very strong market for us. I'm not gonna throw out the exact percentage, but it's significantly higher than mid-30s%, and why can't that be the aspirational view for us?
Right.
That's exactly how we think about it. But, you know, we also have to be prudent in terms of, how many switchers do you natively have in a quarter, in a year? How do you increase that pool over time? But yes, we think there's more room to run than just, you know, divide it by three or four, however you think of cable.
Okay, so everybody's raising their numbers now, so that's good. That's-
Long term-
We, we-
Sure.
... just going back to the rural markets for a second, how do you think about the customer lifetime value of those customers? I would guess that they tend to have lower disposable income, although they, you could argue they also have lower cost of living. But, is the customer lifetime value of those customers consistent with the customer lifetime value of customers you get in the top 100?
Yeah, and again, because you're talking about 40% of the U.S. population, it's a very large cohort. So while there are some small differences on the revenue and the cost side of the equation, actually, from a customer lifetime value perspective, it's remarkably similar. And perhaps you'd expect that when it's 60% and 40% to your point of averages get there. But, you know, the other thing that you have there is, in many of these smaller markets and rural areas, there really wasn't healthy competition until T-Mobile and the merger came, and we could build the network out. And so you come in with value leadership, and people actually might be willing to buy up our rate card because it's still a better value proposition than what they're, you know, currently faced with.
So, you know, I think in some ways, we've maybe, we meaning the audience for your disclosures and things, have become almost too comfortable thinking about rural, urban, and/or top 100, non-top 100-
Mm-hmm
... as the framework. Because there's an infinite number of other segmentation approaches that you could take to the market, whether it's ethnicities or demographics. You know, for example, it's my understanding that you've always significantly over-indexed in the Hispanic community. Can you talk about some of those other segmentation approaches that you use internally to say, "Here's untapped potential for us that we can be growing faster because we can do better in X, Y, or Z segment?
Mm-hmm. Yeah, we approach it in a number of ways. I mean, some of it you see expressed in our rate card or unique discounts, where, you know, 55+ is an affinity group. That's a very value accretive affinity group, so we have a specific rate card structure for them, military, first responders. So you see age demographics come into play, you see things like that, but we're also always looking at what is the value equation? And in some cases, it's not on the rate card. So you might look at affinity groups around travel, where, you know, one of the still great kept secrets of T-Mobile is, if you're an international traveler, nobody's better for you than what we can offer through our, you know, partnership with Deutsche Telekom and others.
If you look at the value that we pack into Magenta Status or T-Mobile Tuesdays, whether it's MLB.TV, whether it's, you know, unique things like Domino's. I mean, we broke Domino's, so there was a cohort of pizza lovers, you know, that really appreciated the value segment there. So we're always looking at what's the right way to approach distinct cohorts, whether it's demographic or others, and how do you best do that? It could be a rate card affinity group. It could be the value that we pack into our ongoing rate plan offerings, our Magenta Status offerings, so there's a lot of focus on that.
And psychographics, I would think, too, right?
Yep.
Because... Which is another fancy word for getting to the value proposition that you have for customers. You were the value brand for so long-
Mm-hmm
... that I wonder how you think about retraining your customer base to think of you not just as the value brand, although I know that you guys want to keep your value brand positioning, but how you get customers to think of you, "No, we're actually the premium brand also. We're the best network.
Yeah. Well, first off, yes, you're right. We're absolutely gonna guard that value leadership, right? I mean, that is really what made T-Mobile. We have the assets in place, the balance sheets in place, to really guard that over the long term, and it's what has led over many, many years, and continues to lead, into outsized share taking and outsized service revenue production in the post-paid space. So we're gonna jealously guard that. With regards to network equities, it's no secret that we've come from way behind, right? Verizon was the leader as you moved from 3G to 4G, and our leadership in terms of the actual network capabilities from 4G to 5G has now afforded us to start moving those network equities up in the minds of consumers. Business is different. They buy differently, large enterprise, government.
I think we're already leading the mind share there. Consumers, we've started to see a steady increase in network perception, and that takes time to change, and it's actually one of the things that gets us really excited. So we've delivered all of this growth while being the value leader and starting to gain from a network equities perception perspective, and there's so much more room to run. And that's, whether that's word of mouth, I mean, people still shop via word of mouth. As you continue to experience the network in better and better ways, when people have their shopping moment, first and foremost, they're gonna go to friends and family, and that's where you get word of mouth. They're also gonna look at research, and so it's just the fact that, you know, when you look at third-party reports, we are the leader from a network perspective.
First, the 5G, and then overall network leadership, as well as now reliability that's come into play as well. So it's a really great time. We'll continue to partner with, I think, ways to demonstrate to consumers that this network is a vastly different network than it was, and it is in a leadership perspective. And a lot of that can come in the form of partnerships with businesses. You know, what we did with F1 in Las Vegas. If you know what the airlines have done, we are a very big category leader in airlines. How do you actually demonstrate to consumers via partnership messaging around the power of the network from the people that need it most and are most discerning and focus on SLAs? So there's a lot of runway there, and it's one of the things, like I said, that really gets us excited.
... So yeah, so let's talk about that. In Q1, you disclosed that you delivered the lowest enterprise churn ever. And your strongest postpaid net adds in SMB, you were net positive seven consecutive quarters.
Mm-hmm.
Talk about the SMB segment for a minute, and the enterprise segment, and maybe government, just as I think of them as both together and separate. What does that trajectory look like for you? Is it with your 5G investments, are you still just in the first inning there, or is that now sort of a mature flywheel that the perception of your network has sort of caught up?
I think the perception is definitely caught up and more, and you can see that in terms of the discussions that we're having are no longer with just the procurement office, T-Mobile of old being, you know, the stalking horse bid. And now it's really with CIOs solving business problems, and in each of those areas, you know, we're seeing great momentum there. You mentioned enterprise, large enterprise, you know, our best total postpaid nets quarter, lowest postpaid phone net adds SMB. We had our seventh now consecutive quarter of postpaid porting positivity in that space, and it all starts with the network. So what we focus on there is not, you know, individual, you know, how do we disclose the actual market share, but how is this business overall contributing to T-Mobile, where we've had great success.
Some of it has been a little bit clouded in the total postpaid nets number by, as you know, some of the lower ARPU educational deactivations coming through, and Q2 is probably the last quarter of that, where we're gonna see that. And so, you know, I'd expect postpaid other net adds in the 500,000 category for Q2. But those are lower ARPU as they roll off, and really the flywheel of business in terms of value creation across all of the segments, whether it's continued growth in micro, SMB, large enterprise, government, has just been a fabulous contributor.
When you land a big account like Delta, what, what is it they're focused on? What's, what's the sale process, and what's the selling point? Is it the network? Is it 5G connectivity and speed superiority?
It's, you know, it's absolutely all centered around the network, but it's centered around the network and how our unique 5G leadership position, in terms of capabilities, can help solve their business problems. And that can look different for a Delta Air Lines, a Boston Children's Group, a Formula 1. But what it does, is take advantage of the ability to do unique things on a much broader scale than what the competition can do, vis-à-vis slicing, vis-à-vis actually building a private and then hybrid network. You know, whether it's first responders and others, where we can do end-to-end encrypted push-to-talk for mission-critical applications. So the ability with CIOs to say, "What is it that is a business problem that we can help solve via 5G and its capabilities?" It's what's then getting you the postpaid phone business too.
I think this is an area that's a little bit underappreciated still for the overall industry, is just the fact that the TAM is expanding. We talk a lot and spend a lot of time talking about postpaid phone, and that's, that's important. It's a very large category, very high customer lifetime values. But we're now actually with 5G, being able to replace traditional connectivity, for example, from Wi-Fi or things that weren't able to be done via Wi-Fi, and it's expanding the pie. Now, that may also come with some postpaid phone business, like in the case of Delta, that we recently announced, that you're asking about. Or it can come with just great value accretive, you know, postpaid other or other connections that help the whole industry, and is also a great flywheel for us in terms of growth.
So I wanna touch on prepaid before we start talking about ARPU.
Mm-hmm
... and some other interesting topics. But you've now completed the acquisition of Ka'ena, the Mint Mobile, Ultra, Plum.
Mm-hmm.
Talk about, first, how many subscribers that adds, and then what your vision is for what those brands bring to the, to the table that you didn't already have?
Yeah. Well, first, we just closed, so we now have access to all the subscriber data, and of course, we've got to run it through all of our subscriber reporting rules, so I don't have a number to disclose here. We're just getting working on that. We'll certainly do that as part of Q2, as a base adjustment, of course. And all of this was fully contemplated in the guidance that we gave. But, you know, what's probably most exciting-
And they're all growing, right? They're all growing businesses.
Yes.
Yeah.
They're growing, they're growing businesses, and it's businesses that are in segments that, because we have the strong partnership with Mint, Ultra, and Plum, is something that we service through our wholesale. And so it's segments of the prepaid section, whether it's digital, direct-to-consumer, whether it's really focused on international value, that I think are gonna be a tremendous complement for us. And also, it's gonna bring capabilities that we can use in the, whether it's the Metro or the T-Mobile prepaid brands, around really world-class digital capabilities, that certainly Mint has and has, done a fabulous job about. We'll bring, we'll bring a lot of scale opportunities. But these brands, much like Metro, has operated so successfully as a brand within a big umbrella, but a brand with still that entrepreneurial spirit, that's how Mint and Ultra will continue to operate as well.
Does Ryan Reynolds, by the way, stay connected to it? Are you gonna disclose that Ryan Reynolds is about to be your new spokesperson?
It's like that's the only question we get. Forget about the business, all that. "Have you met Ryan?" And, you know, "Is he gonna stay on?" He will stay connected to the business, certainly. There's so much creative work there that he's done so fabulously, so we'll, we'll continue to have a relationship with Ryan.
The ACP question that sort of hangs over all the players. I would assume that those brands, just by nature of being prepaid, bring some additional exposure to ACP. Where are you with respect to ACP and remediation for the customers that are going to be impacted, and how should we be thinking about that?
Yeah. Well, I wouldn't say the acquisition has any incremental ACP exposure, because we'd always said we service a lot of these customers through key wholesale partnerships and are certainly working with them around how do you make sure, especially in the mobile space versus broadband, where it's such a critical connection, that you can continue to serve customers? Customers aren't just gonna, you know, on ACP, are not gonna flee this category at a 100% rate. They need that critical connectivity. So whether it's through our prepaid brands, whether it's capturing, you know, maybe people falling off of broadband, or through our wholesale partnerships, our job is certainly to make sure that the customers, if and when they fall off of ACP, depending on what the government ultimately does, have a way towards low-cost alternatives to keep critical connectivity.
So, I don't see a change in the risk profile over what we stated at earnings. It's contemplated, you know, within the guidance range that we gave for core EBITDA. We don't have any postpaid customers on this, so it's not within, you know, wouldn't impact any of our postpaid net add guidance, but we'll have to continue to see.
So, let's talk ARPU now. You guided to about 0.5% postpaid phone ARPU growth for the year, and said that's gonna be weighted second half. Let's unpack that for a second. First, how do we think about ARPU growth with respect to pricing actions, with respect to mix, and premium unlimited, and then some dilution that comes from rapid growth in the business segment and that sort of thing? So put all that together or maybe unpack it and take it apart for us.
Yeah. It's as we always say, and to your point, it's very much a mix-driven metric, why we're so hyper-focused on ARPA, where we're now actually increased and have increased that guidance year-over-year to grow 3%. But if you, if you focus on ARPU, it's a number of factors. Yes, there are some, call it price actions in terms of rate plan optimization that we highlighted, we will be making. Those will have more of a second half of the year impact. We haven't announced anything here as we sit in mid-May. We do anticipate that it will happen in Q2 and, you know, drive a couple basis points of churn headwind, as we had mentioned on the call. But so you'll see a little bit of that. That's embedded in the guide.
And then you see continual great uptake in terms of our, you know, top-tier Go5G Plus and Go5G Next, rate plans from an unlimited perspective that drive up ARPU. Those also come with great content features that are, you know, another way to segment customers is, of course, you know, which content elements do they love? Those are contra revenue for us. That's not all consistent in the industry, but those reduce our ARPU, don't reduce, necessarily everybody's ARPU in the industry. You've got specific cohorts, again, 55 plus, military, that bring great value, but also have a discounted rate card, yet tremendous customer CLVs with lower servicing costs, lower bad debt, longer life tenures, and of course, business, as you say. You know, those, those are elements, they don't pay...
When you're buying thousands of lines, you're not paying obviously a consumer rack rate, yet you're driving tremendous value accretion, both through that postpaid phone category, but also those other connections that we spoke about that are increasing the overall value creation.
Just to pin down this, the premium mix for a second, since you introduced Go5G Plus, you've consistently said about 60%-
Mm-hmm
... of net adds or new accounts are coming in on, on premium unlimited. Is that kind of where we should think about eventually the whole base sort of titrates up to 60%?
You know, it's hard to know. Certainly, if that was to happen, it would be over a very long tenure. And yeah, we continue to see great flow on Go5G Next and Plus. That still continues to be at or above 60% of new accounts coming in. You know, the base is still under 30% when you think about top-tier unlimited plans. That would include our previous Magenta MAX plans. So there's a lot of room to run there. Where it ultimately ends, I don't know.
You mentioned a second ago the rate optimization for the second quarter. First, is that a meaningful driver of this year's ARPU guidance? I mean, it was, it certainly included there. And should... is this in some ways a redo of the rate optimization of old plans to new plans that you were gonna take last year that eventually got pulled back?
No. So it's not a meaningful driver of ARPU. It's one of the contributors, but it really, we're gonna continue to approach this just like we approach, you know, that jealously guard that value leadership. So are there rate plan optimization on the edges that can be done and will be done? Of course. You know, does what value leadership looks like for the consumer over the course of, you know, a ten-year arc change over time? Yes, but we're gonna jealously guard that value leadership here and really have customer centricity in mind. And I'll remind you, that's really the formula that has led to outsized service revenue production. I mean, when you look at postpaid service revenue growth in Q1, we delivered 6.5% year-over-year, which is significantly above the competitive set.
So this is the formula that's really working for us, and that consumer centricity lens, with, of course, optimization on the edges, will be how we go forward.
And so the bottom line that I think everybody is most focused on is just, do you think the competitive environment is conducive to price realization at the moment?
I think obviously, the competitors have increased prices numerous times. Again, we're just gonna focus on making sure we lead with customer value leadership in mind.... That's what drives the share taking, that's what drives the outsized service revenue growth in this industry, and ability to actually translate that into profitability, which is an important element, and that's the lens through which we're gonna continue to focus on this.
All right, let's go back to the network, because we briefly touched on that topic before. How do you think about maintaining the leadership through your leadership now that AT&T and Verizon are now well into their C-band deployments? And are there specific capital needs that you need to think about to maintain 5G leadership?
Yeah. Well, I think about it on a few different arcs, and it begins with the spectrum assets that we have, which in our minds, are the best set of spectrum assets. Whether you're talking about low-band and 600, or whether you're talking about mid-band, centered around 2.5 AWS PCS, which has significant propagation benefits vis-à-vis C-band. Now, C-band is great, we bought a little bit of it as well. That's gonna be a focal point for more dense urban environments. But when you have the set of spectrum assets that we have and deploy them, that's the critical aspect of what's going to maintain some of this advantage going forward. Now, then you couple it with the fact that we had a large capital envelope that we deployed, very strategically during the whole Sprint merger integration.
And so we've touched the vast, vast majority of all of our sites with 5G equipment, whether that's, you know, mid-band or low-band equipment. So a lot of that big CapEx is behind us, and yet you have a very refreshed network out there. So that allows us to have currently, certainly a lot of breadth of advantage as well, in terms of deployment. And then the third leg that we focus on is always technology leadership, and that doesn't mean people don't catch up to where we're at. You know, we have by far, you know, the largest and multi-band standalone architecture out there, that allows us to do things like carrier aggregation, Voice over new radio. We're far and away much more broadly deployed than everybody else.
And so it's that technology leadership mindset that Ulf and his team bring, that are gonna continue to have us a couple of years ahead of the competition. So it starts with spectrum assets, that's something we can jealously guard and creates a moat of, you know, differentiation for the future and how we deploy things. I think that $9-$10 billion envelope that we've been speaking about, certainly for the time period in front of us, is the right one. It's a very data-driven approach to where the next dollar should be spent, after all of this massive, you know, capital that we deployed. And there's a lot of ability to create capacity with very capital light ways now, just refarming spectrum from 4G to 5G, with a lot of the radio sets already hung, creates an efficient capital envelope.
I wanna go back to something you mentioned a second ago, which was the propagation advantage, because my experience is that people really don't appreciate that as much as they should. That, how do you frame the propagation advantage that you have in 2.5 versus the C-band? You know, I think it's if you say it's a 20% radial propagation difference, I don't think people naturally think, "Okay, but pi r squared means I would need 4 times as many radios-
Right.
-to get the same coverage in C-band, as I'm gonna get in 2.5.
It seems for a while there, the industry was trying to rebuke the laws of physics, and I think now we're all agreed that physics do apply to this industry as well. And so we tend to think about 2.5 relative to C-band, as having about a 30% propagation advantage. And to your point, again, C-band is great, we have some in denser environments, where it can provide a fourth dedicated 5G layer for us. But when you have 2.5 propagating at 30% more than C-band, and yet having also... It's kind of that sweet spot of propagation and tremendous bandwidth, capacity as well, especially with, you know, just shy of 200 MHz that we have of 2.5 nationwide, it creates that sustainable advantage.
We have a very dense grid, and so if you wanna compete against that dense grid with 2.5, and its propagation characteristics, with C-band as your main mid-band layer, that's gonna create a, a very, you know, a, a very unfortunate capital disadvantage for you relative to T-Mobile. And that's one of the things that allows us to continue to jealously guard this value leadership, is because we are very capital efficient because of the spectrum assets we have, because of how we deploy it with a lean methodology and data-driven approach, and, and those are things that are gonna live on.
I suspect that's also one of the reasons why you've consistently outperformed Verizon in fixed wireless access, is it's not just about capacity, it's also about coverage. It's that the propagation makes it your availability better.
Yeah, that and also just how much we've deployed, right? So yes, all of those things, and then how we approach fixed wireless. I don't know how AT&T and Verizon are approaching fixed wireless. We have long said that for us, it's a fallow capacity model that is very focused on where the capacity exists, on a very hyper localized basis. We used to talk about it as, well, it's sector-based and, you know, we tend to build our macro sites with three sectors, but it's actually way more granular than even sector-based. It's hex bins within the sectors to say, based on where you're at within that hex bin, with continued share taking growth, continued data consumption assumption growth, where are we gonna continue for multi years to have excess capacity? That's how we approach-
Yeah
... fixed wireless.
So that was gonna be my next question, is it - if I think about I've got mobile usage growing at 35% compound annual growth rate. I've got fixed wireless or a fixed customer with maybe 500 GB a month growing at a 25% compound annual growth rate. When you say excess capacity, what timeframe are you looking at? Are you looking at excess capacity for the next two years? Are you looking at excess capacity for the next five? Are you saying seven years from now, we're gonna be okay in this, in this hex or this sector of a cell?
Yeah, it's. I'm not gonna give up all our secrets, but it's a multi, multi-year horizon, and it does assume, to your point, and we've been remarkably accurate on, handset data growth, as well as our aspirations to continue to take share. That's a little bit of an art and a science. You don't know-
Mm-hmm
... exactly where you're gonna take share, so you have to factor that into the hex bin capacity approach. What do we think fixed wireless growth is gonna be in terms of both subscribers, obviously, as, as well as usage per subscriber, and then where spectral efficiency is gonna go? You know, we still have a lot of refarming of spectrum from 4G to 5G that is gonna create more and more capacity. When you think about it, again, our mid-band layer, you know, 180+ megahertz of 2.5 nationwide, of course, almost another 100 megahertz between AWS and PCS, that creates such tremendous bandwidth capacity. And that's how we're gonna. That's how we model it, that's how we're gonna continue to approach this.
I think the—when you think about also that 7-8 million target that we gave, naturally, the network can do a lot more than that. You have to think about, well, how can you... Where are you gonna target, and how are you gonna be able to convert those customers? And that kind of creates that 7-8 million target that we put out there. But we're very comfortable with all of the projections and the usage, and the ability to continue to serve this product for a very long time to come.
As you get closer to that 7-8 million target, you sort of teased that once we get a little closer, we'll start to tell you what we can do on top of that and where we can find some additional places. But one of the obvious questions is: Does the time come when it makes sense to invest specifically behind it, either in incremental densification or incremental spectrum assets?
Yeah, it's something that we have said and continue to explore. We haven't really arrived at any conclusions around that because the economics are gonna be different when you're not using fallow excess capacity, and you have a product that uses significantly more data than a mobile handset does. So we haven't arrived at any conclusions. We continue to explore this, but it also has to meet, you know, our internal hurdle rates and return expectations, so that's one of the things that we continue to explore.
If hypothetically speaking, some company that owns a lot of spectrum were to suddenly unravel, and mid-band spectrum came on the market, is that something that you would say, "I always want more spectrum?" Or would you say, "We're in pretty good shape on spectrum?
I think, you know, if there was a hypothetical spectrum availability out there, we'd approach it very similar to any other opportunity. So you'd have to look at, well, what is the spectrum? Obviously, the price, what sort of returns can we generate on it versus other ways to create capacity than just buying more spectrum, and approach it with that mindset. The typical capital allocation framework, and assess the opportunity in front of us, and can it create value for the enterprise long term? So that's how we'd approach any sort of hypothetical situation.
I assume that UScellular is still a hypothetical situation, but is that... Can we assume that's the same way you're thinking about UScellular?
Yeah. Whether it's UScellular, whether it's our fiber JVs, whether it's any other thing that we might look out there or explore from a, you know, devoting capital to, it has to create shareholder value, vis-à-vis, you know, what we can do on the business itself or, or shareholder returns in the short, short run.
So, let's talk about those fiber JVs. You've announced the JV with EQT and to acquire Lumos, 3.5 million homes passed by the end of 2028. Look, I've made no secret of how puzzled I am by this strategy, because largely because I really struggle to see any path that gets you beyond mid-single digits of coverage of the United States. And therefore, I just kind of struggle with, okay, but maybe you can earn a decent return at it, but it's still a tiny thing strategically, and it never is a national strategy. What am I missing? Why am I wrong?
Well, I think if you approach it with the mindset of, well, you need nationally converged offers, which I think, you know, how you've approached it, I can, I can see the perspective, but then nobody will ever get there, right? Not a cable company, 'cause they're not national. Nobody will, but the swath of this country. And that's not really the thesis under which we approach this. I think we've been remarkably consistent on saying, "Convergence to us, we haven't seen play out in any sort of meaningful way to actually drive benefit to the consumer, other than potential discounting via a bundle." We're already the value leader. We also continue to fundamentally believe that the mobility side of the equation is the more considered purchase.
So we don't approach it from a, "Well, we need convergence for some defensive play." What we approach the opportunity assessment as, is to say: Can you incrementally add value, especially with unique assets that we can bring? Can you add incremental value and create value for T-Mobile US shareholders? And so even if you think about a mid-single-digit penetration play, which, by the way, is our target for fixed wireless. If you think about this on a standalone basis, 3.5 million homes passed ultimately at some rational fiber, you know, terminal penetration rate-
Half of that.
That's-
Yeah.
Call it half of that, whatever you want to assume, that's a great value accretive business, and we can bring, and we've proven to ourselves now with fixed wireless, and we think of this as a very complementary product to fixed wireless, we can bring, customer acquisition cost savings. We can also, uniquely enjoy with our fixed wireless product, if somebody wants to-- if they're in the same space, and we have long wait lists, you know, in some spaces because we're only doing fallow capacity. If somebody wants to step up to a complementary, you know, higher performing fiber product, that also opens up slots in fixed wireless, and sometimes that's more than one to one.
So you've created kind of this two-dimensional opportunity of selling people up to a complementary fiber product, creating more space in fixed wireless potentially, and in and of itself, you know, that 3.5 million homes passed times 50%, whatever penetration rate, is a great value accretive business. So that's how we kind of put the lens on this, and also why it took us so long. We've been talking about this forever, but we want to make sure we are generating the returns. It's not a defensive strategy. It's actually a hyper-localized value creation strategy.
So do you see it then? It sounds like, though, what Mike talked about on the last conference call, you sort of oscillate between a converged offer, where sometimes it's wired, sometimes it's FWA, and then other times playing down the idea that a converged offer is where you're headed? I make sense of that. Is it likely that the customer is eventually going to say, "I think about connectivity as happening in the home and out of the home, and it's all one thing, and I'm just making sure that I am maximally positioned for that future?" Or is it, "No, I'm just trying to sell some fallow capacity, in this case, in my sales channel?
Yeah, it's hard. We're going to be guided by the customer. It's really hard to know where this arc is going to go. We still think, again, mobility is going to be the very considered purchase part of this. And yeah, we have a good portion of our fixed wireless base from our existing customers, but that's probably not because they're getting excess utility. Yes, they have a bundle discount, but probably because they trust us as a provider. That's why the NPS scores on our fixed wireless product are so significantly ahead of cable. So they love the simplicity, the value proposition, and they're willing to bundle the two. But it's not, I think, because they're getting incremental utility at this point in time from a converged offer. So that's kind of the dichotomy of why we say it both ways.
We're going to be guided by what the customer is telling us and what they want, but we have plenty of fixed wireless-only customers that perhaps are a cross-sell opportunity later for mobile.
So, if I just project out forward for your opportunities in the fiber space and your fiber strategy, does investing in new fiber deployments—is there a worry that the locations left are less attractive than they would have been, that you're gonna be—any partner of yours is gonna be investing in lower density and therefore less attractive returns?
No, there's a lot of great fiber space still out there available, and that's, again, one of the things as we were doing the diligence around this, and we love the capabilities and the data mindset that Lumos brings to it, and they're the experts in, you know, the selection and the build, and we're gonna continue to use that expertise. Of course, coupled now with the fact that we have significant wait lists in certain areas, that may be a better fit for a fiber complementary product, but I think there's a lot of great fiber left to build.
Is there a scenario where you might build it yourself, or alternatively, that you might say, "Let's look at bigger acquisitions?" I mean, you can imagine who the obvious ones are that always come up as having a meaningful fiber footprint.
Yeah. Certainly, nothing at this time. I think we're very pleased with being a mobile-first company, and explore ways, just like we did with Lumos, of are there capital-light opportunities that don't change the nature of who we are, don't change the nature of our capital allocation profile in any material way, to continue to create value? So we'll continue to use that lens on it. There could be some other off-balance sheet, elements, but they would have to meet the same kind of return thresholds that we expect. But in terms of material on-balance sheet builds or acquisitions, we're not looking at that at this point in time.
So, I mean, an investment like the one you made in Lumos is still viewed by investors as a choice of it's either this or that, and the other, that, is always share repurchases. Is there a scenario where your ambitions in fiber could limit the share repurchase strategy?
Well, certainly, and we reiterated that our 2024 aspirations to finish the balance of, you know, the 11.7 that we have left as of Q1 continue on. And I think what's exciting is we've always been remarkably consistent on we're gonna follow our capital allocation framework, and right now, that includes about a 2.5 leverage goal, given what the rate environment and overall environment is. And then we'll tumble into investing into the business, other value accretive opportunities. You saw that with Lumos. You saw that with some of the spectrum purchases, like with Columbia Capital, that have great return profiles for the business. And we're gonna continue to investigate other things as and if they come up, because our responsibility is, of course, to ensure that this company continues to grow top and bottom-line revenues, which is what really drives-...
You know, value accretion and shareholder value creation over the long run. I think the other thing that people maybe also forget a little bit about sometimes, it seemed like it was so far away when we put this audacious goal of, you know, potential shareholder returns through the 2025 period. Well, we're in mid-2024, which is wild to think, and the cash flow generation of this business and the profile that continues in 2026, 2027, and beyond, just affords so much opportunity with respect to, you know, shareholder returns, the right strategic investments for long-term continued growth. And that's the story I think that people maybe don't appreciate quite as much, and to kinda go into the mindset of... 2026 is almost here. It'll be here like that, unfortunately for my age.
But that means this business and the cash flow generation continues on and creates so much optionality.
By the way, speaking of cash flow, when do you think we might hear more about the 800 MHz spectrum?
I think, you know, it's obviously we're in the mandated auction process right now, so we have to let that continue on. As we said, DISH didn't exercise their option, obviously, so that $100 million prepayment is gonna be recognized in Q2 outside of core EBITDA, and then we'll have to see how the process plays out.
But is it likely over the next three months, or is it probably a longer cycle than that?
Well, there was an outside deadline date, you know, and so-
Yeah, but I mean, for the re-auction is the-
Yeah, potentially, again.
So you'll hear it sooner.
Yeah.
Last place to just wrap it up. You mentioned something that, that people don't appreciate. What is it that, that people may not appreciate about T-Mobile, that you just wanna highlight?
I think they do, but I think that, that we're now proving it out, is that as you have the best value with the best product in the form of the network, and you have these under-penetrated market segments, that we're gonna be well-positioned for durable, sustainable, long-term value creation, vis-à-vis share taking and translation of that into service revenue and free cash flow. And you saw that prove out a little bit last year as nets started to normalize. We talked earlier today about Q1, double-digit nets down, and yet we were flat, taking more of a percentage of industry nets because this is the formula that has proven to work and is gonna continue to work. And that, of course, creates a tremendous amount of free cash flow.
When you think about the cash flow generation of this business, that's maybe something I hear more and more investors talking about, thinking about, but it's just something that is very exciting for us, and I think very exciting for all of you over time.
Well, I've gotta say, when we would sit on this stage with T-Mobile 10 or 11 years ago, we would project that it would look something like it does today, and it's really a testament to how well you guys have executed, that you've delivered exactly what people would've hoped for a decade ago.
Yeah.
It speaks to a long-term track record that's really quite enviable. With that, I thank you for being here. It's terrific to see you all.