Earnings call transcript: TDS Q2 2025 misses EPS, revenue beats forecast

Telephone and Data Systems Inc. (TDS) reported its Q2 2025 earnings, revealing a mixed financial performance. The company posted an earnings per share (EPS) of -$0.05, significantly below the forecast of $0.01, resulting in a surprise of -600%. Despite this, TDS managed to surpass revenue expectations, reporting $1.19 billion against a forecast of $1.17 billion. Following the announcement, TDS shares fell 1.55% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor concerns over the EPS miss. According to InvestingPro data, the company’s trailing twelve-month revenue stands at $4.86 billion, with an EBITDA of $1.07 billion, suggesting significant operational scale despite profitability challenges.

Key Takeaways

• TDS reported a significant EPS miss, with a -600% surprise.
• Revenue exceeded expectations by $20 million, driven by fiber subscriber growth.
• Pre-market trading saw a 1.55% decline in TDS stock.
• Revised 2025 guidance indicates lower revenue expectations.
• Fiber expansion and new product launches highlight strategic focus.

Company Performance

In Q2 2025, TDS experienced a 1% decrease in total operating revenues year-over-year. However, excluding divestitures, revenue increased by 1%, fueled by growth in fiber subscribers and higher residential revenue per connection. Despite these gains, cash expenses rose by 1%, affecting overall profitability. InvestingPro analysis indicates the company’s current market valuation appears elevated compared to its Fair Value, with analysts setting price targets between $49 and $53. InvestingPro subscribers have access to 7 additional key insights about TDS’s valuation and growth prospects.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $1.19 billion, up from the forecasted $1.17 billion.
• Earnings per share: -$0.05, missing the forecast of $0.01.
• Cash expenses increased by $2 million year-over-year.

Earnings vs. Forecast

TDS’s actual EPS of -$0.05 was well below the forecasted $0.01, resulting in a -600% surprise. This significant miss highlights ongoing challenges in meeting earnings expectations. In contrast, revenue exceeded forecasts by 1.71%, indicating strong operational execution in certain areas.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, TDS’s stock fell 1.55% in pre-market trading, reaching $38.15. This decline reflects investor disappointment with the EPS miss, despite the revenue beat. The stock had previously gained 3.15%, showing a mixed market sentiment. Notable metrics from InvestingPro reveal TDS’s impressive 92% return over the past year, with a relatively low beta of 0.55, indicating lower volatility compared to the broader market. The company has maintained dividend payments for 52 consecutive years, demonstrating long-term financial stability despite current challenges.

Outlook & Guidance

TDS revised its 2025 guidance, now expecting revenue between $1.03 billion and $1.05 billion. The company is focusing on its fiber expansion, targeting 150,000 new service addresses in 2025, and exploring M&A opportunities in fiber assets.

Executive Commentary

Walter Carlson, CEO, highlighted the strategic shift: "We are pleased to have closed the T-Mobile transaction and are pleased to be able to use the proceeds to improve our balance sheet and to fund our fiber program." Chris Bostfeld, VP of Finance, added, "We have been transforming into a fiber company in a meaningful way over the last few years."

Risks and Challenges

• Continued operational challenges leading to EPS misses.
• Rising cash expenses impacting profitability.
• Market concerns over revised lower revenue guidance.
• Competitive pressures in the fiber market.
• Execution risks related to fiber expansion and M&A activities.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts questioned TDS’s ability to meet its fiber expansion targets and the potential for future dividend implementations post-spectrum transactions. Executives expressed confidence in achieving 150,000 fiber service addresses in 2025 and emphasized a conservative leverage approach at the TDS level. Financial health indicators from InvestingPro support this conservative approach, with a healthy current ratio of 1.74 showing strong liquidity. For deeper insights into TDS’s financial health and growth prospects, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report, available exclusively to InvestingPro subscribers.

Full transcript - Telephone and Data Systems Inc (TDS) Q2 2025:

Conference Operator: Thank you for standing by, and welcome to TDS and Array Second Quarter twenty twenty five Operating Results Conference Call. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. At the end of the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask I would now like to hand the conference over to your host, Colleen Thompson, Vice President of Corporate Relations. Ma’am, you may begin.

Colleen Thompson, Vice President of Corporate Relations, TDS: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. We want to make you all aware of the presentation we have prepared to accompany our comments this morning, which you can find on the Investor Relations sections of the TDS and Array websites. With me today in offering prepared comments are from TDS, Walter Carlson, President and Chief Executive Officer Vicki Villacres, executive vice president and chief financial officer from Array Digital Infrastructure, Doug Chambers, interim president and CEO from TDS Telecom, Chris Bostfield, vice president of finance and chief financial officer. This call is being simultaneously webcast on the TDS and Array Investor Relations website. Please see the websites for slides referred to on this call, including non GAAP reconciliations.

TDS and Array filed their SEC Forms eight ks, including the press releases and our 10 Qs earlier this morning. As shown on Slide two, the information set forth in the presentation and discussed during this call contains statements about expected future events and financial results that are forward looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Please review the safe harbor paragraphs in our press releases and the extended version included in our SEC filings. And with that, I will now turn the

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: call over to Walter

Colleen Thompson, Vice President of Corporate Relations, TDS: Carlson. Walter?

Walter Carlson, President and Chief Executive Officer, TDS: Thank you, Colleen, and good morning, everyone. We’ll start on Slide three and review the progress that we’ve made on our priorities for 2025. As we announced on August 1, we are very pleased that we closed on the sale of U. S. Cellular wireless business and certain spectrum assets to T Mobile.

The teams at U. S. Cellular and TDS worked tirelessly over the last several years to negotiate and complete the $4,300,000,000 transaction. I also want to thank T Mobile for their partnership in this transaction and throughout the integration process. This transaction unlocks significant value for shareholders and strengthens the balance sheets at both Array and TDS, as Vicki will discuss shortly.

Equally important, completion of this sale will enable us to focus on our tower and fiber businesses where we believe we are well positioned to win. Looking ahead, I am excited for a new chapter in the company’s history. Going forward, we like the towers business and are operating under a new name, Array Digital Infrastructure Inc. We believe Array has many opportunities. Array holds valuable assets, towers, spectrum and equity method investment interests, all of which are the product of significant work and investment over the prior forty years.

Our towers business at Array has an outstanding management team led by Doug Chambers. We believe Array is uniquely and attractively positioned, and we look forward to

Doug Chambers, Interim President and CEO, Array Digital Infrastructure: running a tower

Walter Carlson, President and Chief Executive Officer, TDS: company. With approximately 4,400 towers, Array has the strength and stability of the new master license agreement with T Mobile. And with increasing demand for data and communication services in The United States, we believe we have a great opportunity to grow colocations and margins over time. Turning to TDS Telecom. In June, we were pleased to announce Ken Dixon had joined us as the new CEO of TDS Telecom to lead that business going forward.

Ken comes to us with decades of telecom and fiber experience. Ken has hit the ground running, and his deep knowledge and expertise in sales, marketing, customer satisfaction, and operations are already making a difference. I’m looking forward to you hearing from Ken on our next earnings call. Chris Botfeld will report to you today on the progress that TDS Telecom made on our fiber business during the second quarter. Turning to the fourth item on our set of objectives.

Throughout the year, we have made significant progress in strengthening our capital structure. This increases our financial flexibility and positions us to take advantage of opportunities as they present themselves. Vicki will highlight those accomplishments shortly. And lastly, with all of the changes in the organization, we remain focused on our culture and TDS’ culture is one of its greatest strengths. I want to thank all of the teams across the TDS enterprise for their contributions and these accomplishments, and I’m excited about what lies ahead.

I will now turn the call over to Vicki.

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Okay. Good morning, everyone. As you heard from Walter, closing the T Mobile transaction earlier this month was a major step to unlock shareholder value and strengthen our businesses focusing on where we can win. We have taken a number of steps, which will provide us the financial strength to be able to grow our businesses. To recap, 1,700,000,000.0 in debt was assumed by T Mobile in an exchange offer, leaving approximately $364,000,000 on the Array balance sheet.

We extended the revolvers for both TDS and Array and signed amendments to several term loans to provide post transaction liquidity as we prepare to put in place a more permanent capital structure. On August 1, the Array Board of Directors declared a special dividend of $23 per share that will be paid on August 19. TDS will receive its pro rata share of the dividend or approximately $1,630,000,000 Once the dividend is paid at TDS, we plan to redeem approximately $1,100,000,000 in debt that carried a weighted average cost of 7.5%. These actions will result in approximately $80,000,000 in annual interest savings and will reduce our total TDS average cost of debt to just over 6%, which includes the preferred. We plan to maintain the perpetual preferred Series UU and Series BV preferred stock.

They provide foundational capital for our fiber program, and we currently have no plans to redeem them. Briefly in the past, we’ve shared the expected cash tax ranges related to the T Mobile transaction. As a result of the new One Big Beautiful Bill, TDS is expecting a benefit that can be used to offset the taxes at the consolidated level, reducing the transaction tax estimate to a 150,000,000. The sale of our wireless operations has simplified the TDS portfolio and increased our financial flexibility while allowing us to focus on our growing broadband and tower businesses in addition to returning significant value to shareholders. TDS has a long history of disciplined financial policy while maintaining a relatively conservative balance sheet.

With a significant amount of our debt repaid, we will target three times bank leverage ratio at Array, which translates into $700,000,000 of debt on Array’s balance sheet. We expect TDS’ leverage to remain below 1.5 times in the near term as we evaluate our next steps and strategic opportunities for both our fiber and tower businesses. As we look forward, we anticipate Array to receive 2,000,000,000 of proceeds from the previously announced spectrum sale, with a portion of the proceeds expected to potentially come in later this year. Of course, these are both subject to regulatory and other customary approvals. In addition, we’ll be working to opportunistically monetize the remaining spectrum at Array.

On principle, we do not plan to hold excess cash on the balance sheet for too long without putting it to use. To that end, we anticipate Array to put in place a regular dividend once the spectrum transactions have been completed. Therefore, we are developing an allocation strategy across three main categories, which we intend to further refine and share with our investors going forward. First, fiber. We know we have significant opportunities to make incremental organic investments in fiber with attractive returns that exceed our cost of capital.

We believe we have an immediate window of opportunity to pursue these investments that do not yet have a fiber provider. With Ken Dixon on board, we are working to size these investments. Second, m and a. We are currently evaluating this space to identify where it might make sense to accelerate growth at the right price, particularly for the fiber program. And third, shareholder returns.

Once we’ve quantified our growth opportunities, we will look for ways to increase returns to our shareholders. Before I turn it over to Doug for more detail, I wanted to highlight that on August 1, S and P raised TDS’ credit rating to BBB- from BB and removed the ratings from CreditWatch. We are very pleased with this rating and believe it reflects our strong balance sheet, valuable assets and growth outlook for our businesses going forward. I will now call turn the

Colleen Thompson, Vice President of Corporate Relations, TDS: call over to Doug. Doug?

Doug Chambers, Interim President and CEO, Array Digital Infrastructure: Thanks, Vicki. Good morning. I would like to start off by thanking the Board for placing its confidence in me to lead Array during this interim period, and I would also like to thank LT and the U. S. Cyborg leadership team that have guided us through the process through the successful close of the T Mobile transaction.

Slide six summarizes the proceeds received from the T Mobile transaction along with various transaction related costs and other items that impacted our cash available for distribution. We are pleased to return these funds to shareholders through the special dividend previously mentioned by Vicki. Further, as we have discussed previously, the sale of our wireless operations to T Mobile is a win for our customers and for our associates. Our customers will have the enhanced connectivity with the combined networks of the two companies and access to lower prices and more features, and a significant number of our associates accept the positions with T Mobile. We are very pleased that our customers and associates are in great hands as part of the T Mobile family.

Further, the sale of portions of our spectrum to T Mobile, along with the pending spectrum sales to AT and T and Verizon, are wins for rural America as this spectrum will be deployed to serve customers across our nation, and we look forward to opportunistically monetizing our remaining spectrum to ensure this spectrum can also be put to use to serve customers across America. With that, I’m excited to discuss our business going forward, Array Digital Infrastructure. Slides seven and eight summarize the status of our efforts to opportunistically monetize our spectrum. As previously announced, we have reached agreements to monetize approximately 70% of Array’s total spectrum holdings, including the T Mobile transaction and agreements with AT and T and Verizon. The AT and T and Verizon transactions will result in additional gross proceeds of 2,000,000,000 We expect cash taxes on the AT and T and Verizon transactions of approximately $125,000,000 and in the range of 200,000,000 to $250,000,000 respectively.

Further, we expect the AT and and Verizon transactions to close in the 2025 and the 2026, respectively, subject to regulatory approval and other closing conditions. Also, following the closing of each of the AT and T and Verizon transactions, we anticipate that the Array Board will declare special dividends to distribute a substantial portion of the resulting net proceeds. The large majority of the remaining spectrum is C band spectrum, and we believe these licenses are attractive beachfront spectrum for five gs, and there’s an existing infrastructure ecosystem so carriers are easily able to put this C band spectrum to use. And although there are build out requirements associated with this band, first one does not apply until 2029, so there’s plenty of time for us to monetize this spectrum. Turning to slide nine.

Following the close of the T Mobile transactions and divestiture of our wireless operations, our going forward business has three components: the fifth largest U. S. Tower business with 4,400 owned towers noncontrolling investment interest, which primarily consists of investments in wireless operating companies managed by Verizon and AT and T and the retained spectrum. Turning to Slide 10. I would like to discuss the strategic priorities of Array to position the business for continued success.

Two key priorities will be to close the pending spectrum transactions with AT and T and Verizon and to continue to opportunistically monetize the remaining spectrum. Focusing on the tower business, now that we are set up as an independent tower company and have the strong team in place from our existing business, we have two key strategic priorities going forward. Ground lease optimization has been and remains a key priority as we seek to expand our long term ownership, easement and lease agreements with our ground lessors. The other key priority of the tower business is continued strong revenue growth, which we have been achieving through robust new colocations and will be further bolstered by the new T Mobile master license agreement, or MLA, which commenced on August 1 upon the close of the larger transaction. Turning to Slide 11.

Implementation of the new MLA between T Mobile and Array will be a significant near term focus as T Mobile has committed to twenty fifteen colocation sites for a period of fifteen years beginning August 1 and has also extended the term on 600 existing colocations by fifteen years from the same August 1 date. Also effective August 1, T Mobile will have interim leases at 1,800 sites for a period of thirty months, which they may cancel at their discretion during this period. We expect this MLA with T Mobile to significantly strengthen our tower business with substantial increases in long term revenue and profitability. Turning to our tower operations and results on Slides twelve and thirteen, third party tower revenues increased by 12 and the number of third party colocations increased by 6% year over year. One area that we believe will continue to drive momentum is our decision in the 2024 to bring our sales function in house.

We have built strong sales leadership and have hired an outstanding sales team that we believe will position us well for future revenue growth. We also benefit from MLAs with all three major U. S. Carriers, which provide for compelling pricing and ease of doing business with Array that benefit both Array and our large carrier tenants. In addition, as we have discussed in the past, onethree of our towers have no competing tower structure within a two mile radius, and we believe this attribute positions our tower portfolio well for future colocation growth.

Going forward, upon divestiture of our wireless operations, Array will lose U. S. Cellular as a tenant on every owned tower, as reported historically in our tower segment, and gain T Mobile as a tenant on a significant amount of incremental towers subject to the MLA. As a result, Array’s reported tenancy rate will decline from a reported amount of 1.57 at 06/30/2025 to approximately one point zero at August 1 by close of the T Mobile transaction and commencement of the related MLA. This one point zero tenancy rate excludes T Mobile interim tower sites.

Further, intercompany revenues allocated to the tower segment from U. S. Cellular’s wireless business will be reduced to zero in future periods, and this will be partially offset by incremental revenues from the T Mobile MLA. Shifting to our equity method investments, distributions from our noncontrolling investment interest increased from $58,000,000 to $77,000,000 in the 2024 and 2025, respectively. Of this increase, approximately $23,000,000 was related to non recurring distributions from Verizon Wireless partnerships related to their tower transaction with Vertical Bridge that closed in December 2024.

As we have indicated previously, we are not providing guidance on Array’s expected operational and financial results for 2025. We expect to incur additional wind down costs for the remainder of 2025 and into 2026 as the business transforms from primarily a wireless service provider to an independent tower company, and we expect these wind down expenses to negatively impact profitability and adjusted EBITDA during this period. We expect to provide additional tower related financial and operational metrics in the 2025, which will represent our initial quarter reporting as an independent tower company. Regulatory approvals on the sale of the wireless operations occurred in the third quarter, therefore discontinued operations reporting will be applicable and presented in the third quarter filings. Lastly, the details of the T Mobile transaction are discussed in the subsequent events footnote in our second quarter Form 10 Q.

I would like to convey my deepest appreciation and gratitude to all of the U. S. Cellular associates who have provided many years of dedicated service to carry out our mission of connecting our customers to what matters most. We would not be here today without your outstanding service, dedication, determination and enthusiasm. U.

S. Sider was a special carrier with special people for many years, and we will all remember U. S. Sider proudly and fondly. I would like to also express my thanks to the Array employees that are operating the tower business.

They have worked extremely hard and have made our transition to an independent tower company a success. These are exciting times, and I look forward to working with this talented team to continue to drive success in our tower business. I will now turn the call over to Chris Bothell.

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Thank you, Doug. Good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 15. As Walter mentioned, Ken Dixon recently joined the telecom team as CEO, and the organization is energized and excited for what’s ahead under his leadership. Turning to the quarter, we delivered 27,000 new fiber service addresses and remain confident in achieving our goal of 150,000 fiber addresses this year.

We are pleased that EACAM construction kicked off at the end of the first quarter and is now underway in multiple states. During the second quarter, we began bringing EACAM customers online, an exciting milestone for the program. As a reminder, over the next several years, EACAM is expected to contribute approximately 300,000 additional addresses to our fiber footprint. As our EACAM build continue to ramp over the second half of the year, we expect service address growth and fiber net adds to follow. In the quarter, we also generated 10,300 fiber net additions, leading to 19% growth in total fiber connections since last year.

Lastly, we closed on the sale of our Colorado ILEC markets on June 2 and recently announced the pending sale of our ILEC companies in Oklahoma. Although these transactions impact short term results, they’re a key part of our strategy to optimize our portfolio and exit copper markets where there is not an economic path to fiber. Turning to slide 16, you can see our progress towards the long term fiber goals we shared earlier this year. We are targeting 1,800,000 marketable fiber service addresses. We ended the quarter at 968,000.

We are also targeting 80% of total addresses to be served by fiber. We ended the quarter at 53%. And finally, we expect to offer speeds of one gig or higher to at least 95% of our footprint, and we finished the quarter with 75% at gig speeds. To reach this target, we will use a combination of fiber and coax technologies. Our goal is to reduce the number of addresses served by copper to less than 5% over time.

Turning to slide 17. The graph on the left shows the significant growth in our total footprint, up 27% over the last three years, driven by our fiber investments. The graph on the right shows the most recent five quarters of fiber service address delivery. This quarter is flat compared to prior year. Our service address growth generally ramps throughout the year, which is consistent with our expectations for this year.

We’ve added 41,000 addresses through the second quarter and plan to hit 150,000 new fiber addresses this year as we continue to increase the number of construction crews. We are also on track to hit an exciting milestone in the back half of the year, 1,000,000 marketable fiber service addresses. It will be a big achievement for the company and a reflection of the momentum behind our growing fiber program. Turning to slide 18. The graph on the left highlights our residential fiber connection growth.

Connections have nearly doubled over the past three years, driven by our expansion efforts and the ongoing conversion of copper customers to fiber products in our incumbent markets. As we invest in fiber, we expect residential broadband connection growth to continue. The graph on the right shows the last five quarters of residential fiber net additions. We delivered 10,300 this quarter comparable to the same period last year. On slide 19, we grew total service addresses 5% year over year.

On the right side of the slide, we see increased demand for higher broadband speeds with 83% of our residential broadband customers taking 100 meg or higher and 26% taking one gig or higher at the end of the quarter. When looking at new customers that we added in the quarter, 56% took speeds of one gig or higher. Demand for faster speeds remained strong. On slide 20, average residential revenue per connection was up 1% year over year due primarily to price increases. As reflected in our guidance, we expect more modest growth in residential revenue per connection this year as we focus on driving penetration.

The chart on the right shows our revenue comparison year over year. Overall revenue is down 1%. As a reminder, divested markets accounted for a $4,000,000 decrease in revenues compared to prior year. We’ll talk more about revenues on the next slide. On slide 21, I’ll touch on the financials.

Total operating revenues were down 1% in the second quarter compared to prior year. Excluding the impact of divestitures, revenue increased 1%, driven by growth in fiber subscribers and higher residential revenue per connection. This growth was partially offset by continued declines in our legacy cable and copper markets. Cash expenses increased 1% or $2,000,000 year over year. As we discussed last quarter, this increase in expense aligns with our 2025 priorities, which include investments in sales and marketing and advancing our transformation efforts.

We’re also continuing to staff our internal construction crews to drive more cost effective address growth when compared to external contractors. Capital expenditures were higher than the same period last year, primarily due to spending on the EACAM program. We expect both CapEx and service address delivery to continue to increase in the back half of the year as we accelerate construction to deliver 150,000 new fiber service addresses in 2025. Over 80% of our full year capital expenditures will be focused on fiber. Slide 22 shows our revised 2025 guidance.

We have updated the ranges for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted OIBDA to reflect the divestiture of our Oklahoma ILEC market, which was not included in our previous guidance, as well as ongoing declines in our cable and copper markets. We are now projecting revenues to be in the range of 1.03 to $1,050,000,000 adjusted EBITDA is expected to be $320,000,000 to $350,000,000 adjusted OIBDA is expected to be three ten million to $340,000,000 and our CapEx guidance remains unchanged. Before closing, I want to recognize the entire TDS Telecom team for their outstanding commitment and hard work. We have a lot in flight, and I’m confident in the team’s ability to execute. We’re building momentum as we head into the second half of the year, and I’m excited about the company’s future.

I will now turn the call back over to Walter.

Walter Carlson, President and Chief Executive Officer, TDS: Thank you, Chris. Before opening it up for questions, I want to share a few concluding thoughts. We are pleased to have closed the T Mobile transaction and are pleased to be able to use the proceeds to improve our balance sheet and to fund our fiber program. We also look forward to closing the AT and T and Verizon spectrum sales and to thoughtfully deploying those proceeds back into the business and into returns to shareholders. TDS is in a strong financial position and has excellent operating businesses in both towers and broadband.

We look forward to continuing to delight our customers and to build our businesses. Now, operator Janine, let’s open it up to questions.

Conference Operator: Our and first question comes from the line of Rick Prentiss from Raymond James. Sir, your line is open.

Rick Prentiss, Analyst, Raymond James: Thanks. Good morning, everybody.

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Good morning, Rick.

Rick Prentiss, Analyst, Raymond James: Good morning. Nice to get the T Mobile deal over the finish line. I want to start on, on the TDS Telecom side. Obviously, there’s definitely an incentive to raise the plant, the fiber flag. I know Dixon just started recently, but can you give us an idea of when you can update us on?

Would you expand and accelerate the 1,800,000 service addresses?

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Hi, Rick. This is Chris Baffo. Yeah. We are super excited that Ken Dixon joined. He brings a lot of enthusiasm, momentum.

And right now, we do think that there’s a significant opportunity or edge out, in our footprint to further expand our fiber footprint, and we’re currently sizing those opportunities, and we expect to share more in the upcoming quarters. But I will say that we intentionally chose specific markets to flag plants that we thought had great edge out and clustering abilities. So, again, I just wanna reinforce that we think there’s significant opportunity, but we’re just not quite yet ready to share exactly what that looks like. Thank you, Chris. And and, Rick, I would add this is this is a critical step in our going forward capital allocation strategy.

And with Ken onboard, we’re we’re I’ll echo. We’re really excited for what he’s seen across the business and the opportunities going forward. So we’ll bring more we’ll bring more back to the table. Okay.

Rick Prentiss, Analyst, Raymond James: And and, Vicki, I think you mentioned TDS would keep leverage under 1.5 turns while you evaluate that. Where do you see leverage at the the TDS Telecom side kind of stabilizing at longer term?

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Well, TDS Telecom is certainly consolidated and a wholly owned subsidiary of TDS. So I’m looking at it collectively. As you know, we’re we’re putting in place leverage at the array balance sheet at three times. We expect when we complete our spectrum transactions that we could put in place if the array was up

Colleen Thompson, Vice President of Corporate Relations, TDS: board of directors would

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: approve a more regular dividend, and that would provide funding on a longer term basis. So when I’m looking at our opportunities at the telecom and on the TDS consolidated basis, you know, we’re going to have significant proceeds that will help fund our opportunities, which is why we’re we’re looking right now to put a more rigorous and defined capital allocation strategy in place. So we haven’t quantified it yet, but we’ll come back and share that with you. But for right now, we may we expect to stay at one time 1.5 times, which is really all the debt is paid off at the TDS level and with leaving the preferreds in place, and then we have an option on our export credit. It’s a 150,000,000 on whether we keep that in place or pay that off in the near term.

Rick Prentiss, Analyst, Raymond James: Right. Continue on the TDS Telecom side. Interesting to hear you brought the construction crew in or some construction crew in house. We’ve been hearing about, you know, there could be some labor issues, material issues, particularly as the one big beautiful bill kinda has ramped people’s homes passed, service addresses passing. So can you talk a little bit just about access to getting the build plan done?

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Yeah, Rick. We we still feel very confident in our ability to hit our 150,000 service addresses for the year. So just a little more color on that. We we were a little late to get all of our EACAM contracts executed, but now we have those executed. Crews are really ramping up.

We’re liking what we’re seeing. So we continue or we expect to continue to see that EACAM construction and address delivery to really ramp in the second half of the year. We’re also bringing on significant increase in our in both our internal construction crews and external construction crews to continue to ramp those expansion builds. And, two, just to remind you, the the seasonality of our builds, it is very common that we see significant average delivery in the second half of the year. Not uncommon to see about 70% of our our address delivery to occur in the second half of the year.

So we’re really pleased with the momentum. We had the strongest address delivery all year in June, and we beat that in July. So we have great momentum, and we feel really confident in hitting our 150,000 address goal for the year.

Doug Chambers, Interim President and CEO, Array Digital Infrastructure: K.

Rick Prentiss, Analyst, Raymond James: And last one on TDS Telecom, probably the most I’ve asked on TDS Telecom, but and then I’ll have a quick one on Hooray. I think it would be helpful if we had some cohort analysis. Just looking at what you deployed in in maybe ’22, ’23, just to understand because the industry is evolving rapidly. Just trying to figure out what the ultimate penetration, goals would be and and what kind of so what kind of market share, but also what kind of margins. So any thoughts on providing in a later date cohort analysis, and what are your thoughts as far as ultimate penetrations in your fiber markets?

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Yep. So, Rick, this is something we’re starting to report on internally, and we plan to share very soon externally. And just to remind you what our what we expect to see for our expansion markets and those penetration curves is by year by month 12, we expect around 25 to 30% penetration. That’s because we have an aggressive presales model that we put in place. So sixty days in advance of new address delivery, we’re out knocking on doors and signing up folks.

So we see pretty high presales penetration right at launch, and that helps us achieve a a really nice starting point for month 12. And then year five, so more steady state, is when we expect 40% steady state penetration in these expansion markets. And then some some markets take longer to get to that 40% and some take quicker. Those that are are a little bit slower to get there are are some of our focus. So that’s our expansion market.

But then we also have our EACAM fiber market. Those have really good competitive dynamics where, by definition, any EACAM eligible location has no gig capable competition. That’s approximately 30% of our ILEC footprint, and so we expect six 65 to 75% penetration in those areas. Yeah. That’s that’s really good background, Chris.

And to answer your question, Rick, we have cohort penetration reporting in place internally that we’ve been reviewing with Ken Dixon on board, and we intend to share that. I think those are critical proof points that are the underpinning of our investments that we’re making as we go forward. So we we will bring that to investors.

Rick Prentiss, Analyst, Raymond James: That’s really great news. I appreciate that. I know the market will appreciate that. Quickly for for Ken, tower reporting, good to hear that’s coming as well. I’m getting my Christmas list early this year.

The dividend sizing, would that be kind of sized on AFFO so we can kinda see a payout ratio? And the other quick one to tag to that is time to close AT and T. You’re saying second half. Are you thinking that’s like a a three month process post T Mobile close, or is that kinda closer to year end? Just trying to think through dividend timing.

Doug Chambers, Interim President and CEO, Array Digital Infrastructure: Morning, Greg. Yes. So with respect to AFFO reporting dividend per share, etcetera, we’re all that’s coming in Q3. So as I said, our first quarter reporting is independent power company is q three. We’ll bring all that reporting to you in q three.

With respect to the AT and T spectrum close, it is subject to FCC approval. We don’t control that process, obviously. So we’re 2025 is our best estimate. Getting more precise in that time frame, we’re not able to do right now. Okay.

Appreciate it. Thanks, everybody.

Walter Carlson, President and Chief Executive Officer, TDS: Thanks, Rick. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sebastiano Petty from JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Sebastiano Petty, Analyst, JPMorgan: Hi. Thanks for the question and congratulations as well on closing the T Mobile transaction. Just I guess following up on Rick’s follow ups, if we could just perhaps think about the, you know, fiber backdrop. Chris, great to hear that, you know, your confidence in with the delivery, know, the locations for the year, a 150 k. How should we think about the trajectory or shaping of overall fiber broadband additions, for the year?

Should we anticipate or do you still anticipate, you know, higher fiber additions year on year, just kind of given the 150 is kinda still on track there. And then just one last one there as you’re, you know, relatedly, you know, Rick talked talked about the cohort analysis. I think, yeah, that would be helpful. Just the question that we get from investors is you know, a lot of the growth is coming, you know, from some of your expansion markets. And with some of these big broad build out programs, you know, is that shrinking the white space opportunity?

So perhaps you can contextualize, you know, the the confidence in the net additions and maybe the competitive backdrop if anything has changed quite yet. And then I have a follow-up for Doug. Thank you.

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Hi, Sebastiano. So so, yeah, the first hit on your question about fiber net additions, we are targeting still year over year improvement in fiber net additions. And so I touched on this a little bit with Rick, but our sales model is very closely tied to new fiber address delivery because of our aggressive presales model and preselling all new addresses sixty days before they launch. So when we see slower address delivery to start the year, we also tend to see slower net adds. However, you heard me say, we expect significant increase in in in address delivery in the second half of the year with our EA can build ramping up and us bringing on additional construction crews.

So we expect net additions to follow with that address delivery. We’re also making sure that we don’t lose sight on those addresses that we’ve launched several years ago that still don’t have PDF fiber service. So there are additional tactics that, Ken Dixon has put in place to ensure that we’re going aggressively after those areas and increasing the penetration there. So with those tactics and with we we finally have a fully staffed door to door team going into the second half of the year, we still feel very confident in improving our net additions for the full year compared to last year. So a little bit on competition, and you were specifically asking about our expansion markets.

So these were handpicked markets. There was nearly a 100 communities, and we handpicked these based on their favorable competitive characteristics, their growth characteristics, among other factors. And we also specifically chose tier two and tier three communities because we our hypothesis was that these would be lower priority for Lex to upgrade. And we’ve seen that play out. We still feel very confident, and really pleased with with the competitive landscape in our expansion markets.

Sebastiano Petty, Analyst, JPMorgan: That’s super helpful. Thank you. And, Doug, I think I have you and LT this perhaps last quarter, but just kinda thinking about you know, you talked about the c band being beachfront. We don’t disagree. But just thinking about, you know, trying to balance, you know, maybe value maximization against the backdrop of, you know, a big spectrum pipeline and portfolio that’s gonna be coming to market after, you know, the reconciliation bill.

And, you know, particularly also have AWS three reauction from Dish, potential, maybe secondary market, you know, spectrum coming from that entity as well. And, you know, again, and then the upper C band, you know, perhaps in 2026. I mean, just just kind of thinking about how that, you know, this upcoming pipeline of additional spectrum and what perhaps, you know, how that what’s what that might do to carrier budgets and balance sheets, you know, know, influences perhaps how you’re kind of thinking about the monetization of the the remaining spectrum proceed portfolio? Thank you.

Doug Chambers, Interim President and CEO, Array Digital Infrastructure: Yeah. Good morning. It’s Bastiano. And so the nice thing with the c band spectrum is is one, it’s it’s deployable now, and it’s very desirable mid band spectrum, as you know. The other thing I mentioned in my script is that our first build deadline is until 2029.

Second build deadline is 2031. So we have the luxury of time to be opportunistic about the go out the sale of the spectrum. Certainly, supply and demand of spectrum and what’s coming available through FCC auction and and, you know, DISH and what happens there is a factor. You know, we’re, you know, we’re considering that. And our goal is to maximize the value, and we have time to do it.

And our strategy is to take the time we need to make sure we’re realizing the best value, and we’ll be gauging interest in doing our marketing in the future.

Sebastiano Petty, Analyst, JPMorgan: Our

Conference Operator: next question comes from the line of Niklas Talaka from New Street Research. Go ahead.

Niklas Talaka, Analyst, New Street Research: Thanks so much for taking my question. Couple of questions on the biz side, guess, I’ll come and then just a broader question on M and A. On the business side, can you just provide us an update on your mobile launch? If I remember correctly, you’ve done some test markets. What are you in terms of launching it nationwide?

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Yep. Hi there. So an update on our MVNO is we launched in select markets in the 2024. We’re calling our MVNO product TDS Mobile. We just launched in the second quarter to all markets across our footprint.

We have been taking a very phased methodical approach as we’re trying to work out all the kinks and ensure a great customer experience. But we are very excited because now we’ll be able to offer the same products as our competitors. And in some markets, this will actually be a differentiator against our competition. It’s also allowing us to offer the products that our customers want and should help us attract and retain customers over time. So we’re very pleased, and we’re just getting kind of fully launched, and we expect to see a lot more growth in the future.

Niklas Talaka, Analyst, New Street Research: Thank you. And then my second question was about your pricing. I saw that recently you launched gig product for $49.99. That’s a very aggressive pricing. What kind of step up should customers see and and over what time frame on that?

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Yeah. So our pricing strategy, we it really depends on what the competitive landscape is in a given market, and we wanna make sure that there are no barriers to entry. So, typically, you’ll see our entry level pricing be just as aggressive as the other gig capable provider in the market. And we just to make sure that the economics hold true, if we offer a very aggressive entry level price point, then we do have, usually, after two years, step up in price onto the full retail rack rate. And, typically, that’s, like, a $20, increase that you’ll see after two years.

But we are starting to test more with different pricing strategies. And in some cases, we are offering pricing that does not have that step up. So we’re kinda test and learn, to to figure out the right optimization.

Niklas Talaka, Analyst, New Street Research: Got it. That’s helpful. And then last question on m and a. You mentioned that you will be looking for opportunities, at the tbs.com level. Could you just give us some idea of what kind of assets you’re looking at?

I’m assuming you’re only looking at fiber assets. What kind of, profile are you looking at for those assets?

Walter Carlson, President and Chief Executive Officer, TDS: Yes. Good morning. And with the, bringing in house of the proceeds from the T Mobile transaction and the expected proceeds from the AT and T and Verizon transactions, I’d say we are at the beginning point of considering what M and A opportunities would make sense. And in particular, we are focused on fiber opportunities and fiber opportunities that would be synergistic with our existing properties and footprint. So it’s just at the beginning of that analysis, and more to come in the future.

Niklas Talaka, Analyst, New Street Research: Got it. Thanks so much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Sergey Dziedzinski from Gabelli. Sir, please go ahead.

Doug Chambers, Interim President and CEO, Array Digital Infrastructure: Good morning, you for Good morning. Taking my Good

Sergey Dziedzinski, Analyst, Gabelli: My first question is for Doug. Doug, maybe you could talk a little bit about the main building blocks of your growth strategy for the tower business and the key steps that you’re taking already to accelerate third party collocations and what else on that front you expect to do maybe over the next twelve to twenty four months. What you would be doing differently potentially with independent provider and what parts of your tower business give you as as generally underappreciated by investors? Any opinion.

Doug Chambers, Interim President and CEO, Array Digital Infrastructure: Okay. Yeah. Good morning, sir Sergei. So, you know, what we’ve done I’ll start with the fact in the fourth quarter twenty twenty four, we brought our sales team and intake operations in house from an outsourced provider, hired ahead of sales, and that’s yielded great dividends for us. Our new colo applications in the 2025 are up over 100% versus first quarter twenty twenty four.

And that team is just doing a fantastic job. They’re fully staffed, and we’re really pleased with the progress they’ve made. Part of the revenue increase, you saw 12% quarter over quarter. Part of that was due to the application fees that we received in 2025. We didn’t get in 2024, but even without those, we had 7% quarter over quarter increase.

The other thing we have is we have strong MLAs with all three carriers. They have compelling pricing. The carriers like them with favorable pricing, and it also provides good economics to us, and there’s ease of implementation. And so we believe that helps us. Obviously, the T Mobile new MLA is a tailwind for us.

I’d also point to the fact that we have Array as a separate brand and and no longer part of a carrier. I I don’t think that’s a significant benefit, but I do think it provides some benefit, more focus, more perceived as a, you know, pure play power company. We also also think there’s tailwind in carrier investments in the next three years. So we’re very optimistic about our future with respect to sales growth, doing all the right things with our team. And, you know, right now, we’re very focused on getting the T Mobile MLA implemented That that’s a, you know, significant effort for our organization and and one that we will be successful and and look forward to getting that completed.

Sergey Dziedzinski, Analyst, Gabelli: Got it. Great. My My second question is for Chris on the TBS telecom side. So, obviously, fiber footprint expansion is is a significant priority, and you have your 1,800,000 testing target. In addition to just scaling the fiber footprint and with new CEO coming in, how would you describe the the top two or three operational and strategic priorities beyond just fiber expansion over the next few years?

And and what are the key steps that you’re taking, to improve conversion of your fiber passings into paying customers?

Vicki Villacres, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TDS: Yep. Hi, Sergei. So what I’ll say, over the next several years, we do have a handful of top strategic priorities that we’re marching towards. First and foremost, like you said, is executing on the build plan and expanding our fiber footprint. We have a few large programs in place, EACAM, which we’re very excited about to bring fiber to more rural areas.

We have our expansion program, which is continuing to build to the 100 communities and hopefully even accelerate those. You also heard Vicky and I talk about edge out opportunities, so we’re gonna continue to look at even expanding the fiber footprint further. That’s one. Number two is executing our sales and marketing and driving revenue and driving penetration. And so there’s a lot of different efforts in place.

This is where, Ken Dixon and his background is is great because this is his sweet spot, and so there’s a lot of initiatives, in place to ensure that we hit our targeted penetration curves as we deliver those those addresses. And then lastly is the executing on our business transformation. So last quarter, I I talked about how we’ve been transforming into a fiber company in a meaningful way over the last few years, but now we’re also focused on streamlining our operations, enhancing elements of the customer experience, all to make sure we’re driving margin improvement, OCF expansion over the next several years. So those are really our top three priorities, as we look over the next few years.

Sergey Dziedzinski, Analyst, Gabelli: Great. And and my last question is, for Walter. Walter, as you look beyond or as we look beyond the two remaining announced deals at Array at potentially additional spectrum integrations, How do the two companies, CBS Telecom, which is largely consumer in the fiber operator and Array, which is a midsized power company with additional spectrum and wireless partnership assets, how does those companies sit together? And in your opinion, that’s having these two companies under the same holding company umbrella in the current form or otherwise, that is optimized shareholder value going forward? And also what types of additional shareholder value enhancing moves beyond the announced transactions, could we be looking for, in terms of, things that would come out of your toolkit?

Walter Carlson, President and Chief Executive Officer, TDS: Sergey, thank you. Obviously, we’ve been focused immensely on the very near term in terms of the T Mobile transaction, the AT and T and Verizon transactions. Over the intermediate horizon or near to intermediate horizon, we do have the additional spectrum that you spoke to, and we do believe we will be successful in monetizing that for many of the reasons that Doug stated. That frees up a lot of capital. And you’re right that a tower business, which we believe will be very successful, is different in concept perhaps than a largely consumer or small business focused fiber business.

So they are different in concept, but they’re in the same industry. And the financial power that the tower business can bring to the enterprise is very significant. So from my perspective, I view the combined power of these two businesses as we improve the execution that we have. And I think there will be a lot of value unlocked through improved execution as Doug and Chris have each indicated. And that will redound greatly to shareholder value.

In terms of longer term ideas with respect to other ways to unlock value, those will be considered. They’re not the nearest term priority, but they are very much on our mind and we will continue to report to you as we go forward. I do think there are synergies between the type of thinking that goes into building a tower business and making it successful as well as the type of thinking that goes into making the fiber business successful. So they’re they are different, but they are related in good ways that are productive.

Doug Chambers, Interim President and CEO, Array Digital Infrastructure: Great. Thank you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. This concludes our Q and A session. I will now turn the call over back to Colleen Thompson for closing remarks.

Colleen Thompson, Vice President of Corporate Relations, TDS: Hey, thanks everyone for joining us today. Please reach out to Investor Relations with any additional questions and have a great week.

Conference Operator: Concludes today’s conference. You may now disconnect.

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