Frontier Communications Parent, Inc. (NASDAQ:FYBR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

This may well be an initiative that is best accomplished via a joint venture. So we’ve certainly started to talk about that as well internally. But candidly, we have more work to do inside before we make any definitive decisions. The way I closed that out just say we remain maniacally focused on the committed build, the first 10. But by leveraging those capabilities that I referenced, we do think we have the opportunity to drive fiber expansion both in and out of our footprint. So more to follow on that, but that’s kind of status now. Nick, do you want to take the part about other partnerships?

Nick Jeffery: Yes. Thanks, John. Hi, Brett. Yes, you mentioned our deal with AT&T, which started as a fiber to the tower proposition. I’m very pleased to say that’s going very well. But in fact, just on that, we’ve now extended fiber to the tower deals with all three of the major wireless operators. So, very pleased about that. But moreover, you also heard us talk about Frontier as a growth-oriented digital infrastructure company. And one element of that is recognizing the absolutely unique footprint we have with our central offices, which have space power and connectivity, very close to where people actually consume large amounts of data. And that makes that asset very attractive to anybody that’s transmitting large volumes of data back and forth between customers.

And when we think about that, we think about companies like the wireless operators, but in the future, it could be companies like Amazon or Microsoft or any of those guys who are concerned with distributing the large amounts of data and therefore, needed cash close to where it’s consumed. So this is a great asset we have our central office footprint, which has power, connectivity and most importantly, proximity to consumers, but we’re now beginning to monetize through our wholesale division. I’m delighted that AT&T is our first customer.

Brett Feldman: And any additional thoughts around incorporating third-party mobile into your offers?

Nick Jeffery: John, can I take that up.

John Stratton: Sure, please.

Nick Jeffery: Yes. Look, as we’ve said before, we’ve got a lot of experience in the team of working in the cellular industry, of course, John with Verizon with Vodafone and Veronica, Bloodworth CNO with AT&T, plus many others across the team. So it’s something we understand very well, something we’re watching very, very closely. And as we’ve always said, behavior is really going to change, such that bundling mobile together with high-speed fiber broadband does one or two things, first of which helps us grow our core product. As you’ve seen in our results today, we are still delivering record growth in high-speed fiber broadband or when it helps us reduce churn. And again, as you’ve seen today, our churn continues to head in the right direction and is hitting records quarter after quarter.

So for the moment, we don’t see the need to launch an MVNO and to bundle that with our core fiber broadband offer. That said we are watching it very closely. We think it’s something we could spin up relatively quickly and efficiently if we needed to. But we’re also conscious that doing so would be a distraction of our capital when we have such an excellent use of our capital today in building fiber broadband. So if we can carry on using our capital to do that and nothing else, we will be extremely happy if consumer behavior changes such that we need an MVNO, we will move very swiftly to do that.

Brett Feldman: Great. Thank you.

Spencer Kurn: Thanks, Brett. Operator, we are ready for next question.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Philip Cusick of JPMorgan. Philip, please go ahead, now.