Charter Spending $12B Through 2025 on Network Footprint Adds
Charter Communications expects to spend $4 billion this year, and the same again in 2024 and in 2025, on extending its wireline network, Chief Financial Officer Jessica Fischer said Friday as the company announced Q4 2022 results. She said appropriation…
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of NTIA broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program funding is expected to arrive in 2024 and will likely come with four-year build timelines from grants. Fischer said the $4 billion annual future spending depends on receiving BEAD and absent that could be lower, and around that time the company's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund spending will start dropping. She said BEAD is "a unique and attractive opportunity" for subsidized network expansion that could generate returns that well exceed Charter's expenses. Fischer said Charter expects to build close to 300,000 rural passings this year, most of which will be paid for via RDOF, atop its normal pace of building. CEO Chris Winfrey said Charter built more than 200,000 rural passings last year, with the expectation that over time its rural efforts will be a significant contributor to customer growth. Fischer said Charter's penetration is typically around 40% six months after new passages were built in rural areas. Per Charter, Q4 revenue was $13.7 billion, up from $13.2 billion the same quarter a year earlier. It ended the quarter with 28.4 million residential internet customers, up more than 250,000 year over year; 14.5 million residential video customers, down 700,000; and 7.7 million landline voice customers, down 900,000. It ended 2022 with 5.3 million mobile lines, up from 3.6 million a year earlier. Charter "really kicked ass in mobile in Q4," with its 615,000 net adds in the quarter "almost as many as AT&T," Recon Analytics’ Roger Entner tweeted.