2/8/2021

speaker
Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Antarex Third Quarter Investor Update Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Natasha Beccarelli. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

speaker
Natasha Beccarelli

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Morgan O'Brien, our Executive Chairman, Rob Schwartz, our President and CEO, Ryan Gerbrandt, our COO, and Kim Gray, our CFO. Before I turn the call over to Rob, who will deliver our prepared remarks, I'll remind you that any statements we make during this call that are not based on historical facts represent forward-looking statements, and our actual results could differ materially. A discussion of the factors that may affect our future results is contained in our SEC filings, which are available on our investor relations website. A replay and transcript of this call will also be made available on our website. Following our discussion, we will open the call to take questions from the audience. And with that, I'll turn it over to Antarex's President and CEO, Rob Schwartz.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Thanks, Natasha. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our fiscal Q3 investor call. It's been just a short time since our last investor call when we announced our Ameren contract. So today I'll provide a brief update on our continued progress since then. We're really excited about Enterix's current market position with continued customer progress, growing macro demand, and strong regulatory tailwinds. As we enter this fourth fiscal quarter of a big year for Enterix, let me start with how we're tracking against our stated goals thus far. In this fiscal year, we've delivered on the FCC decision to bring broadband to 900 megahertz. We've secured our first long-term customer contract, demonstrating the considerable value of our nationwide spectrum asset to utilities. We've cultivated the expanding interest in 900 MHz private LTE, which can be measured through a growing number of pilots, experimental licenses, and industry collaborations. We continue to see and foster strong tailwinds from the legislative and regulatory environment, including for the administration regarding their focus on modernizing the electric grid to support the expansion of renewable energy. Despite the challenges of operating during a pandemic, we've expanded and developed a leadership team that is successfully executing on our business plan. And lastly, and most importantly, we've continued our development of a robust and maturing customer pipeline that we believe will enable us to achieve our business goals. I want to focus on three key takeaways in my remaining comments today. First, our continued progress with target customers. Second, our momentum that is now beginning to translate into an industry movement towards private LTE. And third, the positive legislative and regulatory trends that we're seeing and as a result of the energy policy focus of the new administration. So starting with our progress with target customers, we're solidly on track with our stated goals and remain confident in our ability to report an additional customer progress with at least one or two more customer agreements before our fiscal year end of March 31st of this year. Our sales funnel continues to strongly develop and accordingly in our upcoming fiscal year, we're now targeting the signing of an additional two to three customer agreements in fiscal year 2022, which puts us right on track for our previously stated fiscal year end 2024 customer goals. Our confidence is based on the continued progress in the seasoning of our customer funnel. which is a direct result of the growing industry demand for private LTE. Further, we're already seeing utility customers react positively and show stronger interest based on Ameren's commitment to private LTE. In addition, our top-down initiatives continue to develop increased industry awareness that the modernized private 900 MHz communication solution that Enterix is offering to utilities is essential to support the modernizing electric grid. A recent example of this continued progress is our announcement with Xcel Energy and Motorola. Xcel is one of the largest IOUs with four operating companies providing energy to over 12 million people across eight Western and Midwestern states. And Motorola, the leader in private two-way radio communications for industrial users, is providing an innovative private LTE solution called Nitro. This offering effectively expands legacy two-way radio systems with a high-powered overlay of 900 megahertz LTE and with the ability to complement the deployment with CBRS. As Tim Peterson, CIO of Xcel Energy stated about their private LTE initial deployment, quote, this new telecommunications technology will provide a basis for new solutions which can improve grid operations, enhance system security, and ultimately deliver a better experience for our customers, unquote. Innovation, however, isn't only being realized within utilities. I'm also excited about the movement towards 900 MHz private LTE from other entities that will drive future innovation. Texas State University recently received what is now the ninth FCC 900 MHz experimental license to focus on applied research for connected infrastructure embedding smart technology into utilities, cities, transportation, and renewable energy. They're bringing together a broad group of innovators and thinkers to test evolutionary use cases, taking full advantage of the powerful capabilities made possible by private LTE networks. We're looking forward to working with Texas State University and its technology partners as their work gets underway. As a result of the continued progress we're making on the customer front, we've garnered substantial additional experience with prospective customers. We now better understand some important dynamics of our business model that I'd like to share with you. As we've said before, our customer contracts will be diverse in size, from mid-sized deals at tens of millions of dollars to larger deals at hundreds of millions of dollars in contracted proceeds, and we continue to see an increasing desire for these customers to prepay. Future opportunities may come as one large transaction and others could be done as incremental steps by the regulated op companies within the large utility holding companies. Our addressable market opportunity includes the FCC designated complex systems where our target customers are also significant 900 megahertz licensees. In these situations, we'll be creative in our deal structures and we'll target paths forward that are creative for our shareholders. Predicting the precise timing of the signing of these contracts is not easy. These customers are managing critical infrastructure networks, and events do happen that can temporarily shift their priorities. Despite any of these short-term timing challenges, we remain confident in the positive trend line of future transactions. We believe future transactions will mark the value of the nationwide spectrum asset on our balance sheet, just like it did with the Ameren Agreement, and demonstrate the growing demand and continued willingness to pay fair market value for our scarce low-band spectrum. And these deals may also close at irregular intervals, not necessarily correlated to our fiscal quarters. We may go quarters without announcing new deals, only to be followed by extremely strong quarters. This dynamic is the nature of our unique and valuable business model, and we're confident that the broader trend line will demonstrate the opportunity for continued and long-term value creation. So as we continue to learn more from the closing of customer transactions, we'll continue to provide updates. Additionally, it's worth pointing out the recent CBAN auction results, where prices well exceeded analyst and market expectations. This reflects the increasing value of license spectrum and provides further support for our spectrum negotiations. Looking more broadly at utility industry's sharpening focus on private LTE, there is accelerating momentum and dialogue across the collective industry in support of 900 megahertz private LTE adoption. Across the country, utilities are making bold commitments to net zero carbon emission goals, and as a result, are planning to invest billions of dollars in generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure to expand, strengthen, and modernize the grid in support of these goals. Through our efforts, more and more of these utilities are becoming aware of the foundational role of 900 megahertz private LTE in achieving these important objectives. This increased focus on private LTE is translating into action and customer engagement. We see all of this activity, validation and momentum across the utility sector as a movement. The entire ecosystem's broad embrace of private LTE will result in the networking benefits that we've discussed in the past. And that movement extends beyond the utility and vendor community. It's illustrated in our press coverage, webinars, seminars, and roundtables focusing on private LTE. And it's also reflected in legislation, as well as the new administration's policies regarding climate change and the focus on clean and renewable energy. Working with industry associations, individual utilities, and thought leaders, we've educated policymakers regarding the critical importance of having a modern, secure, broadband platform as part of any grid modernization. Those joint education efforts are beginning to bear fruit. In December, the Energy Act was included as part of the COVID relief package that was signed into law. It requires the Department of Energy to investigate the intersection of new technologies, communications, and grid modernization with a specific focus on cybersecurity. Multiple sections of the Act align with our efforts and our mission to deliver a secure, broad broadband solution for utilities. In addition to the legislation adopted in December, the administration's focus on environmental issues also aligns with our goals. The President is calling for a clean energy revolution to address the climate emergency. To realize the energy future envisioned by the administration, utilities will need to implement communications networks that are robust, secure, and support the integration and management of new and distributed energy sources. Through our combined efforts, policymakers at the national level are beginning to recognize the integral role that private secure communications will play in helping the country reach its clean energy goals. Before I conclude, I can't say enough positive things about our expanding team and the trusted position they have established for Enterix throughout the utility sector. We are becoming an integral part of our prospective customers. And when combined with our industry leaders and our advisory council, we are proving ourselves as compelling industry force striving to establish the Enterix name as synonymous with private LTE. Together, we are laser-focused on achieving our mission of what is now a collective movement towards private LTE network adoption. That concludes our prepared remarks. I'll now turn it over to the operator for questions.

speaker
Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star 1 on your phone now. We ask that while posing your question, you please pick up your handset, if listening on speakerphone, to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold a moment while we poll for questions. Your first question is coming from Phil Cusick. Your line is live.

speaker
Phil Cusick

Hey, guys. Thanks. I guess first, can you give us any more detail on the funnel, anyone in or out? as well as the prospects for the one or two more deals you have expected to be signed in the next couple of months?

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Hi, Phil. Absolutely. Let me all start, and Ryan can fill in some of the details. So as I mentioned, we see continued progress. Ryan gave a lot of detail in our last call about the movement of utilities through the funnel. Based on what we're seeing, again, we remain confident about what we can deliver in this

speaker
Phil

this remaining uh period of the fiscal year ryan you want to give us some more perspective yeah i'll grab a little grab a little more color um yeah we've talked a little bit about kind of the 40 accounts phil in the past in terms of their maturity obviously we've been working with the expanded sales team that we've been putting in place you know across a variety of these even in parallel while we were working to get to get the amaran signing um Nothing has fallen out. I think that's one of your specific questions. You know, so we're not seeing anything like that, you know, and continue to see, you know, kind of the momentum that's been building that we've been working to capture really coming out of the ongoing conversations that have spurred both directly and indirectly as we've announced the AMRA and the positive signs that that's created.

speaker
Phil Cusick

Okay. And then maybe, Rob, you could talk more about the customer interest in prepaying. Can you dig into that? What does this tell you about your funding needs? Thanks again.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Absolutely. I think when we approached our last public funding, we talked about that we believe that would fully fund our business model. And built into that was an assumption that we'd be seeing proceeds from future customer contracts. And with the completion of the Ameren agreement and those we're seeing in the pipeline, I know Tim's mentioned in the past, we do see a growing preference for the potential prepaid agreements Obviously, it's positive for us from a cash flow standpoint, and we do see that we're going to continue to see that trend, and that will provide sources of capital for us to continue to fund our business model. So prepaid is really being driven by the utility customer's desire to be able to capitalize their costs of their spectrum, and some utilities are seeing a greater ability to do so if they can prepay it. Obviously, the extent that we can get the cash up front in maintaining our long-term relationships, it's a win-win for us.

speaker
Tim

If you find yourself with excess cash, what makes sense to do with it?

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

I think Tim's talked about that also in the past. We obviously have a lot of different alternatives. I would say that it would be a good problem to have when we get there. We're doing some careful analysis now to understand what our options are, and we anticipate that when we run into that good problem to have, that we'll have a decision made about what we want to do with the capital. Tim, anything you want to add to that?

speaker
Tim

Tim, you may be on mute if you're talking.

speaker
Tim

Sorry about that. Two things, Rob, that I wanted to mention. You know, having additional cash from prepaids as we move forward will give us some additional strategic options, including share buybacks. I think I mentioned that before. And second is, you know, one of the things that we've thought about, it's been a little over two years since we last held an investor day, and we're going to schedule relatively soon a virtual investor day to talk about prepaids, those impacts, and other aspects of our model moving forward.

speaker
Tim

Great. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Phil.

speaker
Operator

Your next question is coming from Simon Flannery. Your line is live.

speaker
Simon

Great. Thanks. Good evening. Thanks for your time tonight. In the queue you mentioned on the Ameren deal, you still need the Board of Directors approval. Could you just take us through the status of the Ameren contract at this point?

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Sure. Yeah. I think we refer to that as kind of a customary issue within the agreement. What we're finding is that some utilities are able to include the payment for Spectrum potentially in existing budgetary approval. Others need to go for a broader approval. Some are looking at Spectrum as a single item, where others roll it into a larger plan for their overall deployment of a of a grid modernization program so that they put together rate cases for grid modernization. That's really where Ameren's fits. So for us, while we've got all the right positive momentum, we're working with them already on their planning and deployment. We're working from their C-suite on down to their engineers on how they move forward. They have a board approval date that will happen sometime probably by the middle of this year. but we see everything as green-lighted so far from all their commitment and all their public statements. You've probably seen that they've been supportive of ours, not just through the transaction itself, but they've also been out on the podiums with us as part of a number of the industry conferences. They're actually helping us with outreach to other utilities. They're even hosting other utilities that want to learn from their pilots and experiments in helping drive them forward. So every sign of their commitment from watching their feet from us, give us the confidence that board approval will be something that is required, but we don't think there's going to be any challenges in getting it.

speaker
Simon

And that's something that will allow them to sort of a gating item to getting recognizing revenue and getting the first installment. Is that right?

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

That's correct.

speaker
Simon

Okay. And on the 22, thank you for the color on signing two to three more leases. I know it's lumpy, but is it fair to think that this is could happen at any point, or is it more a second half or a first half, or still too early to say?

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Yeah, I think it's probably too early to say on the specific timing within the year at this point. And I made some comments, obviously, about the difficulty in predicting the timing of closure anyway with all of the utility agendas as well. But we're confident, really, and I think what's important, Simon, is to see that that's the right step that fits within our plan to get to our 2024 goals that we're confident that based on the breadth and depth of the pipeline that Ryan's described, that we'll be able to achieve that many, many customers to be able to continue on.

speaker
Simon

And just following up on that, you, you reiterate the customer goals. You also reiterating the financial goals.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Yes. Yeah, we are. So I think as Tim said, you know, we're, We're targeting an investor day to really be able to refine that further based on our learnings. And a lot of that has to do with what we said, I believe, I think it was the last call, as we're seeing prepayment, what the impact of that is on what we originally described as annual recurring revenue. Obviously, prepayment is a different cash flow impact and does have an impact on that recurring revenue. So we're confident that we're going to put 50% of our spectrum to work at least by that 2024 date, and we'll see the customer proceeds increase. that relate to that. As they get prepaid, that has an impact on the way in which we book those revenues, and so that's what we want to get deeper into as we're seeing that trend happening. Tim, anything you want to add to that?

speaker
Tim

No, Rob. I think you handled that one, so I don't have anything else.

speaker
Simon

Great.

speaker
Tim

Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Your next question is coming from Mike Crawford. Your line is live.

speaker
Mike Crawford

Thanks, Mike Crawford from Be Right With Security. So can you talk about how potential license to Texas State University or UPS, which has an experimental license, would affect any utilities seeking to use Spectrum in regions where other enterprises might also be desiring to use Spectrum?

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

I'll give you the broad answer to the, I think, the question that you're asking about whether those experimental licenses will impair our ability to create commercial licenses, and I think generally the answer is no, meaning they're really just sort of temporary authority, use it for experiments, but obviously we have the ability to bring those out as broader commercial licenses. But, Ryan, it might be worth your giving a little more detail as you're bringing up the Texas State University on sort of our excitement about that opportunity.

speaker
Phil

Yeah, happy to. Yeah, what's exciting about Texas State University is, you know, really what they're doing in terms of looking within their labs, you know, across their student base and across, you know, the ecosystem of companies and partners that will be affiliated with us in the future to really explore, you know, a variety of new drivers and use cases. You know, we've talked a lot about the existing utility use cases, and at the end of the day, that's what underpins, you know, the utility adoption that goes with them. But beyond that really becomes kind of the next generation of what can be done, you know, with the various applications and use cases that can leverage the capabilities of private LTE. And just beyond that, you know, unique to the Texas University initiative is really its application across sectors. So as Rob said, you know, they're exploring, you know, not just individual use cases, but the intersection of those use cases across utilities, cities, transformations, and renewable where, There's a lot of future opportunity to live for our prospective customers in terms of how they can consider taking advantage of the capability under the umbrella of a built private LTE network.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

And you get, Mike, that said, just bring it back to your question. Those are all experimental licenses and pilots, and so there's nothing in them that prevents us from moving forward commercially in any of those regions.

speaker
Mike Crawford

Okay, thank you. And then just... As you now are deeper into engagement with potential IOUs and other utilities regarding your spectrum, what are you finding to be the most effective channels in reaching these customers? Is it ABBA, or is it more just getting straight to the C-suite, or where are you seeing the most resonance with what you're proposing?

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

I'll start there again and then pass to Ryan, but I think the answer is yes, meaning all of those channels are essential elements, and we've really taken a multi-pronged approach to driving the decision-making, getting these customers to yes. These are complex organizations. And each one comes at it from a different place. I always talk about sort of the point of entry. We have some that come in as a member of ABBA. They happen to be at a Distributech event, and they come by and they hear about what's going on in the space. Others happen to be in a forum where they hear it from another utility. And so the genesis of the idea comes from all different places. But I think what we are seeing is the C-suite really correlating to what I described as the top-down activities becoming more and more important because there's more and more compelling ideas rationale for the C-suite to be involved in this, right? The challenge of these renewable energy goals that utilities are setting at the sea level and having to achieve them, the cybersecurity issues and challenges that are coming up, these are boardroom issues that now are getting the sea level involved.

speaker
Ryan

Hey, Rob, it's Morgan. I think something we should mention also is a specific example. If you look at what's happening in California where the major utilities out there have to report annually, on what they're doing for wildfire mitigation and the investments they're making to reduce risk. I mean, there's an example of regulators pulling utilities towards solutions that we've been advocating. So it's an ecosystem that is developing around clean energy. And we're just a part of it. We like to to say we're a foundational part because you sort of have to have that locked down before you do a lot of the others. But these proposals, these issues for grid modernization are coming from all directions.

speaker
Tim

Okay. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Your next question is coming from George Sutton. Your line is live.

speaker
George Sutton

Thank you. I just wanted to follow on the Texas State University issue first. In what we were seeing, it looked like they were, that deal is going to include partners like the Department of Energy, Department of Defense. That's where we were so intrigued with that deal specifically. Can you talk about how involved they are in this specific experimental license and what that might mean for other opportunities with those agencies?

speaker
Phil

Hey, George. Ryan here. A lot of their activities, I'll say, are still a little early in the planning process. I do know that they've had a broad swath of potential partners, both from government and obviously from private enterprise. In fact, even some interest from potential customers who can all be part of the exploration. I don't know specifically yet in terms of the interlock between the DOE and other aspects there as it relates to it, but The nice thing with these programs are certainly once they get going, they create both research that drives innovation across the technology realms, but they do tend to tackle a lot of the other aspects around the adoption and the operationalizing of those solutions that I can absolutely see a potential intersection there.

speaker
Ryan

Morgan, let me just add one other factor. I think Texas really is focusing on smart cities. And we've had a little trouble persuading the utilities that they really have a tremendous amount to gain from becoming part of that Smart Cities and fleshing out how their infrastructure answers a lot of the questions that have been raised about is there a good business case for Smart Cities. So I was particularly excited about this opportunity to participate to put private LTE right at the heart of this thinking that's going on about the smart city and all the peripheral transportation and other benefits. This, to me, is a real green light for us with utilities that may not have been thinking this way.

speaker
George Sutton

Gotcha. AT&T recently abandoned plans to lease spectrum utilities for private networks. That was something they had been looking to do for multiple years. Can you just give us a sense from your perspective, is that just competitive reality that they're seeing with your new position, or is that a broader challenge of utility customers?

speaker
Ryan

Let me take a quick stab at answering, which is that I think that their spectrum, where it is in the band relative to where ours is, and therefore the total cost of ownership implications, plus the restrictions on that spectrum, including that it really wasn't usable for mobility. If you start talking long-term usage of broadband network to the utilities and you say, of course, you're not going to be able to use it for mobility, that's a tremendous downer. So we're, of course, always happy to see a competitor drop out, but it's just, confirms what we've been saying all along, which is 900 megahertz just happens to be very well placed from a cost of coverage and very well placed in terms of how you can use multiple, how there are multiple use cases that can be supported on this spectrum, not the least of which is that the power restrictions are somewhat relaxed at 900 megahertz, opening the door for innovation on the product side. So, I think their spectrum just didn't hold up to that kind of an analysis when it's compared to 900.

speaker
George Sutton

Gotcha. Lastly, Rob, you mentioned some quarters would be quiet, some quarters would be very active. Can you just outline which quarters are going to be really active? And that'll help us a lot.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

I always appreciate your questions, George, but obviously that's not what I can hit on. But I think that's always our challenge, right? In the business of big game hunting, that we do the sequencing of it with these kind of calls. We really like communicating with investors, but it's really just trying to give everyone an appreciation for the lumpiness of the business model that we have. We think it's a great model. We think it creates a lot of value, but it will probably have some quarters where we won't be able to have announcements about customers.

speaker
Ryan

Gotcha. I appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Your next question is coming from James Ratcliffe. Your line is live.

speaker
James Ratcliffe

Okay. Hi, thanks for taking the question to if I could, first of all, when you look at the Ameren deal, how should we think about that having read throughs on pricing in particular for the rest of your base? I mean, that's an area where historically spectrum is in options like it's gone for perhaps less than the overall average. Is that a read through or are there other factors involved? And secondly, just on the returning costs and process, looks like there was only sort of 3 million or so in in spend in the quarter on that update on where you think the total retuning costs comes out and just any color on timing over the next say eight to 10 quarters. Thanks.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Absolutely. Thanks, James for questions. I'll take the first Tim and you can cover the second but on on Ameren and the read through, you know, we had a call in December, as you know, to talk about that deal specifically and put out a fact sheet with the details. And so if you look at the implied pricing of where that deal was relative to, you know, we, we like to sort of refer to the benchmarks of the, of the, we call it bookends of you know, both the 600 megahertz pricing and then in the eight of us three auctions. And that really came pretty straight down the fairway between the two, a little above average, probably between the two, which we refer to as fair market value, really somewhere in that range. The good news is, since then, I made reference to the C-band auction results. While not directly comparable because it's mid-band spectrum, and traditionally low-band spectrum has been more valuable than mid-band, our view is that that just continues to show that over time, and I know you've reported this, James, that spectrum values continue to appreciate. And with the continued demand for spectrum, and in that particular auction, there was no one but carriers involved. and I guess some speculators that walked away with that spectrum. So from our view, the Ameren deal does imply what the nationwide spectrum asset we have could be worth, and that market is, as you said, a below-average market, meaning if you look historically at the auctions, St. Louis is a great area, but it's lower than the typical average pricing paid when you include all of the highest value. We call the NFL cities into that as well. And so you can apply from that nationally what spectrum is worth. And we can expect to continue to see pricing, you know, hopefully close to fair market value in our future transactions.

speaker
Tim

And hey, James, this is Tim. Yeah, I mean, this quarter there was a couple million dollars in spend on clearing. But remember that we intend to spend the significant majority of the spectrum clearing costs over the next four years. And our spend will vary at times, and the pace will be determined by several key factors, including customer demand and market opportunity. I also want to note now that we've got a customer signed, we will start to see some significant increases in our clearing spend as we move forward. And I'll spend some more time as we get to the investor day that I mentioned earlier with some clear guidance over the next couple of years as far as that's concerned. But But we're still very much on track for the 130 to 160 in overall spend that we've stuck to. Great. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Your next question is coming from Chase White. Your line is live.

speaker
Southwinds

Thank you. Good afternoon, guys. So do you guys get the sense, or have you seen an increase or uptick in interest from utilities in the wake of the Nashville incident that happened back in December that took out AT&T's network across the wide region. I'm just curious if that kind of, you know, demonstrated to some utilities whether or not, you know, the need for a private network that's off of a commercial network entirely.

speaker
Ryan

And then... Well, we wouldn't... Chase, it's Morgan. We wouldn't try to take advantage of that, but if anybody asked, it it illustrates the dependence that anyone who accepts the first net proposition, the dependence they have on somebody else's network decisions. There is no such thing as a wireless network that doesn't go down at some point. But it does sort of focus on it, and I know that they're now, I see in the trade press that they're now lots of sort of second-guessing, looking back at it to try to determine what could have been done differently. But all that does focus on the difference between a private system and basically any other.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Chase, if I could expand on that. I think that's really just the latest of a series of events that when we go into utilities that we hear about that really have rationalized why they already operate private networks. Remember, utilities, most of their communications are on their own private networks. They're just typically narrowband or unlicensed systems, that this is about a modernization of those communications. So we hear stories about impacts of Sandy, and the last places to be recovered were some of the substations where the utilities needed communications, what happened in the wildfires with some workers getting throttled on other commercial networks. And so every utility pretty much has a story about their reliance on carrier systems and and where that has run into some challenges. I think that the natural incident is probably just one of the latest.

speaker
Ryan

My impression is that there's some feedback also on Southwinds and all the security involved there. And again, highlighting how important it is to have sort of start to finish control over your network. Gotcha.

speaker
Southwinds

And are there any, you know, looking forward, are there any potential opportunities for something like a revenue sharing arrangement with vendors like, you know, Motorola and the others that you work with a lot? You know, you guys have worked with, you know, Motorola, for example, on a lot of deployments and pilots and everything. So obviously bringing in a lot of business for these guys. I'm just curious if you could give us any color on if and when we could see something like that.

speaker
Ryan

Well, I think one thing you can assume is that Motorola absolutely dominates the LMR, the Line Mobile Radio business overall, and they also dominate with the utilities. And a lot of those systems are reaching points where they may need to be significantly upgraded or swapped out. So our working with Motorola as they look at sort of where they want to direct these customers for mobility as well as for fixed wireless services it does give us a lot of opportunities to work together, and you can never go wrong approaching somebody with that brand. So we're excited about the opportunity of working with them and the others. It's a great opportunity for us to be sort of the essential party in a lot of different vendors' product offerings.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

Yeah, Chase, to follow up, Morgan, we're seeing with all of the industry movement that's happening in private LTE and Niner Mega specifically, strong vendor interest in joining in what we're doing and solving a lot of these complex needs of the customers. So I think you're going to continue to see developments with us and vendors growing. and we obviously do look at, as you asked about, you know, economic opportunities for us beyond spectrum in working with these vendors as well. And so that's something we're exploring, and I hope we'll be able to share some things in the future about that.

speaker
Ryan

I'll tell you one thing that we've learned from the beginning, you know, five-plus years, and that is that selling to the utilities for a sort of next generation of the core utility at their business involves lots of different parties. And we're glad to be now recognized as part of the solution, but there's a bunch of different players that are involved. And it makes for really great opportunities for us because there's lots of different people talking to customers about our product.

speaker
Tim

Gotcha. Very helpful. Thanks, guys. There are no further questions from the lines at this time.

speaker
Morgan O'Brien

OK. Thanks, everybody, for the good questions and the time in listening to us this quarter. We look forward to talking to everybody soon. And with that, we'll wrap up. Thank you, operator.

speaker
Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

-

-