Telephone and Data Systems, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us and welcome to the TDS and Array First Quarter 2026 Operating Results Conference Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please raise your hand. If you have dialed in to today's call, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute when prompted. I will now hand the conference over to John Toomey, Treasurer, Vice President, Corporate Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. The presentation we prepared to accompany our comments this morning can be found on the investor relations sections of the TDS and Array websites. With me today and offering prepared comments are, on behalf of TDS, Walter Carlson, President and CEO, Vicki Villacrez, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, On behalf of TDS Telecom, Ken Dixon, President and CEO of TDS Telecom, Chris Bothfeld, Vice President of Financial Analysis and Strategic Planning of TDS, and on behalf of Array Digital Infrastructure, Anthony Carlson, President and CEO of Array. This call is being simultaneously webcast on the TDS and Array investor relations websites. Please see the websites for the slides referenced on this call including non-GAAP reconciliations. TDS and Array filed their SEC Forms 8K, including the press releases 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. I will now turn the call over to TDS President and CEO, Walter Carlson. Walter?

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Today, we are pleased to share the first quarter results for TDS and arrayed digital infrastructure. But before doing so, I want to take a moment to address in my capacity as CEO and chair of TDS, the proposal TDS submitted to the board of directors of array to acquire the remaining shares of array, not currently owned by TDS in an all stock transaction. As TDS continues its transformation, this proposal is the next step in executing our strategy. simplifying our corporate structure, and enhancing our ability to invest in targeted areas of growth. Array has successfully completed its transition into a tower-focused company with strong fundamentals, and we believe this transaction will position the combined company for long-term growth. By bringing Array fully under TDS's ownership, Array's stockholders would retain a significant interest in the tower business while gaining exposure to TDS's growing fiber business. Under the terms of the proposal, TDS would acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Array that TDS does not currently own by way of a merger. in which each array common share not owned by TDS would be exchanged for 0.86 of a TDS common share. This exchange ratio assumes that the previously announced spectrum license sales identified in our offer letter will have closed prior to the closing of the transaction contemplated by TDS's proposal and that the array board consistent with its treatment of net proceeds from prior spectrum sales, will have declared and paid dividends of $10.40 per share to Array stockholders prior to the closing. At $10.40 per share, Array would distribute approximately $900 million in net proceeds. This exchange ratio reflects an at-market offer based, subject to the assumptions just described, on yesterday's closing prices for TDS and DeRay. The transaction is expected to qualify as a tax-free reorganization for US federal income tax purposes. TDS expects the transaction to eliminate duplicative corporate costs, streamline corporate governance, increase share liquidity, and strengthen the capital structure of the enterprise, providing greater flexibility to pursue strategic investments across all our businesses, including towers and fiber. As noted in this morning's press release, the proposal is subject to review and recommendation by a special committee of Array's disinterested directors and the approval of the majority of the disinterested shareholders of Array based on votes cast. It would also require approval of TDS shareholders and the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. TDS does not intend to sell or otherwise transfer its interest in Array and will not entertain any third party offers for Array or its assets in lieu of this proposal. TDS continues to support Array's previously disclosed intention to opportunistically monetize its remaining unsold wireless spectrum. TDS looks forward to working constructively with the Array Board's special committee as they evaluate this proposal. Beyond what I just disclosed and the information included in our press release and proposal letter to Array, we are not going to comment further on or take questions regarding the offer on today's call. With that, let's turn to slide three. The enterprise is making good progress on its 2026 priorities. Our focus remains on advancing our strategy with financial and operational discipline. As I just mentioned, The proposal announced this morning will aid in strengthening TDS's corporate and capital structure, and we look forward to working with Array's special committee. Both business units continue to make progress toward their operational goals. TDS Telecom continued to add fiber addresses and customers in the quarter. Array is off to a strong start in 2026 and is making good progress growing tower tenancy. In the arena of Spectrum, Array closed on a small transaction with T-Mobile earlier this week and expects the remaining announced T-Mobile and Verizon Spectrum sales to close in the second or third quarter, subject to regulatory approval and other customary conditions. I am pleased with the progress each business unit is making and with the efforts we have underway to strengthen our culture as we go through this period of transformation. I would like to personally thank every associate across the enterprise for their continued commitment and contribution. And I will now turn the call over to Vicki.

Thank you Walter and good morning everyone. Slide 4 updates you on our capital allocation priorities. TDS Telecom continues to make nice progress toward achieving its long-term objective of reaching 2.1 million marketable fiber service addresses, delivering 40,000 in the quarter. Ken and Chris will discuss more about the opportunities and momentum we are seeing in that space in a moment. We continue to evaluate M&A opportunities in a financially disciplined, accretive, business case driven fashion. In mid April, we announced an agreement to acquire Granite State Communications. As I've communicated in the past, we are primarily focused on small to medium sized opportunities that are already fibered up or have an accretive economic path to all fiber and support our clustering strategy. Granite is just like that, fully fibered with over 11,000 service addresses that are adjacent to several of our existing markets in New Hampshire. We are excited to welcome these associates and customers into the TDS family and expect the transaction to close in the third quarter, subject to regulatory approval. Finally, in the area of shareholder return in the form of TDS share buybacks, we were not in the market during the quarter. At the end of the first quarter, we had a $520 million authorization for TDS share buybacks available, and we remain committed to executing on that program. Across all three priorities, the company intends to continue to be disciplined, balancing the needs of the business, evaluating future returns along with market and other conditions as we move forward. Thank you. And now I'll turn the call over to Ken Dixon to discuss TDS's fiber business.

Thank you, Vicki. And good morning, everyone. At TDS Telecom, 2026 is focused on executing our fiber growth plan. Building fiber addresses, driving fiber sales, and continuing to transform our operations. This quarter, we made progress across all three priorities as we scale our fiber network and advance our long-term strategy. As shown on slide six, our fiber builds are off to a good start. We delivered 40,000 marketable fiber service addresses in the first quarter. This is the highest first quarter total in our company's history, and nearly three times our delivery in the first quarter of 2025. This performance reflects both effective execution and increased construction capacity, including our highest ever internal and external construction crew counts. While we are pleased with the record construction number, we still have more work to do. We continue to invest in our internal construction teams by adding headcount, upgrading tools and equipment to support increased build capacity, giving us a strategic advantage. We believe these investments provide greater control over our execution and improve long-term efficiency. In addition, we have a robust pipeline of addresses currently under construction, positioning us very well for the spring and summer build season. This pipeline includes a mix of addresses from our fiber expansion into new areas, as well as fiber upgrades in our existing markets through our fiber deeper program and the federal EA camp program. As a reminder, the EACAM program provides federal support that enables us to bring fiber to approximately 300,000 service addresses, including those along the route, where it would otherwise not be economical, helping to drive copper out of our network. Looking at sales, we ended the quarter with approximately 11,000 fiber net adds, up 32% year over year. As we continue to scale our fiber footprint, we remain focused on converting new service addresses into customers and improving the overall customer experience. During the quarter, we strengthen leadership in key sales and customer experience roles to support these priorities. Our operational transformation is centered on efficiency, improving the customer experience, and simplification. We continue to make progress modernizing our systems and remain on track with our transformation roadmap. I'm happy to announce that we have now completed the billing conversion in our cable markets and have also introduced a new field force platform to support our technicians. These updates simplify our back office processes and provide an improved customer experience. We are now able to launch multi-gig speeds in our entire cable footprint. These areas are some of the best markets in the country, and we continue to see great opportunity here. So expect more to come. Finally, as Vicki noted, in mid-April, we signed an agreement to acquire a fiber-based telecommunications business in New Hampshire. The transaction adds over 11,000 fiber addresses that are contiguous with existing TDS markets and supports our clustering strategy along with approximately 30 associates who will join the TDS team. We are excited about the opportunity to continue to deliver excellent service in this area and look forward to closing this transaction in the third quarter, subject to regulatory approval. Tony Semancik- Turning to slide seven our long term goals reflect our continued focus on executing our growth strategy that deliver scale speed and long term value. Tony Semancik- With the delivery of 40,000 fiber addresses in the quarter, we now serve approximately 1.1 million fiber service addresses representing 58% of our total footprint. and with 79% of addresses capable of gig speeds. While there is more work ahead, the progress we are making reinforces our confidence in the path forward as we continue transforming into a fiber-centric company. I'll now turn it over to Chris to walk through our first quarter results.

Turning to slide eight, the chart on the left shows our quarterly fiber service address delivery over the past five quarters. As Ken highlighted, our first quarter fiber address delivery nearly tripled year over year. This significant increase reflects the additional construction capacity we introduced last year and are continuing to scale this year. Our execution in the first quarter demonstrates the effectiveness of the strategy and the momentum we are building as we advance toward our long-term goals. The chart on the right illustrates the continued expansion of our fiber footprint. Over the past three years, we have nearly doubled the number of fiber service addresses across our markets, demonstrating steady and meaningful progress. On slide nine residential fiber net ads were approximately 11,000 in the first quarter a 32% increase compared to prior year driven by continued footprint expansion and ongoing copper to fiber conversions. residential fiber connections have also nearly doubled over the past three years, and we expect continued growth as we expand our fiber footprint. Turning to slide 10 the chart on the left depicts our residential revenue per connection, which increase 1% year over year this growth reflects annual price increases offset by ongoing industry wide declines in video attachment rates. The chart on the right is new this quarter and breaks down total residential revenue between copper cable and fiber. You'll see our fiber revenue is up 13% versus prior year an uplift of approximately 11 million which helps offset the legacy revenue stream pressures we are experiencing. In cable revenues are down roughly 10% versus the first quarter of 2025 as Ken highlighted, we are increasing investment in our cable markets to stem these declines. Overall, total residential revenue declined 5 million compared to prior year. Approximately 3 million of this decline is attributable to divestitures of markets that were predominantly copper-based. We remain hyper-focused on driving fiber revenue at a pace that's expected to more than offset legacy declines. Slide 11 summarizes our financial performance. Total operating revenues declined 3% in the quarter, or 1%, excluding the impact of divestitures. This reflects continued legacy revenue stream pressures, partially offset by growth in fiber connections and modest improvement in revenue per connection. Cash expenses decreased 3%, driven primarily by benefits from our transformation initiatives, including lower costs for billing circuits and facilities. Adjusted EBITDA declined 3% in the quarter, driven largely by the revenue losses from divestitures. Capital expenditures totaled $126 million in the quarter, reflecting higher construction activity, a robust funnel of addresses under construction, and accelerated investments in our internal construction crews and equipment. Slide 12 reflects our guidance for 2026, which remains unchanged. We are projecting total telecom revenues of 1.015 billion to 1.055 billion. Current headwinds in our copper and cable markets are guiding us toward the lower half of this range. Adjusted EBITDA guidance remains between 310 million and 350 million as we continue our transformation efforts. capital expenditures for the year are projected to be between 550 million and 600 million to support our goal of delivering between 200,000 and 250,000 new fiber service addresses. Before turning over the call, I want to thank the entire TDS team for their continued execution and focus. Their efforts across fiber delivery, customer growth, and operational transformation are critical to the progress we're making toward achieving our long-term objectives. I'll now turn the call over to Anthony.

Thanks Chris and good morning. 2026 has got off to a busy but great start. The organization is laser focused on fully optimizing our tower operations and monetizing our spectrum. In the first quarter, we saw cash site rental revenue up 64% over Q1 of last year. We also demonstrated sequential tower tenancy growth when adjusted for DISH. And we continue to move our announced spectrum transactions forward. Before I get to the details of the quarter, I want to acknowledge the Array Board's receipt of TDS's proposal to acquire the remaining public shares of Array. Our board has formed a special committee of independent directors who have retained independent advisors to carefully evaluate the proposal and make a recommendation as to what is in the best interest of Array's shareholders. Array will be providing updates as appropriate, but we won't be commenting further or taking questions regarding this proposal today. Moving along to slide 16, I want to provide an update regarding DISH. As previously disclosed, we received a letter from DISH Wireless in September 2025 in which DISH asserted that unforeseeable FCC actions impacted its master lease agreement with Array, and as a result, DISH believes it is relieved of its obligations under the MLA. Since early December, DISH has generally failed to make the required payments and is therefore in breach of its obligations. Array continues to take actions it deems necessary to protect its rights under the MLA. Given the ongoing non-payments, in the first quarter, Array ceased recognizing dish revenue and all unpaid 2025 balances have now been fully reserved. Accordingly, our tenancy ratio no longer includes DISH collocations. When normalizing for this impact, we continue to see sequential growth in our tenancy ratio as depicted on the right, from 0.95 in Q4 2025 up to 0.96 in Q1 2026. Importantly, in Q1, we grew revenue and secured healthy collocation application volumes while supporting T-Mobile in its integration. As noted on slide 17, cash site rental revenue in Q1 increased 55% year-over-year from all customers, and when normalized for DISH impact, this increase was 64%. When layering in the T-Mobile entrance site revenue, the increase was 86% year-over-year, or 98% when normalized for DISH. Our application volume remains robust, and coupled with our existing pipeline will drive additional revenue growth in 2026 and beyond. Turning to slide 18, T-Mobile has until January 2028 to finalize its 2015 committed sites under the new MLA. We continue to anticipate 800-1800 tenantless towers after the integration is completed and all interim sites are terminated. Our ground lease optimization work remained a priority in Q1, and we are making progress on reducing the cash burden of these negative cash flow assets. As noted previously, this will be a multi-year effort focused on cost avoidance, additional lease up, evaluating long-term command, and decommissioning in situations where it makes sense, a process we have already begun on a subset of sites with no path to economic viability. This approach allows us to thoughtfully assess all potential outcomes for the tenantless tower portfolio. As shown on slide 19 and presented in prior quarters, we have reached agreements to monetize roughly 70% of our spectrum holdings. As a reminder, the sale of Spectrum to AT&T closed on January 13th, 2026, with the array board declaring a $10.25 per share dividend that was paid on February 2nd. In Q1, the FCC approved the sale of certain 700 MHz licenses to T-Mobile, and that transaction closed earlier this week. Additionally, the FCC approved the sale of the 600 MHz and AWS licenses to T-Mobile, and pending closing conditions, we expect that sale to close in Q2. We continue to anticipate that the transaction with Verizon will close in Q2 or Q3 of this year, subject to regulatory approval and normal closing conditions. The remaining transactions with T-Mobile are expected to close by the end of 2026, once again dependent on regulatory approval and closing conditions. We continue to pursue opportunistic monetization of our remaining spectrum, primarily C-band. We view our C-band spectrum as a highly compelling 5G asset with a mature ecosystem ready for carrier deployment, and with no near-term build-out requirements, we have ample time to realize its value. Slide 20 summarizes the results of our partnership or non-controlling investment interests. As discussed last quarter, investment income and distributions for full year 2025 were impacted by several one-time factors, including the impact of the Iowa partnership selling their wireless operations to T-Mobile and distributions received from Verizon related to their transaction with Vertical Bridge. For Q1, equity income was elevated due to prior period adjustments recorded by the managers of certain investee entities. Regarding cash distributions, certain entities distribute cash only twice per year, resulting in an uneven distribution pattern throughout the year. Slide 22 summarizes Array's financial results. Year over year, we continue to see the impact of the T-Mobile MLA driving revenue growth. As noted last quarter, there was a prospective change in classification of property taxes and insurance from SG&A to cost of operations. As such, that is driving roughly half of the year-over-year increase in cost of operations. SG&A expenses continue to include costs to support the wind down of legacy wireless operations, but sequential quarter over quarter results are declining as planned. We expect these wind down expenses to persist throughout 2026, but with additional reductions over future periods. On slide 23, our guidance across all metrics, total operating revenue, adjusted EBITDA and OIDDA, and capital expenditures is unchanged. As a reminder, our guidance ranges are wider than industry norm due to uncertainty with the T-Mobile MLA and the timing of interim site terminations. In closing, I want to again thank Arrays Associates for their continued passion and dedication to driving operational efficiencies and growth as we continue to move through our first year as a standalone tower company. I will now turn the call back to Walter.

Thank you, Anthony. As I noted in my opening remarks, TDS continues to make solid progress advancing our strategic priorities. Our first quarter execution, combined with the momentum we are seeing across the business, positions us well as we move forward into the year. I'd like to again thank all of the outstanding associates across the TDS enterprise for their continued dedication and hard work in serving our customers and supporting the advancement of our business. Operator, please now open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand now. If you have dialed into today's call, please press star 9 to raise your hand and star 6 to unmute when prompted. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Rick Prentice with Raymond James and Associates. Rick, your line is now open.

Good morning, everybody.

Morning.

Morning. Hey, man, you continue to be very busy. A couple of questions. On the fiber side, the TDS telecom side, have you looked at, is there an ability to put fiber into a REIT structure or any desire at some point to put fiber into a REIT-like structure to be more tax efficient?

Yeah, Rick, this is Vicki. I'll take that one. You know, we've looked at a number of options, structural options, but given where we're at today, they're just not optimal. And I'm not going to speculate going forward what we may or may not do in the future. But, you know, as I think about funding Fiverr and our program that we have this year, you know, we're in a really good position. We've got a strong balance sheet. and we are focused on funding Fiverr with our cash.

Okay. Second question, I think this is a legit one. Can you update us as far as the number of shares or percent ownership TDS has of Array Digital, just so we can understand exactly how many of the disinterested might be out there?

Well, let me take that. I think the press releases that have been issued speak to that, Rick. I think 81.9% is the right rough number. And we can get back to you with precise numbers offline.

Okay, that's great. We had some people, investors falling in saying there were some Bloomberg numbers out there saying like 70%. We knew it was 80 something. So appreciate that. And then the last question for me, a little more strategic looking. I know you guys have been looking at maybe providing more resources reporting metrics on the fiber business. Any update to what you think you could provide or help people understand what's happening with the fiber business as far as any cohort analysis or any trend lines to help us kind of look at the value of that business as it's going through a capital spending cycle, some EBITDA pressure as you launch new markets. Just trying to think through, is there a burn rate or what can you give us to help understand the traction you're gaining and the future look of what the fiber business might be?

Yeah, OK, so lots of questions there, Rick. We'll try to piece part those. Let me just start out with the disclosures first. We added this quarter, we added disclosures for our residential revenues, and we broke them out by technology. So you'll see the reporting by fiber, cable, and copper. And we think this is something that will be helpful to investors going forward. And furthermore, we've included metrics in our trending schedules on our investor relations website. So I'll point you to there. But I will... Ken, do you want to jump in on the rest of Rick's questions?

Yeah, I think the metrics that I think are most important as we're going to a fiber-centric business is how well are we delivering marketable addresses from a build plan perspective? And then what are our fiber net sales in terms of as we're selling into that new open for sale and then also increasing our overall sales? penetration into those new cohorts. Those are the two big things that are build velocity and also our overall fiber net performance.

Great. And I would assume as you get fiber out there, it becomes a significant maintenance capital or ongoing capital once you're done with the build, drops to pretty low levels.

Yeah, we definitely see the cash cost per customer improvements on everything from just the trouble tickets, copper versus fiber. The call-in rate is lower. So we love the fiber business and we think the faster we migrate away from copper and bring it to fiber, we'll continue to see improvements in the bottom line. Great. That's helpful.

Everyone have a great Mother's Day weekend. Thanks.

Thank you.

Same to you.

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Sebastiano Petty from JP Morgan. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thank you for taking the question. I guess... Stick it with TDS Telecom. And Ken, for a second here, you hired some sales folks and customer experience folks to kind of help support your priorities. Maybe just help us think about, you know, I think you had touched on this on the last call, but where you are maybe from a process improvement or trying to maybe instill some of your, you know, decades of experience running fiber businesses here. you know, into TDS Telecom? I guess, you know, what inning are we in, in terms of, you know, priorities? You know, what's some of the near-term low-hanging fruit that you still think, you know, maybe you can achieve to improve process performance, improvement, and construction build? As, you know, just double-clicking on the investment idea. And then it's interesting, you talked about, Ken... you know, investing in the cable footprint, which I think is, you know, seems, you know, seems like something we haven't talked about in a bit here. Is that strategic? Is that core? How do you think about, you know, maybe the blocking and tackling improvements needed for the cable KPIs to maybe to begin stabilizing, you know, just given the backdrop of what we hear from some of the larger cable guys out there, you know, pretty competitive, pretty intense, some repricing pressures. Just maybe a little bit of color around that would be great.

Thank you for the question. I would say we're in the early innings, very early innings, and I think we're starting to make what I would say very nice progress. And I continue to say to my team, I'm starting to see wind in our sails. But let me start off. with address delivery. I'm very happy with the team's 40,000 service address delivery, almost three times more than last year. So what was important to us is that we had to prove that we could keep our crews working all winter, and we accomplished that. And now we've started the spring and summer months with what I would consider record crew counts for the most important two quarters of the year where you had the most amount of daylight and the most amount of opportunity to build fiber. So I think we've done that. But speaking of crew counts, we're also at record numbers through the start of April. And what I can say to you, it's a combination of our internal crews, but also external crews. And we continue to see sequential month-over-month crew count improvements as we're now heading into the month of May. So going into the second quarter, I'm bullish on what we can accomplish with service addresses because we have the largest funnel of addresses that we've ever had in our company's history in terms of addresses that are under some form of address. So you asked me early innings, yes, but I like what we're starting to see, and I think we have good momentum. You are correct. I brought in some folks to run customer experience and sales, and they're off to a wonderful start. I'll give you some updates. We continue to see the opportunity as fast as we can deliver a new address. How quickly can we try and penetrate that new address and get a fiber customer in there? So we're very happy with our pre-sales velocity. We typically go in 60 days before an address becomes marketable. And we are seeing excellent results, again, in that low 20% range. So very happy with that. We have put a tremendous amount of sales capabilities into our door-to-door channel. We see that as a huge opportunity. We have been very, very aggressive in terms of bringing new vendors in. We added several last year in the fourth quarter, but we also have more door-to-door vendors who have been part of our April and May distribution plan, and we have several others in our funnel. We believe we have to be in the markets and we have to use door-to-door to continue to drive our sales agenda. We've also expanded significantly our dot-com business. We have seen sales candidly improve significantly in a channel that's open 365 days a year and candidly 24 hours a day. So we will continue to put more resources in that. But yet we're in the early innings because we still have, in our opinion, we're now developing our multi-dwelling unit sales capabilities. And I think that there's a tremendous opportunity there. But again, early innings, but we're starting to see nice progress. The 11,000 Fibernet ads. Again, up 32% year over year, a very good start to the year, but we have momentum. The last question you asked was in reference to our cable business. And I wanna tell you, I love our cable markets. I think we're in some of the best markets in the country. And last year we made a decision that we were going to convert those markets first onto our new billing system and get them on a single stack across the whole company. We also last year made a significant investment in terms of enabling a new field service tool with our technicians to improve our overall service delivery. And at the end of the day, we think we're just getting started in terms of what we can do in those markets. So a lot going on, but I like what I'm seeing. And I will tell you that we've got a lot more work to do, but we are definitely moving in the right direction.

And then I guess maybe for Vicky and maybe, or you can, but the deal for Granite, is this kind of like what we should anticipate as you guys look for bolt-ons? It's like some of these maybe, you know, smaller systems that are adjacent versus like, you know, big chunky deals out there. And then just to clarify that. And then I guess, yeah, One question, not related to the deal, but just take a shot on this one. But does the combined entity, does that make it easier to reach the tower business over time versus the current structure? Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for the two questions. I'll take the last one first. Again, we're not going to comment on any impacts or implications of the offer on the table. But again, we just can't speculate what the future will look like at this point. And on the second one, this acquisition is consistent with our capital allocation priorities, three-pronged priorities, building fiber and M&A acquisitions in the space of fiber. And this is perfectly aligned with that. It's a tuck-in. It's accretive. It's adjacent to our current markets in New Hampshire. It's 100% fibered up. We're really excited to bring this company on board and welcome all of the associates with Granite State Communications. And it brings 11,000 fiber service addresses to our portfolio.

Understood. Thank you, Vicki.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand. If you have dialed into the call, please press star nine to raise your hand and star six to unmute. Your next question comes from the line of a follow-up from Sebastiano Petty from JP Morgan. Your line is open again.

Hi, thank you. For Chris, question, I guess, just about the cost transformation efforts. Remind us about that. Is that 100 million run rate by 2028? Is that still the right kind of figure to kind of think about? And is there... Are we at a point now where the cost savings maybe are falling to the bottom line here in 2026? Or... related to my questions for Ken, is there some kind of reinvestment that's kind of going back in the business? Just to kind of contextualize, I guess, the cost program. Thank you.

Yeah, hi, Sebastiano. Yes, we remain on track to hit 100 million of run rate savings by year end 2028. And as you heard in my remarks, we are starting to see some of those benefits this year. The bigger benefits you'll see in 27 and 28, but we absolutely are starting to see some of those benefits drop to the bottom line. As I've said before, we don't expect that entire 100 million to fall to the bottom line because some of that is helping offset inflationary cost increases increases as we continue to expand our fiber footprint and our customer base and we do plan to reinvest some of those savings but we are seeing some nice benefits and are still optimistic about the full potential of this program thank you and then i guess one for anthony any anthony the you know upcoming auction here for the aws3 reauction and then um you know upper c band coming down the pipe next year i think chairman carr was out this week um

or maybe the last couple of days even, just suggesting that there's more auctions or more stuff could be coming. Obviously, they have the 800 megahertz mandate by the one big, beautiful bill. But any change in your conversations that you're having, perhaps regarding monetization of the remaining CBAND and CBRS, I mean, to the extent that you can comment, that would be great. Thank you again, guys.

Thanks for the question. I will start off by saying, as I've said many times, that we continue to believe that the C-band spectrum we hold is excellent and valuable spectrum beachfront property available today with an ecosystem to support it. Additionally, we are not going to be a for-seller of that in these circumstances. We believe the carrying costs are modest. While we are open to a deal, At a fair value, we do not feel that we are in a position where it's burning a hole in our pocket. So we don't have any further updates to give on any developments on the sale of our CDAM spectrum at this time. But that said, we continue to be very optimistic about realizing fair value for it and the appropriate time.

Thank you. Your next question is from Rick Prentice with Raymond James and Associates. Rick, your line is open.

Thanks. We'll do some tag team today. Question. Just want to make sure on the service addresses, Ken, you obviously point out that the funnel is important, top metric you're looking at. Is the build plan still this year targeting 200,000 to 250,000 service addresses? And what would cause you to miss it versus hit it or beat it?

Yes, that's still the target. And again, I have a very good degree of confidence based on the crew counts that we have that started the second quarter, the funnel and pipeline of addresses that are at a new record in terms of some form of construction. So I'm very confident that we're going to deliver in that target you referenced.

And Anthony, obviously getting back from ConnectX, busy conference down there. One of the themes was the HRRs, high rent relocation kind of efforts some of the carriers are looking at. I assume you guys don't probably have a whole lot of high rent locations given the low level of Tennessee, but what are you seeing out there on that? Do you have an appetite to do some new builds? What's the ability or capital commitment that you might put to work there?

Yeah, so to be very clear, as we've stated multiple times, we are laser focused on optimizing the value of the assets we have in hand, right? And we have a significant upside that we believe we can achieve on the towers that are currently in our portfolio. That's not to say that we're not going to be open to opportunities that appear. But what I will say is from What I've heard anecdotally and some of the numbers that I've seen, the current going rates for high rent relocations for us to participate in new builds for high rent relocations, we haven't seen numbers that are in constant with what we think we can get from optimizing our current portfolio. And in terms of high rent relocation on our side, the only thing that I will say, a little nugget for you guys, is that we had only one on total tenant churn of the entire first quarter. So that I think speaks to strength of our portfolio in terms of its relative susceptibility to high rent relocation.

It could be count, turn on one hand and one finger is even better. One for Walter, the obligatory satellite question. As you think about your assets, both broadband with fiber and towers supporting the wireless world, how are you thinking about the somewhat existential threat of satellite coming into terrestrial?

That's an excellent question, Rick. And it's a technology that has gotten substantial additional focus, I'd say, over the last 18 months and substantial additional investment over the last 12 months. And I think satellites will have a substantial influence going forward on the communications industry. That being said, we feel very strongly about the continued benefit of a terrestrial tower portfolio, and we feel very strongly about the superior capabilities of fiber networks delivering specific communication into individuals' homes and businesses without interruption, without fear of being impacted by weather. But we are paying attention, and we feel very good about the thrust of both of our businesses, and we're watching. Great. Thanks.

Your next question comes from the line of Sergey Luzhevsky with Gamco Investors Incorporated. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Hi, guys.

Good morning. Good morning, Sergey.

Good morning. First question on TDS Telecom side. Last quarter, you obviously expanded the fiber bill target by 300,000 edge outpassings and I believe 50 adjacent markets to your current expansion footprint. How does the demographics and the return profiles of this markets compared to your older cohorts and also amongst this new cohort of markets, I guess, what types of markets are you prioritizing for a build sooner rather than later?

Yes. Thank you for the question. We obviously are looking at markets that we've already planted a flag where we have established our brand and we've deployed fiber. So we already have technicians. We already have sales capacity. And we've looked at the demographics and the overall market and the competitive intensity. and studied very closely what our build cost ultimately would be and then what our return rates would be. And then we prioritize those markets. That's what we're calling the edge-out opportunity. And we think those are excellent markets in terms of checking all the boxes that I just referenced. And the key is we were first to the original market with fiber, and now it's just a natural extension. And we think that we've prioritized the right markets first with the highest opportunities and also the highest returns. So we like the markets that we've selected.

And in terms of cable, maybe following up on the previous questions, could you talk a little bit about what you like the most about your cable footprint, maybe comment on the competitive environment? And in terms of investments that you're planning to make, if you could just maybe at a high level highlight where the dollars are going to go to and how quickly do you expect those investments to pay off?

Well, I would say from an investment perspective, our focus now is going to a multi-gig environment in our cable business. And I think that's the opportunity for 2026. In terms of the markets that we're operating in, we think that there's very, what I'd say is they're highly attractive markets. Some of the cable businesses are in some of the markets that have some of the highest housing growth right now in the United States. So that's why we look at these markets and we think there's definitely an opportunity going forward.

Thank you. And the question on the array side, Obviously, the wireless partnerships produce nice cash flow for you every year. And you are focused on, as you said, optimizing your tower business and monetizing spectrum. Any updated thoughts on partnerships? Obviously, if you look at some of the recent transactions, I think the last transaction of size, was Verizon acquiring minority stakes in some partnerships with consolidated at about 11 and a half times cash distributions. So this multiple obviously your stakes could be worth a significant amount. So kind of any updated thoughts on monetizing those stakes and what could potentially move you closer to taking that step?

Yeah, so thanks for the question. As we've said before, we like the cash flows from these assets. We think that, and moreover, there are some challenges with transactions for us, similar to the ones that you mentioned right there we have them in a very low tax basis um you know candidly i think that if you were to look at those the performance of those investments over the very long term and do a dcf on those um you would you know it would be challenging to get a multiple that was consummate what the full value of that and that said you know we're we as we've said previously um we are open to you know, offers that are, that would deliver full value on that, but they would have to deliver full value net of taxes. And we'd like those cash flows. So we're not in any hurry to sell.

Yeah. Um, and in terms of, uh, last question also on a race side, uh, obviously EBITDA is expected to be somewhat depressed in the medium term, uh, pressured by transition wind down costs, some other costs, but, uh, uh, if you can talk a little bit about kind of your targets maybe more qualitatively than quantitatively in terms of taking costs out of the business and improving margins in 2026 and 2027 and also longer term positive mobile transition what kind of margins do you believe are realistic for array

so so we do think there is significant opportunity to improve arrays margins you know particularly we focus on the tower cash flow side because you know arrays you know we believe that you know we are on the trend of some of those legacy costs coming out of the business and the array arrays direct team is also quite lean right so we focus most of our efforts on the tower cash flow side and there are a couple of areas where we believe we have a significant opportunity to improve um the first as we've said in previous forum is our land ownership um land is our largest cost for our tower business. And we also have a much lower rate of land ownership than many of the large public players in the market. So we think there's a significant opportunity and value to be realized by, where appropriate, purchasing more of the land interests under our towers. Second, we think we are a new tower company. We believe that we have opportunities as we transitioned from a maintenance posture that was more in line with operating a full-fledged wireless company to a tower company to improve our margins on that dimension. So those are the two big opportunities that we see to improve our towering national margin outside. In addition, of course, to expanding margins by just increasing co-locations, which is something we work very hard to do every day.

Yeah, great. Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to John Toomey for closing remarks.

Thank you again for joining us today. As always, please reach out to us if you have any questions. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Thank you.

And this concludes today's call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.