Jessica Fischer: Yeah. So, on the numbers side, Craig, we have a little over 5 million households that received the ACP benefit, all for wireline Internet. Very few of those customers used ACP to upgrade to higher speeds or take more PSUs when they began receiving the benefit. But many do have our flagship speed or higher or do take other services from us. And I guess, the funding will continue through April. We’ll try to keep people informed as we move through the process. But from our perspective, there’s not a lot of visibility at this point as to anything that might happen when the program ends.
Chris Winfrey: In the end, we’re still focused on trying to make sure that ACP is refunded, and I still think there’s a strong possibility that could be the case.
Jessica Fischer: Yes. Do you want to talk to the fixed wireless lower net add guidance?
Chris Winfrey: Sure. So, we noted the same thing that you saw, Craig. I think the bigger point there is that there is a rational approach to the marketplace and the utilization of Spectrum. And I believe a recognition that there’s a limited amount of capacity, the bandwidth needs are increasing. I think that was the bigger takeaway from us. It’s very difficult for us to sit back and take a look at the geographic footprint of fixed wireless access because it almost changes by the day in terms of sector availability on radius in terms of capacity and where they’re actively marketing and where they’re not. And then, you have the additional rural footprint versus urban and suburban, and what would be off-footprint for us versus on-footprint and the split between residential and commercial, which makes it pretty difficult to mathematically cascade that into an impact for us.
But I thought it was rational what we said, and I thought it made a lot of sense, and I think it’s consistent with what we’ve always thought. Frankly, the piece that’s been more difficult is just the timing in terms of where that capacity is reached, and it’s been a little bit harder to predict than we would like. But I took that as the same way that you did that it should have some positive impact on our existing footprint.
Craig Moffett: Thank you.
Stefan Anninger: Thanks, Craig. Luke, we’ll take our next question, pleas.
Operator: Our next question will come from the line of Benjamin Swinburne with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Benjamin Swinburne: Good morning. Chris, question for you on CapEx, and then I want to ask Jessica about sort of EBITDA growth. Chris, you’ve been around the cable industry for a long time. So, I know you are aware that kind of investment priorities can change over time. And I’m just curious why you felt it made sense to sort of guide out to 2027, just because you’re in a competitive dynamic industry and want to evolve your strategy over time. And it did seem like you guys have — and you can disagree, but it seems like you’ve prioritized the line extensions over getting network evolution done by ’25. So, I know we thought it might slip into ’26, but now it’s definitely slipping into ’26. Just wanted to understand your thought process there.
If that was tied to kind of equipment availability or just a strategic decision? And then, Jessica, there’s an expectation that ’24 is a good EBITDA growth year for Charter given the investments you’ve made in OpEx. I think you cited 3.5% growth in Q4 ex advertising. Anything you can tell us to help us think about financial performance for the business in ’24 would be appreciated. Thanks everyone.
Chris Winfrey: Sure. So, Ben, I think leading into the last earnings call, we had been listening to shareholder feedback about the difficulty people were having of projecting long-term CapEx trends given the significant capital investment opportunities that we have. And you’re right, typically, we would never provide a multiyear outlook and we’ve — about the only guidance that we’ve historically provided is in-year CapEx guidance. But these are unique opportunities that don’t come around very often. The opportunity to have subsidized rural build, having the largest expansion of broadband and cable footprint really since the 1980s is unique and it’s generational. And I think we felt that investors needed to see, A, the size and magnitude of what we were already committed to, and B, to have a very articulated outline of the returns of those investments, which Jessica has provided.
We’ve been providing that, all that information is essentially what we provided over the past two years, but to do it in a single spot so people could wrap their heads around both the quantum that exist, the investment returns that are attached to that investment and that it doesn’t go on into perpetuity, and that there is a real nice setup for what this is all about, which is free cash flow growth. And so, while we typically like to keep our cards close to our chest to preserve both flexibility and to maintain our competitive posture, I felt there was a trade-off here to make sure that our shareholders were with us and that people understood the value of the returns to the investment that we’re making. And so, there’s a balance here between, on one hand, having the flexibility to always make the right decisions to generate long-term free cash flow, and making sure that we’re responsive to shareholder feedback along the way and that we can demonstrate the long-term value, so people take comfort with that.
