ECF is strictly a mobile subsidy program. It doesn’t impact the fixed business. So on the ACP for us, it’s mostly on the fixed side. On the ECF, this is a Department of Education subsidy that provided for students and schools to give out free modems to have data access. It was not used very much. It’s a very low ARPU and the subsidy came to an end. But what we did was every modem that got disconnected through this plan would be a disconnect. So we show that it’s a postpaid B2B disconnect on our mobile service. So that kind of like we started the whole net add numbers in mobile for the first quarter. And as we indicated, Andres, in the second quarter, you’ll see that distortion also happening again. It’s about 40,000 I think is how it distorts in the second quarter.
But it is like a modem service. It doesn’t have — it’s not a handset voice service. So that — hopefully, that helps. And maybe my colleague, Eduardo in Puerto Rico. Eduardo, would you like to add any more color?
Eduardo Diaz Corona: Thank you, Andres, for your question. I would just reiterate the fact that we have a low share of ACP customers, about – that is 100,000, as Balan said, mostly fixed. Over 95% of those have already opted in to continue with our services. And we’re working through actively the rest of the base to make sure that they continue with us. So I would say that we see that as a very low risk, although it is important to mention that there is at least 2 or 3 different actions being taken in Congress to sustain and maintain ACP in the future. And certainly, we’re following those very closely. But right now, we’re working under the assumption that the program ends at the end of May with a partial subsidy. And therefore, we believe that the customer base that we have will be – will continue with us in the future.
Operator: The next question comes from the line of Soomit Datta with New Street Research.
Soomit Datta: A couple of questions for me, please. Can I just go back quickly to the Puerto Rico slide, looking to the $45 million of monthly adjusted OIBDA, I think it’s Slide 13. Just trying to get a sense if we kind of add back those one-off integration costs, we don’t quite get to the $45 million. I think you mentioned there’s a bit of headcount as well coming out. Just curious, how much do you need to get revenues moving again to get towards the $45 million monthly OIBDA? And then again, if we — thinking into 2025, presumably, you would view that as a base and would be looking to move beyond that given you would expect to continue to, I assume, improve revenue momentum in Puerto Rico. So is that the right way to be thinking about 2025 OIBDA kind of that as a base, but pre will be building on some additional as well? Maybe I’ll leave that there. That’s the first question, please.
Balan Nair: I think it’s the right way to think, Soomit. Clearly, when you do the math on this, you’re already back into the hundreds. Just based on Chris’ slide, just on that, in the second quarter, we’re already in the hundreds on EBITDA, low-hundreds on that. So to get to $45 million, you’re really in the $130 million is kind of where the EBITDA should land for the quarter. And so two things need to happen in addition to this. One — and I’ll tell you what they are. The first one is it’s — we are planning a price increase as well. So that’s going to drop directly to the EBITDA line. Secondly, of course, the business will need to recover. We’ll need to start growing the top-line, especially in our mobile. As you can see, our fixed business continues to grow.
So the mobile business will grow and we’re already seeing green shoots. I think Chris kind of alluded to that. I’ll tell you, our April number without giving our second quarter, our April numbers are looking much better. In prepaid, we are already doing, I think one of our better quarters, better months since we acquired the business. So I think on the app. And the other thing that Chris mentioned that I don’t know has picked up very well is that we actually kind of paused a lot of our sales in the first quarter. All our team, everybody in the stores, call centers would just focus on migrating customers. And this migration is a little complicated because we have to like migrate people, not just physically to our network and our IT systems, but the handsets need to be upgraded to the latest versions of Android.
We had a whole bunch of questions in billings. And you know when you move billing systems, errors do happen. And we incented all our sales teams to spend most, if not all, the time on assisting customers and not selling. As a matter of fact, as part of our one-time cost in the first quarter, we paid all of our sales team 100% commission even though they weren’t selling, but just to help our customers in the migration. So when we get into the second half, Eduardo and his team have already put together some really good plans and some of the plans that they’ve already implemented, certainly in prepaid because that was the first migration that was completed is yielding already. So it’s a combination of cost take-out. It’s a combination of integration.
We’ve been done. It’s a combination of TSA checks being stopped. It’s price increases. It’s recovery in our mobile business. The path was very clear to us on how we get there.
Soomit Datta: Okay. That’s very clear. And then maybe a quick one for Chris, please, just on kind of refinancing. I guess, since you put out the mid-term guide, there’s been some kind of moves in yields, et cetera, in the market. Just curious, is anything — I know the mid-term guide is still in place. I just wondered has anything changed in terms of your perspectives on either timing or kind of financial implications of refinancing over the next couple of years?
Chris Noyes: Yes. Thanks for the question. No, I mean, rates backed up a little bit over the last maybe 2 months, but it looks like they’re recovering some. No real change in terms of our, I’d call it, our assumptions over the forecast period. We’re going to be opportunistic on refinancing the debt stack, which is 27 to 29. So we have still a number of years before we need to go into the market. I would think that at this point, as markets become more favorable and open, we most likely will be out with to start in Cable & Wireless on that debt stack over the next, I’d call it, 12 months. You’ll see us at some point in the market maybe several times. So we’re just waiting for the right opportunity. We have great momentum in Cable & Wireless at this time.
