Operator: Our next question comes from David Barden of Bank of America.
Matthew Griffiths: It’s Matt sitting in for Dave. First of all, I just wanted to clarify on the — it’s great that you’re running ahead of pace on the synergy utilization. In relation to when you set guidance, was it contemplated at that time that you would be a year ahead on realizing the synergies? Or should we be expecting that as you work through those items that Glenn just kind of laid out, that would be kind of incremental to what you were contemplating when guidance was provided? And then just secondly, on a different topic, on the fixed wireless access, I totally understand you don’t want to give quarterly updates on the new launch and how it’s going. But I was curious if you’d be willing or able to kind of quantify how large an opportunity you think it actually is.
Other operators look at it as excess capacity, and they have a kind of a clear line of sight as to what that capacity is and how many subscribers to fill it up. So if there’s any color that you could provide along those lines, it would be helpful.
Glenn Brandt: Thank you, Matt. On your first question in terms of running ahead of the original pace, I’ve been signaling through Q3 and Q4 last year that we’re very happy with the accelerated pace. And I’m not surprised that at year-end, we have met that $1 billion target. That was a critical target for us. And we were focused on meeting that sooner rather than later. So the quick answer to your question is not a surprise to us and would have been factored in as we were rolling out our guidance and which is why we’ve reaffirmed guidance again this — with this release for the year. So that answers that question.
Anthony Staffieri: On the second part, Matt, in terms of fixed wireless access and the market we see for that, we’re going to let the customers decide in terms of what works best for them depending on their particular use case. As we look to the potential demand for that, we’re comfortable we have the capacity for it. Particularly, as we approach the — get into the back half of the year and launch network slicing, that’s going to allow us to have dedicated lanes for fixed wireless access users so it doesn’t congest our mobile smartphone users or other enterprise applications. And so we’re comfortable we have the capacity to meet demand, depending on the customers that choose that. But as well, we’ll continue to focus on the ability to sell our wireline product but also wholesale wireline in those territories.
So we just think about it as we can now address 100% of homes passed, and we have 3 technologies to get there: our online cable fiber network wholesaling, coax from other players and then fixed wireless access.
Operator: Our next question comes from Tim Casey of BMO.
Tim Casey: Tony, could you just talk a little bit about Cable? I’m just wondering if you could talk about some of the revenue erosion you’re seeing on the minus 3%. Is any of that due to pricing? And if you could unpack, is some of that just price discounting by Bell? Or is there also bundle credits that are going through as you — in your footprint, you offer more wireless-wireline bundles to retail customers? Just wondering if you could maybe shed some light. And then secondly, when you talked about the construction opportunities at West, is this related to what you used to talk about how Shaw had laid fiber to the street but not to the buildings? Is that what you’re talking about as sort of completing the last mile there?
Anthony Staffieri: Tim, I’ll start with the second part. The short answer is, yes, that’s a big component of it. And so — but there’s also a new construction that’s going on as well that is nearing completion. And so we’re aggressively chasing those in terms of penetration on a building-by-building basis. But absolutely, either bringing fiber up to the suites or from the curb to the buildings, that is definitely a strategy that we’ve been executing on. In terms of your — the first part of your question, the revenue erosion that we’re seeing in Cable, it’s really a few different things that are going on there. If you were to look at notwithstanding what I would describe as healthy competition in the Internet space, we continue to post positive ARPU growth in Internet.
And so — and that really speaks to our ability to continue to offer 1 gig speeds plus throughout our entire base. And the team has been actively working and doing a good job in executing the upsell of customers to that product. And so much like you see on the Wireless side, where we’ve had good base management in moving customers to higher speeds and tiers, you’re seeing the same thing happening on the Cable side as well. Offsetting that is, quite frankly, the cord-cutting you’re seeing on video. And so that is providing, what I would say, natural headwinds against the revenue line. But keep in mind, that comes at a much lower margin than the Internet upside we see. And so that’s why one of the factors, synergies are certainly one, but the mix shift of predominantly more Internet revenue vis-à-vis video revenue is providing support for our margin expansion in the Cable business.
And so while we’re focused on returning it to top line growth, the decline is predominantly coming from the video side declines.
Operator: Our next question comes from Stephanie Price of CIBC.
Stephanie Price: Free cash flow came in strong this quarter. Just curious if you could talk about the drivers and how we should think about the cadence of free cash flow through the year.
Glenn Brandt: Thanks, Stephanie. I think it came in stronger year-over-year. I think it’s — I would say it’s where we would expect it to be, given the guidance through the year. If you look at where our capital spend is, it’s — on an annualized basis, we’re not far off from the range we’ve given, maybe a little bit higher in the first quarter, which is usually a little bit slower for the winter months. We’ve had a good construction season here through the winter. And so that allowed us to lean in a little more. We also had the finishing up of the Rogers Centre, year two of the renovations. And so that was in the first quarter. I don’t read anything into the up or down on the free cash flow. I think you’ll see us continue a pace and hit our guidance.
