Q2 2020 DISH Network Corp Earnings Call
Englewood Aug 8, 2020 (Thomson StreetEvents) -- Edited Transcript of DISH Network Corp earnings conference call or presentation Friday, August 7, 2020 at 4:00:00pm GMT
TEXT version of Transcript
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Corporate Participants
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* Charles W. Ergen
DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board
* Dave Mayo
DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Network Development
* Jason Kiser
DISH Network Corporation - IR Contact & Treasurer
* Michael S. Schwimmer
DISH Network Corporation - Executive VP & Group President of SLING TV
* Paul W. Orban
DISH Network Corporation - Executive VP & CFO
* Thomas A. Cullen
DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development
* Timothy A. Messner
DISH Network Corporation - Executive VP & General Counsel
* W. Erik Carlson
DISH Network Corporation - President & CEO
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Conference Call Participants
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* Bryan D. Kraft
Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division - Senior Analyst
* David William Barden
BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division - MD
* Douglas David Mitchelson
Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division - MD
* John Christopher Hodulik
UBS Investment Bank, Research Division - MD, Sector Head of the United States Communications Group and Telco & Pay TV Analyst
* Jonathan Chaplin
New Street Research LLP - US Team Head of Communications Services
* Philip A. Cusick
JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division - MD and Senior Analyst
* Richard Scott Greenfield
LightShed Partners - Partner and Media & Technology Analyst
* Walter Paul Piecyk
LightShed Partners - Partner & TMT Analyst
* Drew FitzGerald
* Scott Moritz
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Presentation
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Operator [1]
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Good day, and welcome to the DISH Network Corporation Q2 2020 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded.
At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jason Kiser. Please go ahead.
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Jason Kiser, DISH Network Corporation - IR Contact & Treasurer [2]
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Thanks, Jennifer. Thanks for joining us, everybody. I'm joined today by Charlie Ergen, our Chairman; Tom Cohen, EVP of Corporate Development; Erik Carlson, our CEO; Michael Schwimmer, our new President of Sling; Paul Orban, our CFO. And on the wireless side, we've got Stephen Bye, our Chief Commercial Officer; and for the first time, Dave Mayo, our EVP of Network Development. And finally, we've got Tim Messner, our General Counsel.
Erik and Paul have some prepared remarks, but before we do that, Tim will read the safe harbor disclosure. So I'll turn it over to Tim.
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Timothy A. Messner, DISH Network Corporation - Executive VP & General Counsel [3]
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Yes, I do. Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everyone. Statements we make during this call that are not statements of historical fact constitute forward-looking statements that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results and/or from our forecast. We assume no responsibility for updating forward-looking statements. For more information, please refer to the risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed in our SEC filings.
To start the process for FCC Auction 105, we filed an application to potentially participate as a bidder for those spectrum assets. Because of the FCC's anti-collusion rules, we're not able to discuss what, if any, spectrum resources remain can bid on, and we will not be answering any questions on that auction during today's call.
With that, I'd like to turn it over to our CEO, Erik Carlson.
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W. Erik Carlson, DISH Network Corporation - President & CEO [4]
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Thank you, Tim, and welcome, everyone, to the call. To our analysts, media and investor communities, I hope you're staying well during these tumultuous times. And I want to thank you for being with us today.
Before I share a few observations on the quarter, I'd like to take a moment to recognize the entire DISH team and thank each and every individual here for their dedication. I'm certainly proud of the job our team has done in responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
Now I'd like to highlight a few items across our business units. In wireless, we continue to make progress building the nation's first O-RAN compliant 5G network. And since the last call, we've named several key vendors, including Altiostar, OpenRAN, Mavenir, Fujitsu and VMware. Charlie and Tom are with us today and are available to talk progress on our wireless efforts.
Now with regard to the quarter, DISH TV performed well, with gross activations of 268,000. From quarter-to-quarter, we actually increased by 5,000 subscribers. The crisis has impacted customers' willingness to open direct mail, marketing and allowed for in home technicians into their homes.
And as a result, we controlled costs and reduced marketing expenditures and our gross new TV subscribers did decrease. Our DISH TV strategy has been anchored to acquiring and retaining long-term profitable customers. For the past 4 or 5 years, we've focused on a more rural and higher-credit subscriber base, and we remain committed to that path.
We saw DISH TV net subscriber loss of only 40,000. Our lower losses are primarily the result of the lower churn rate due to COVID-19, partially offset by lower gross new additions with the DISH TV subscriber base, and Paul can add more detail on this in a moment.
Turning to Sling. In the quarter, we lost approximately 56,000 subscribers and this is disappointing. The decrease in net Sling TV subscriber additions was primarily related to lower Sling TV subscriber activations, a bit of increased competition and delays and cancellations of sporting events as a result of COVID-19.
For both DISH and Sling, while the pace of activations has slowed, we did adjust our marketing and brought more value to customers at an important time by delivering more content and free previews with the help of our programming partners. And as always, we're focused on providing excellent and safe customer experience.
Throughout the pandemic, we've seen customers' usage of our products increase. We're pleased to see the additional engagements of the excellent Hopper experience, that, that platform delivers, including on-demand apps and DISH Anywhere capabilities. And that said, while news coverage was up, the loss of sports changed the viewing equation significantly. And the increased competitive environment was also aggressive, especially from the free and commercial-free streaming services that flooded the space with introductory offers and promotions.
With that said, we're going to continue to focus on acquiring and retaining profitable customers and delivering a great customer experience at both DISH TV and Sling TV as we know we have room to grow.
Now as it relates to wireless retail, we'll discuss results in greater detail on our third quarter call, but I want to touch base on a few key updates. First, this week, we announced a partnership with Tucows. We acquired Ting Mobile assets, including customer relationships and the brand and we're also engaged with Tucows on technology services. Next, I want to thank our integration team for their effort over the last several months. Our Boost team has hit the ground running in serving our new customers and welcoming the Boost employees to the DISH family.
Our approach to Boost reminds me of when we pivoted DISH TV were at focus 4 or 5 years ago. And as I mentioned earlier, we implemented a more disciplined strategy in acquiring and retaining profitable customers, and that's exactly what we began to do with Boost. Our profitability is determined in part by what we pay to access the network. As most of you know, right now, we're operating with an MVNO, much like a track phone. As we roll out our own network, we'll begin to benefit from owner economics, and that will drive profitability and allow us to be disruptive. In the meantime, we know we need to pivot the business. While we haven't yet had a full billing cycle, we're already beginning to focus on acquiring more profitable customers and providing a great customer experience.
In closing, I want to express my gratitude again to the entire DISH team. A lot of extra work has gone in taking care of our customers, taking care of each other and taking care of the communities that we serve. The efforts of the team has been commendable.
With that, I'm going to turn it over to Paul for a little commentary on the numbers.
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Paul W. Orban, DISH Network Corporation - Executive VP & CFO [5]
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Okay. Thank you, Erik. Before we get into the quarterly results, I have 2 items I want to highlight: first, the impact of COVID-19 on our operations; and second, the closing of the Boost acquisition.
As I mentioned in the first quarter, we have implemented a series of initiatives in our Pay-TV business to address the impact of COVID-19. We tightened our belt and put in place cost cutting measures to slow the pace of OpEx and CapEx. The benefits of this hard work are reflected in our quarterly results.
As Erik alluded to, both new activations were negatively impacted and churn were positively impacted by COVID-19. As discussed in Q1, since many commercial establishments are closed are running at reduced capacity, we put these accounts on pause or provided temporary rate relief. These accounts represent approximately 250,000 subscribers and were removed from our Q1 ending DISH TV subscriber count.
During the second quarter, 45,000 of those subscribers restored service or had temporary rate relief added. These subscribers came back with minimal or no cost, and they were added to our ending subscriber count without being counted as a gross activation. Of the remaining commercial accounts that were removed, 17,000 of these accounts disconnected. We continue to expect the vast majority of the remaining commercial accounts to restore their service in the coming quarters.
Combining the 45,000 subscribers discussed above with the 40,000 net subscriber loss related to the other accounts, DISH TV subscriber count increased by 5,000 during the quarter.
The next item I'd like to discuss is Boost. As Erik noted, we closed acquisition and we will report Boost results in the first time -- for the first time in the third quarter. We believe we will report Boost in our wireless segment and we will disclose key metrics such as ARPU and subscriber data. We'll also allocate the consideration paid to the tangible and intangible assets acquired and the liability consumed.
All right. Now looking at our P&L. Our operating income and EBITDA for the quarter are both up significantly compared to last year. Our revenue decreased due to a lower subscriber base, partially offset by higher Pay-TV ARPU. Increase in Pay-TV ARPU was driven by price increases at both DISH and Sling and increases in premiums and pay-per-view revenue. In addition, we had fewer commercial accounts during the quarter. Most commercial relationships are included in ARPU on an equivalent billing unit basis, which means that ARPU for these accounts is lower than residential subs.
Our subscriber margins for the quarter were positively impacted by reduced costs related to channel removals, including regional sports and by our Pay-TV cost cutting measures. Our DISH TV stack is down this quarter due to decreased subscriber activations. However, the cost per activation increased from $786 last year to $834. This was largely driven by fewer commercial activations this year compared to the prior year. These accounts have lower SACs than residential subscribers.
Satellite and transmission expenses decreased by $67 million. As discussed on prior calls, this reduction in expense was related to the acquisition of certain satellites from EchoStar last year. G&A expenses were up this quarter as a result of costs to support our wireless initiatives, partially offset by the cost cutting measures that we did in the Pay-TV business. Our free cash flow of $574 million for Q2 benefited from improved operating performance and working capital. We expect some of the working capital benefits to reverse in the second half of this year.
After redeeming our $1.1 billion debt maturity in May 1, we ended the quarter with approximately $2.6 billion of cash and marketable securities. On July 1, we acquired Boost for $1.4 billion and also raised $1 billion of debt. We still expect our 2020 wireless rollout expenditures to be between $250 million and $500 million. However, we will probably end up closer to the lower end of that range.
Erik mentioned that we have recently entered into agreements with several wireless vendors. We expect the majority of the expenditures under those agreements to impact us in future years. Then lastly, if we manage successfully, our goal is that Boost will be accretive to both free cash flow and EBITDA. However, given the promotional and operational changes we are currently implementing, it's too early to predict. We currently have MVNO economics, and therefore, we are pivoting the business to implement a more disciplined approach to acquire and retain profitable subscribers. As we build our 5G network and benefit from owner economics, this will drive greater profitability.
With that, I'll turn it over for questions. Operator?
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Questions and Answers
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Operator [1]
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(Operator Instructions) We'll go first to David Barden with Bank of America.
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David William Barden, BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division - MD [2]
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Welcome on board to Dave Mayo. I guess my first question would be just kind of coming back to this Boost acquisition.
In the past, you guys have said that this business would have a Tracfone-like margin. Recognizing we're in a promotional season, would you stand by that assertion based on what you know over the past quarter?
And then second, if I could. Charlie, I think you teased last quarter that this quarter, you might have a little bit more kind of concrete information to share with us on the facility space build, and we've seen a lot of vendor announcements, and obviously, new people are being brought on board.
So if you could kind of give us an update on the status and where we are there, that would be super helpful.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [3]
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Yes. I didn't quite get to all the second half of it. On Boost, I would say that, first of all, we don't even have 4 months of billing information since we paid T-Mobile for the network. So we are flying a little bit blind here. And John Swieringa who's running that business is -- we've given him the day off, which we normally don't do, but given his success and the hard work that it was to put that all together and get that closed until on first, it was deserving. So I have a lot of information on that next quarter because we'll likely have financials.
I would say it this way, the margins will be low in MVNO business until you get owner economics with your own network and then the margins are quite good. So we have to pivot that business. The big thing -- just straightening to understand, is we have to pivot that business. Sprint ran that without a P&L, so Sprint ran that business really on a contribution margin basis because they owned the network and the network had excess capacity. So there was no network charge.
Internally for them, we have to pay T-Mobile for the network so we have to run it a little bit different. So obviously, some customers that are very good customers for Sprint potentially aren't good customers for us. And so there's going to be some cleanup there in terms of that. And then we're a little bit more conservative on how we account for things. So we'll have a little bit of cleanup there that we'll go through. And we'll try to get all that done in the first quarter rather than late. So we'll have to wait and see.
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Paul W. Orban, DISH Network Corporation - Executive VP & CFO [4]
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Being in the current quarter.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [5]
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In this quarter, yes. And -- but I think as Paul said, our goal will be that we're at least $1 positive in EBITDA and cash flow, right? And then obviously, we do better than that, that's great. And as we build our own network out, obviously, we expect that to be materially higher.
An update on DISH and where DISH is. We're making very steady progress on our build-out of our network. You saw a few vendor announcements. Probably the most important thing is we're committed to the O-RAN architecture. We're the only company in the United States that we know that's doing that for a clean sheet of paper, we're able to do that. Fujitsu is our first radio partner in that. They obviously are a very respected radio manufacturer in Japan, and we're excited to have them on board to build radios. We are working with other radio vendors too. There's a lot of excitement about O-RAN radios and the path that will go down there.
And obviously, Mavenir and Altiostar, both of them, some for the software for some of the -- from the baseband distribution unit. So -- and then we added VMware, which really allows us to stitch together the cloud. So everything that we are doing is things like Kubernetes, which is a buzzword for containers and micro-services that when you put all that together, you got to make it work and you got to make it work on different cloud providers and private clouds, and VMware allows us to horizontally build across the stack and stitch that stuff together.
So -- and the way we look at partnerships, VMware has done a lot of work for us already before we signed the contract with them. They're learning a lot about telco and O-RAN, and so they're getting a real R&D sandbox to play in. And they're making our business better and we're making their business better. So it's a really good win-win for both companies, and they've been a tremendous vendor even before we signed a contract with them.
So the big picture thing is there is nothing -- there's nothing that stops us from building, really, the best network in the United States. There's no law of physics. There's no law of physics. There's no technology that really has to change. It's really execution. It's really executing risk for us and our vendors to make it happen, but we're not reinventing science. We're not reinventing anything. We're just taking really good cloud providers and software providers and making what has been a very clunky, hardware-centered, highly-operational cost environment very similar to data centers 20 to 30 years ago, and we're turning that -- we're going to make that into a modern network. So everything exists to do that. And we're just going to go do it.
We don't spend a lot of time talking about it externally because everybody's going to be skeptical up until we light it up, and then people will have their opinion about it. So that's what we're going to do.
I also would be remiss, I wanted to congratulate Erik Carlson. This is his 25th anniversary at DISH today. And he started out in a pretty entry-level position up in Chicago 25 years ago and has taken up more and more responsibility and has been running and doing an incredible job for us the last 3 or 4 years as the CEO of DISH.
And so congratulations, Erik, and a job well done. And it's been fun to watch you grow over the last 25 years.
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W. Erik Carlson, DISH Network Corporation - President & CEO [6]
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Thank you, Charlie.
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Operator [7]
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We'll go next to Jonathan Chaplin with New Street.
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Jonathan Chaplin, New Street Research LLP - US Team Head of Communications Services [8]
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Great. Charlie, just following up on your -- on the last question. When do you think we'll have a more complete set of who all the vendors are and how the whole plan comes together? Is that something that's sort of weeks or months away? Or do you think this will evolve still over several quarters?
And then I know we're forbidden from speaking about CBRS, but I saw the disclosure in the 10-K -- in the 10-Q about you being interested in more spectrum, generally. I'd love to get your thoughts on the C-band auction that hopefully we're not in a quiet period for yet. But also on some of the other pieces of spectrum building out there like the L-band.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [9]
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Yes. In terms of -- for your visibility, internally, we -- it's all pretty much come together for us, I guess, is the way. So we have our C team in place. We know exactly what we need to do. I'll let Dave Mayo, who's in charge of deployment maybe speak to that in just a second. But we know exactly that -- when we focus it -- when you're really a focused company, you're not worrying about the external stuff. A lot of times, people try to spend a lot of time trying to convince people what they're doing and we're not trying to do that. We're just going to go do it. And then you'll see it.
So we're in discussions with other vendors. Obviously, there are more that we need to help us to get to where we need to go. And they have to share the vision. We are uncompromising that they have to share the vision and take some risk with us to get there. And there are many companies -- we've narrowed -- we had about over 100 companies that have responded to RFPs. We're down to usually 2 or 3 potential vendors for each category that we have left. They -- it is a focus where we like to pick best-in-class vendors, where they share the vision with us. And if they don't share the vision with us, then we move on. But I can tell you, the people we're talking to today all do.
And I think the people on the inside of technology and inside of where networks can go, who don't have a legacy. So when you have legacy and you can't do something, obviously, you might have a different opinion. You rationalize that maybe something doesn't make sense. But for people who don't have legacy, I think it will become clear to clear with people that the direction we're going is dramatic, and it's a paradigm shift and we'll have to wait until for that network to build.
And with that -- and then in terms -- I can't talk about the CBRS auction, I think that's in a quiet period. We historically have looked at every auction in case there's an opportunity there. We've looked at every piece of spectrum in case there's an opportunity there. Obviously, we would be challenged from a balance sheet perspective. We're obviously cognitive of that. But we pieced together the kind of spectrum portfolio that you need to compete in the modern network and continue to look for opportunity there now and in the future.
With that, Dave, maybe just a little bit on deployment?
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Dave Mayo, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Network Development [10]
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Yes. Sure. Sure. Thanks, Charlie. And Jonathan, thanks for the question.
So our approach really is to vector ourselves towards the 70% milestone that must be completed by June of '23. And in order to do that, we're building a field-based organization to help us with the rollout. That's kind of really top of mind right now. We're also in the -- about midway through completing RF designs for all the markets, having conversations with the tower companies, both at the national level but the big 3 as well as the second-tier tower vendors in order to build a portfolio of choices. And we think we're in a great shape there, and it's pretty exciting what we're seeing in terms of co-location rates. They're very, very high and there's lots of choices.
In terms of field service vendors to help us get some of the more mundane detailed work done in the field. There's a lot -- again, lots of choices, and the team has done a really good job of building a portfolio of selection on a market-by-market basis that we'll use to help us deploy the network.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [11]
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And by the way, this is Charlie. I might just add just you have a good sense of timing. But the -- we don't get radios and scale until the second half of next year because, obviously, we're building a different kind of radio with O-RAN. So some of the incumbent vendors weren't -- either weren't able to or couldn't or wouldn't participate in that kind of development. But -- and Dave and team will be ready to go when the radios come in to start climbing towers.
So -- but that's the -- getting the supply chain and radios is the longest development for us right now.
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Operator [12]
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We'll go next to Walter Piecyk with LightShed.
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Walter Paul Piecyk, LightShed Partners - Partner & TMT Analyst [13]
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Charlie, just a follow-up on some your comments around C-band, saying it would be challenged from a balance sheet perspective. Is that something that will factor into discussions that you have with strategic partners to the extent that some type of partner, strategic or financial or otherwise, could provide capital to grab some of that spectrum?
Or do you find that C-band spectrum to be not necessary in terms of giving you enough assets to compete over a 5- or 10-year period?
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [14]
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Well, it is pretty premature, to look at C-band. I mean, there is an auction going on today. We'd like to see the results of that. There's -- I think in NPRM -- I think the SEC's NPRM came out yesterday. I haven't seen it yet on C-band. So we'd like to see that.
But it's a -- it's certainly a good band. It certainly is one that we have spent time with overseas and played with. And we're certainly in a unique position to a clean sheet paper, in terms of designing the right network for the future.
So we'll have to wait and see what, strategically, but we feel like we have the information that we need other than reading the FCC and seeing what happens in the current basically C-band auction today and kind of see where that goes.
Walter, I'm sorry, that a nonanswer answer, but even if I knew, I wouldn't be able to tell you.
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Walter Paul Piecyk, LightShed Partners - Partner & TMT Analyst [15]
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Okay. I can ask you another one on O-RAN, but I don't want to dominate the colleagues from analysts too. So I'll let Rich hop on with a quick one or maybe I'll call back afterwards. Go for it, Rich.
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Richard Scott Greenfield, LightShed Partners - Partner and Media & Technology Analyst [16]
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Just quickly, Charlie. We've seen basically every single media company, legacy media company, basically jump head-in to streaming from Peacock to HBO Max. Viacom, put all of their network brands up on All Access. And they're calling it sort of a superstore, that's been -- or super-service that's going to relaunch early next year.
With so much of the content on streaming now and everyone putting all of their exciting stuff and ESPN sort of seen teasing, putting sports on ESPN+, is there any point where you ever expect to actually have rate reductions? Like will we start seeing U.K. less? I know you just did a deal with Viacom that I think surprised a lot of people.
But are rates ever going down? Or you're just going to pay more even as content moves away from the bundle that you're paying for?
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [17]
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Well, it's a good question. I think that the rate should come down. And I think that when someone -- when -- we looked at a couple of things, but we look at -- we obviously look at how much people watch something. We watch the cost per hour as a simple example, and we see those trends declining for a lot of people in the industry.
The second thing you look at is, there's a product available somewhere else. And if that product is available somewhere else, obviously, then the value to us because at that point, as an industry, we're not exposed to, that value goes down.
And I think we're -- we approach it financially. We look at it, and we then we make decisions based on the fact that how much it's going to cost us, how many customers we think we'll lose as a result of that versus how much money we'll save. One of the reasons -- obviously, our cash flows has been a little better than I think we had projected because of loss of regional sports. The loss of customers have been less than we projected because we knew that many of our customers don't watch regional sports.
So there are other categories where they're approaching regional sports status where those costs are going up beyond what the value is in terms of customers watching those, and those will all be -- we'll have to negotiate through that.
It's a shame. We look at it as what the customers -- value to the customer. I think the incumbent operators look at it for their budget, and they just have a number they need to get to, and we obviously -- we saw it. Erik and his team saw it 5 or 6 or 7 years ago and which is why the company pivoted it -- pivoted to a strategy that for less dependent on some of those things.
I think it ultimately will lead a certain direction and we're prepared for it. And our linear business is solid. And I think Michael has got a great opportunity to take advantage of some of the streaming in a way that maybe we haven't in the past.
But it's -- we're disciplined there and we're positioned well. Maybe the trends will change, but -- and I'm surprised it hasn't gotten worse for us, but so far, we're doing well there.
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Operator [18]
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We'll go next to Doug Mitchelson with Credit Suisse.
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Douglas David Mitchelson, Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division - MD [19]
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A couple of questions. One for Michael Schwimmer. Are you going be shifting strategy at Sling at all? I'm not sure if that was part of the purview for you coming into that role recently.
And Charlie, I'm going to throw 3 at you. I think the fact that you're planning on getting the new radios at the second half of next year is super interesting. And the 3 questions are: one, once you get the radios, how long does it take you to climb the towers and install them? How much attrition do you have relative to those FCC time lines? I figured it would be pretty quickly, but I'm just curious.
And does that suggest, Charlie, that you don't really need to procure any financing, that last $9 billion of the $10 billion build-out really until second half of next year when those radios arrive?
And lastly, just any update. I think you talked about the launch of your first market around year-end. And if the radios are coming second half of next year, are you getting some -- a limited supply to do that first market? Or has that been pushed off?
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Michael S. Schwimmer, DISH Network Corporation - Executive VP & Group President of SLING TV [20]
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Okay. Doug, thanks for the question. I think it was whether or not we are looking to shift our strategy at Sling. Sling has been really good at bringing in customers to watch unique events, sports and whatnot and made it very flexible for them to come in and leave without contracts and so forth, and we'll certainly continue to be able to do that. I do think that there's a lot of opportunity out there, particularly given our low price point and some of the economic pressures that everybody is experiencing these days.
At basically $30, people can get a lot of programming that they want, and we think we're well positioned as folks' entertainment budget gets compressed, as they take on some of these other SVOD apps, we can still deliver a lot of what people want, maybe not what everybody wants with live linear sports, news and entertainment and so forth.
So I think we will be more cognizant of the opportunity to bring in folks who are going to stay with us longer.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [21]
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And this is Charlie. First one you have to do in a network is you have to do the RF planning and the site acquisition. So we have to do that anyway. And then we'll -- and then get the permitting and zoning and permitting done. And that typically takes anywhere from 6 months to 2 years depending on the market. And that's in progress in place today.
And then assuming we execute on supply chain management and so forth as the radios come in, we will -- strategically, I think, Dave would like to build-out, and he can comment on this, but we have critical mass for a city. We won't build a city piecemeal. We'll have critical mass to build all those towers and have to take their city at one time. Radios would be there, permits would be there. Leases will be there with the towers. And then it's a task of climbing the tower, installing the radios and antenna and hooking up everything to make it work.
So we have a simpler radio design. We have a simpler antenna design than traditionally you've seen from people. It's going to -- the total weight will be less. The cabling will be less. The amount of real estate we need at the site will be less. So it's just -- it's another leapfrog in how you might design and deploy something. So we're hopeful that we can go pretty quickly once we get radios.
And Dave Mayo...
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Dave Mayo, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Network Development [22]
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Yes. I think that's right, Charlie. And I'll just pile on and say that's great. As I mentioned earlier, we're vectoring towards that 70% objective and really getting the activity -- the early stage activities, albeit design work and site acquisition work done across that whole suite of markets, with the expectation that there'll be markets that are much easier from a sight app and a zoning perspective. Mostly smaller -- small second and third tier markets that we can light up much earlier in order to achieve that 20% threshold. That's 1 year, 9 months and 27 days away -- 23 days away. I stand corrected.
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Douglas David Mitchelson, Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division - MD [23]
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So Charlie, am I thinking about it right that there's really no financing needs until second half of next year? Or perhaps even a little bit after that?
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [24]
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Yes. I mean, for our build-out, I think we ended up with, I think I heard a couple of billion dollars in the balance sheet today, so...
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Paul W. Orban, DISH Network Corporation - Executive VP & CFO [25]
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$2.6 billion.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [26]
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I think we don't anticipate that we'd spend that much money between now and next year, but we'll see.
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Douglas David Mitchelson, Crédit Suisse AG, Research Division - MD [27]
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And sorry, lastly, just that first market. Are you still planning on launching that market this year? Or is that pushed out?
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [28]
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I -- we haven't given up on doing that. We're waiting on prototype radios, and we hope that we'll still have a market up this year.
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Operator [29]
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We'll go next to Phil Cusick with JPMorgan.
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Philip A. Cusick, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Research Division - MD and Senior Analyst [30]
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Charlie, can you talk about the RDOF auction? Headlines from cable companies going deeper into rural areas and the federal discussion on universal broadband. How do you think it impacts the addressable market for satellite video over time?
And with fiber and wireless rollouts with a long-term TAM of satellite broadband looks more of the satellite video market as well?
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [31]
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In addressable market.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [32]
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You'll have to answer the second. I didn't hear the second part. First of all...
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [33]
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Define the addressable market for satellite broadband given the RDOF.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [34]
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Well, I mean, I think, since I've known the EchoStar comps, I think they had a little over 1.2 million subscribers in the United States, that -- their capacity is full. There's excess demand. Viasat, I think, reported today around 600,000 subscribers. So the market is 1.8 million today in the United States for satellite broadband. That will get challenged as people build out more in rural America, but not -- but the market could use a lot more capacity than it has today. So -- because I think -- well, I can't speak to ViaSat, but I know EchoStar is full.
So this new generation, I think, what's going to happen is as new generation satellites come on, speeds will go up, and people will use more. And -- but I think there's a -- I think there's a solid group of people in rural America that -- and small businesses and people for back up and then things like aeronautical and other uses. And then for us, satellite -- we look at it, or Dave looks at it, I'll speak for Dave, we look at it, in a lot of rural areas, we believe is broadband. There's wireless backup.
So we think there's a real -- we don't see that going away. We see that maintaining -- being a profitable business. And even though the amount of people getting access to high-speed broadband for cable or perhaps fixed wireless will go up.
And obviously, one of the ways it's going to go up is because wireless carriers will have the ability to do fixed wireless or even mobile wireless to compete against some of the cable companies in the future because 5G is just going to have a lot more capacity out there. So it's going to be an interesting development to see how that goes. And we haven't seen much of an impact from the millimeter-wave stuff yet. I would anticipate that the lower frequency -- people will move to the lower frequencies. Ultimately, they'll maybe pivot strategies and maybe have a different story next year because the economics are better.
And that's a great place for us. I mean, as a company, we have very good skill sets in satellite. We have very good skill sets in video. We now are incredibly skilled in O-RAN, cloud-based architecture for the next-generation of telcos. So we have a -- we're very unique in that sense. And the focus is how you put those assets together to have good services with consumers and businesses and enterprises will pay for, we could really get a return on our investment. And obviously, we have a huge investment in telco today, as we do in satellite video. But obviously, telco dwarfs that today.
So we -- all I'm saying is, everything that we see today is, in terms of the core strategy, is better than it was last year and it's better -- last year than it was the year before. So the technology shift is dramatic. It's not understood by most people. It reminds me of digital when we were doing digital compression when people thought it was impossible, or it would never make a difference.
And we knew it was going to make a difference. We knew that analog video was -- we've got a -- it's just not the right way to go once you could go digital. And ultimately, when the technical problems were solved, then it was just execution. And for us, that was launching the satellite and building the set-top box. But we're in the same situation today. There is no -- there is nothing in the law of physics or technically that prevents us from building this very modern network. That was different a year ago.
But the big technical issues that we were worried about, particularly vendors and O-RAN radios, what some people were calling pie in the sky and saying 5 years out and 7 years out. And so the big guys aren't going to do it. Can't buy Chinese. We've resolved that problem. And others are doing that as we speak. And it's -- DISH is an execution risk company right now. And the way you minimize the risk to execution is to build a good team. And we've got a good team. We need to strengthen it. We need bench strength, and we need to strengthen at the lower levels, but we have an incredibly strong team that's focused on the mission at hand.
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Operator [35]
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We'll go next to John Hodulik with UBS.
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John Christopher Hodulik, UBS Investment Bank, Research Division - MD, Sector Head of the United States Communications Group and Telco & Pay TV Analyst [36]
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Charlie, maybe just on cash for wireless strategy. First, on the prepaid side, you guys just focusing on profitability, with why you have MD&A economics. I guess should we assume that you guys will be less focused on customer acquisition, and as a result, you made to prepaid subs decline until you get the network built out?
And then in terms of your entry into postpaid, again, any thoughts on the timing there? And I guess, given what you said about the MVNO, should we expect that you really will enter the postpaid market until you've got sort of critical mass of sort of facilities-based network sort of towards the end of next year?
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [37]
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Yes. It's a little jumbled, so if I didn't get it right, Tom can jump in. But on Boost, we certainly have -- we have profitable customers that for the most part, in the customers acquired, their subscriber acquisition cost has already been paid. They're already customers. So the -- for the most part of the profit, there are some of those customers that perhaps the way Sprint accounted for them or perhaps the way they ran that business, it wouldn't make sense for us, so we certainly have some cleaning up to do there. But we'll get that done.
As far as new customers, we just announced different plans. Today is really kind of the first day we really own Boost because we -- it took us that long to get our new plans out in the marketplace, but I think there's 5 new plans today at the Boost stores, all under $50.
The postpaid is a place that is more profitable even as an MVO as well. And you saw our Tucows announcement, maybe -- was it Monday?
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W. Erik Carlson, DISH Network Corporation - President & CEO [38]
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Monday.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [39]
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Monday. And they are helping us, not only did we acquire a few subscribers, but they're helping us with our ability to enter the postpaid business because that's not something that Sprint or T-Mobile systems would work for us.
So as a sidelight, I'd say that the prepaid business is kind of backwards. United States is really the only country that I know of where the prepaid business, actually, is less expensive than the postpaid business.
So today, in the prepaid business, you'd normally can get a free phone or near-free phone even though you have no credit. And if you're a credit-worthy customer to go postpaid, you actually finance the phone. So you actually pay for it. So it's actually a little bit backwards from a -- if I just put in my financial analyst hat on, I kind of scratch my head a little bit at some of the things that are done in the post -- in the prepaid business.
It reminds me some of the crazy things that we used to see in the video business. Some of the things we saw in the OTT business where you sell below cost and make it up on volume. And University of Tennessee, freshman class, Finance 101, that's the one thing I learned. I only learned one thing in finance class, but I did learn in that. And so we're going to try not to do that.
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [40]
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So John, this is Tom. So to Charlie's point that the silliness of some of the activity that goes on in prepaid is the discipline that Erik referenced that we're going to be injecting into Boost.
But your question was really around wireless strategy in general. And we don't view our opportunity as only prepaid and postpaid. There's a huge wholesale opportunity as we open up a market and unleash 100 megahertz of really more band spectrum, we're going to have so much more capacity than we need for pre and postpaid.
And at the same time, with the Huawei push coming out of DC, there's quite a bit of support now for O-RAN and so -- and the desire for a U.S.-based telco ecosystem. So we're seeing -- basically, we're getting inbound activity from every major technology company in the United States as well as the enterprise-focused companies or cloud-based companies. And they're all successfully now running telco instances in the cloud.
So the progress that we've seen over the last, call it, 5 to 6 months around automation, network slicing and the ability to sell wholesale capacity has been tremendous. So in our minds, now it's inevitable that -- and it's undeniable that O-RAN will be part of the landscape and the wholesale wireless opportunity is much, much larger than people expect.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [41]
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Yes. And I think -- just as I think -- as we figured the world 5 years ago, and obviously, our subscriber counts went down and we got chastised for not having -- not growing our sub base, but we grew our sub base were it counted and -- the same thing is going to. But we went was there was a solid base. What's going to happen here? We're not just about handsets as most of the incumbents are. That's going to be a very competitive market. But the fact that an enterprise did have a slice of our network and be able to have their own data and their own security and look like their own network, that is going to be -- for a while, that's going to be one of a kind.
And there are going to be companies that are going to get a huge return on investment to be part of our network because we're going to make their -- with the data and the ability to connect, we're going to help them improve their business or their product in a way that they just can't do today. And that will become more evident, I think, for people over the coming years.
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [42]
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So operator, we probably have time for one more call from the analyst community.
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Operator [43]
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We will now take our final question from the analyst community from Bryan Kraft with Deutsche Bank.
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Bryan D. Kraft, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division - Senior Analyst [44]
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I wanted to ask you just one question on funding and then another on satellites.
Just on funding, as you do think about sources of funding for the wireless plan, what are the most important considerations there as you look at the different options for funding the plan? And then as we think about the capital needs for the legacy business, on the satellite side, as some of those satellites reach end of life, are you planning to replace them with your own new ones that you'll build? Or is there an opportunity to go back to leasing capacity from another company such as EchoStar? And would you need as many satellites going forward as you have historically?
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [45]
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Well, on the satellites, we don't have a need for additional satellites in the short term. Obviously, I'm surprised we haven't gotten the question, but obviously, you -- I've said in the past, I thought it would be inevitable that DISH and DIRECTV probably, at some point, would be allowed to merge and that would reduce need for satellites as well. But I don't think that's a material cost on CapEx for this in the foreseeable future.
With any kind of financing, we're generating a lot of cash flow. So we're -- and obviously, to the extent that Dave and his team are successful on their build-out and their time lines, we're going to generate cash flow from Boost as well.
So that has reduced -- perhaps that has reduced some of our external funding needs perhaps. And then we've raised $2 billion. We raised $1 billion in the rights offering, I think before the end of last year, and we've raised $1 billion in debt this year. So typically, if we look at financing, what are the -- we look for flexibility, we look for interest rates, we look for return. I don't know, if we look at the traditional things you'd look at it from a financing point of view.
A lot of what we're doing is infrastructure, so that's a whole different set of financing opportunities for us because we're building real assets you can touch and feel and spectrum. We're not making any more spectrum anymore. So they are printing money, but they're not making spectrum. So...
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [46]
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So Bryan, this is Tom. We -- I think what we're saying is we'll be opportunistic if needed. But right now, given our cash position and the build-out timing, we don't see any imminent need. The second thing that we're seeing that we're encouraged by is the promise of O-RAN in actually lowering the capital cost of deployment. We're seeing -- because you're able to -- well, they could part the proprietary traditional system, we're getting radio pricing that is a fraction of what a typical radio historically has cost. That's one area.
Second area is as the silicon road map matures over the next 18 months, the cost will drop even further on capital. And then on the OpEx side, as you're seeing orchestration becoming more mature in, for instance, with VMware as part of the solution that we negotiated with them, that the orchestration layer has an opportunity to significantly lower traditional OpEx associated with wireless.
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Bryan D. Kraft, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division - Senior Analyst [47]
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So if I could follow up, and it sounds like, Tom, I know you're not backing off of the $10 billion number now, but it sounds like you do see some opportunities for that overall build cost to come in below that $10 billion based on what you just said. Is that fair?
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [48]
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Yes. I'm not -- we're not changing any guidance. And as you know, we traditionally don't give guidance, but that $10 billion has been out there for several years. What we're saying is we have visibility to promising cost curve improvements.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [49]
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Yes. And this is Charlie. I would say that people who discounted that number and said that was an impossible number to build a network. I think that they'll start -- I think you'll start seeing real data that says that's a -- give it -- that's over 100, could be a little more or less, but that's a pretty realistic.
That number is becoming more and more realistic, I think, as people...
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [50]
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Well, in addition, that number predated our deal with T-Mo. So I assume that you had to build the whole network before you saw dollar one of revenue. Given the current structure and the deployment that we're on, we'll be generating cash in the interim while we continue to build the network.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [51]
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Yes. So there are 2 things. One is, that the cost of the network, we still believe, we're spending $10 billion. The question is do we have to finance $10 billion? That might -- we might be more optimistic about that today, that we wouldn't have to finance as much.
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Bryan D. Kraft, Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division - Senior Analyst [52]
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Okay. If I could ask one last follow-up, I promise this is the last. Is there a tower count that you would share that corresponds with getting to the 70% coverage in 3 years?
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [53]
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We're not sharing that tower count, but we're not really trying to hide the ball where it is. You can, I guess, we run the math, we'd say, how many people can we cover with the tower? And you kind of run that math and you get to 70% population. And our total network build is in the 50,000-tower -- macro tower range and to cover 70% is a fraction of that.
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [54]
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Yes. As you know, our FCC commitment is 15,000 towers and it's probably slightly more than that.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [55]
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Yes. We know we're building a minimum of 15,000, but we believe it takes a little bit more than that to cover 70%. Is that fair?
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [56]
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Yes.
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [57]
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Yes. And we'll give you more guidance on that as we get -- as Dave and team have -- as we get site counts. And we have -- strategically, we have to decide just how dense we make the network as well. So that's a piece of it.
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [58]
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Operator, we'll head to the media now.
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Operator [59]
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We will now take questions from members of the media. (Operator Instructions) Our first media question comes from Scott Moritz with Bloomberg.
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Scott Moritz, [60]
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Wireless question, obviously. The -- there's a lot of discussion about manageability of unprofitable Boost customers. You also have some aggressive offers in the market.
Just wondering, if you start with 9 million customers with the acquisition of Boost, where do you end the year? Are you in the up or down from there?
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [61]
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We don't know. I think we've said earlier, there's some cleanup on approximately 9 million. Boost customers certainly clean up there for customers that we might count a different way or might be an unprofitable customer when you pay for the network.
The second thing, as we add customers, we want to add customers that -- only add customers that are potentially profitable. We don't want to add customers to say we would lose for -- just to have a number for Wall Street. So we're going to be disciplined about the way we do it.
Having said all that, right, I'd rather look at it from a subscriber count point of view, we look at it from a financial point of view, where we would like to be at least $1 positive -- $1 EBITDA positive, $1 cash flow positive.
And then as build our -- as we get owner economics of our own network, that obviously shifts to -- they're much more profitable, and we'd be obviously more aggressive in trying to attain new customers.
So sorry, that's kind of a nonanswer answer in terms of our number, but it is an answer for profitability.
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Operator [62]
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We'll go next to Drew FitzGerald with Wall Street Journal.
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Drew FitzGerald, [63]
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Two questions, if I can. First, you mentioned that you still think or you have a sense that you had thought that the addition of DIRECTV, the DBS businesses, would eventually be allowed to merge, kind of the best in and an inevitability. Do you still hold that view?
And then second, there are a couple of companies that are going into the lower orbit business with very low latency satellites that might address some of the business customers that you're targeting to your 5G network. Just wondering if those plans are successful, how does that affect the economics of what you're trying to do with the 5G network?
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Charles W. Ergen, DISH Network Corporation - Co-founder & Chairman of the Board [64]
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Yes. I mean, I still think DISH and DIRECTV will be inevitable. I would -- could that be a month from now or 10 years from now? That, I don't know. As far as low-latency satellites, we're certainly aware of the plans. I mean, obviously, we -- I'm on the Board of EchoStar, they've potentially invested in some more in OneWeb. We certainly understand what StarLink and perhaps with Telesat and others it might be doing.
We see that any new technology where you can connect things and provide the information, we see that as, in general, positive. And we think that a lot of the assets that we have in place, including geosynchronous satellites, but also terrestrial markets, they play together because people -- I think consumers and businesses are going to continue to consume more and more data, and there's going to be more and more demand for data, and there's going to be demand for lower latencies.
The satellites will never approach the latency that we're going to be able to get with the modern network. So there's always going to be a latency advance. You're not going to be gaming and things like that, in my opinion, through satellite. You're not going to do -- so a lot of things. You're not going to do industrial production and things like that through higher-latency satellites. But they all work together because not every need justifies the expense of low latency.
And so for us, we got -- we'll try to provide the solutions to our customers that are best for them. If you're a customer that uses 1 gig a month, we'll have a plan for you. If you -- if you're a customer that uses 100 gigs a month, we'll have a plan for you. If you need low latency, we'll have a plan for you. If you need -- if that's not a factor, we'll have a plan for you. And we're a unique company. We actually, technically, understand most of those things. And again, we're pretty good at satellite. We're pretty good at video. We're getting really good at 5G OpenRAN architecture wireless.
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Thomas A. Cullen, DISH Network Corporation - EVP of Corporate Development [65]
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So operator, I think that was the last question in queue. So thank you, everyone, for joining, and we'll talk to you again next quarter.
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Operator [66]
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This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation.
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