Anterix - Q1 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day. Welcome to the Anterix investor conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, please press star, then one. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Natasha Vecchiarelli. Please go ahead, madam. Excuse me, this is the operator. We cannot hear you.

Natasha Vecchiarelli (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications)

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm Natasha Vecchiarelli, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications, and I welcome you to the Anterix first quarter conference call. Joining me today are Rob Schwartz, President and CEO, Ryan Gerbrandt, COO, Tim Gray, CFO, and Chris Guttman-McCabe, Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that we will make forward-looking statements during this call regarding future events and our anticipated future performance, such as our commercial outlook and guidance. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additionally, we do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statements. Important factors and risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from the company's expectations are disclosed in our most recent SEC filing.

These files can be accessed on our website or on the SEC's website. After Rob provides his prepared remarks, Tim will provide a quick update, and we'll open the call for questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rob.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Thanks, Natasha. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us. Our most recent call in April focused on the signing of the LCRA deal, providing them with broadband spectrum in 68 counties of their approximately 73,000 sq mi service territory in Texas. We highlighted that LCRA is unique to our previous customers as it's a public power generation and transmission utility, and also a water management utility, creating a new universe of private broadband use cases that's already attracting additional utility attention to Anterix. Before I start, I want to acknowledge that the frustration of investors with the cautious pace of the utility sector and our lagging stock price is not lost on us. We share in these frustrations.

We do remain laser-focused on continuing to capture valuable customer contracts that we will further demonstrate to the market the substantial value of our spectrum asset and our full business opportunity. With that, today, I'll focus on two areas. First, I'll provide an update on our Demonstrated Intent scorecard, providing, at the request of investors, to give a market pulse of customer progress between spectrum transactions. Second, I'll give you an update on a range of activities and accomplishments that are important building blocks in our mission to become the utility industry's de facto wireless broadband solution. We introduced Demonstrated Intent, or DI, in February to address the challenge of communicating interim progress with customer contracts, given the slower than anticipated pace of the market, longer sales cycles, and resulting prolonged length of time between agreements.

This transparent and fact-based DI scorecard is intended to measure and quantify the meaningful signs of customer intent that we see before we get to a contract. This tool aligns well with our goal of providing investors with a consistent and measurable way to see the combined impact and development of our target customers, complementing the standalone phases of our sales pipeline we previously reported. We also believe this tool provides a detailed picture of prospective customer progress towards contracting for our 900 MHz spectrum and supports our resulting confidence in the strength and potential value of our pipeline. For this analysis, every targeted customer in our sales pipeline, representing over $3 billion in contracted proceeds, is tracked and measured on 20 individual indicators of intent to pursue a 900 MHz private wireless network.

Each of these 20 indicators is individually weighted based on our assessment of its importance. These include, for example, rate case filings, participation on panels or interviews, experimental licenses, membership in our Utility Strategic Advisory Board, participation in UBBA, and more. We'll continue to use the same indicators consistently from quarter to quarter. If that total weighted score places utility over a specific threshold, this indicates that a customer has demonstrated substantial intent to move forward with Anterix on a 900 MHz contract. This data provides three key metrics that we'll share.

The number of utilities that are scoring above the specific DI threshold, along with the total dollar value of the potential contract proceeds associated with those utilities, and lastly, the net increase in the total number of individual indicators recorded for utilities in our pipeline. In our first Demonstrated Intent report shared in February of this year, we highlighted that 15 utilities had crossed the threshold, representing over $800 million in potential contract proceeds. In late April, we provided our second DI update. At this time, just after announcing the LCRA contract for $30 million, 14 utilities still remained above the DI threshold, representing approximately $800 million in potential contract proceeds.

In June, we provided a third update on our DI scorecard when there were still 14 utilities that had crossed the threshold, and we also reported progress on a significant number of additional indicators of movement. Since our last report in June, we measured additional activity across our accounts. As of today, there are now 15 utilities that have crossed the DI threshold, representing more than $850 million in potential contract proceeds. Beyond that, the next three utilities that are close to crossing the DI threshold represent more than $275 million in potential contract proceeds. In additional measurement of progress below the DI threshold, we've seen a total of 13 incremental Demonstrated Intent indicators across eight utilities that have been recorded on our DI scorecard since June.

Several of you have also asked for a report on the total progress since we introduced the DI scorecard in February. In this period of less than 6 months, we've recorded positive movement by customers on about 50 new measurable indicators of intent throughout our DI scorecard. Beginning in June, we created an infographic that captures these updates and is available on the investor relations page of our website. The individual results recorded on our DI scorecard are directly attributable to our broader efforts to become the de facto wireless broadband solution for the utility sector. We have been successful to date, closing 100% of the contracts within the 5 utilities that have committed to wide area private wireless broadband since we've had our broadband spectrum available.

We strongly believe this outcome is based on our focus of being a partner to utilities through our work with the Utility Strategic Advisory Board, our Anterix Active Ecosystem, and the Utility Broadband Alliance and more. Through our Utility Strategic Advisory Board, we've had the unique ability to collectively identify and pursue solutions that are key priorities of our current and potential customers. The board consists of a senior level executive from nine utilities, including Ameren, Evergy, Xcel Energy, LCRA, Exelon, Dominion, Southern, Northwestern, and we're excited to report the new addition of New York Power Authority. In addition, we continue to aid the development and growth of the Utility Broadband Alliance, or UBBA, a collaborative industry association dedicated to advancing the adoption of private broadband networks in the industry.

In June, UBBA announced that it had surpassed 100 members, with CenterPoint Energy, Duke Energy, and LCRA listed as its newest utility members. Anterix couldn't be any prouder of the success of UBBA since our co-founding of this critical industry organization. Finally, another program that passed the 100 member mark, our own Anterix Active Ecosystem program, which turned two in May and now has more than 100 leading innovator companies collectively focused on offering the broad array of equipment, solutions, and services that utilities require to plan, build, operate, and capture value from their 900 MHz private wireless broadband network investments. It's a who's who of wireless and utility technology and service leadership. I'll conclude with an update on our increasing thought leadership presence in the industry, an important element of our near and long-term strategic positioning.

Beyond the work with our ecosystem, the Utility Strategic Advisory Board and UBBA, as pioneers of a new market, our goal is to consistently educate our key stakeholders on the necessity and value of private broadband networks. It's a big industry, that sort of educational effort is no small undertaking. For Anterix, it means we need to be nothing less than diligent, providing insightful, trusted thought leadership at every opportunity, not just getting the word out, but explaining why 900 MHz private LTE is the right answer for each specific utility, its customers and its regulators, as well as for the industry, the region, and the nation. In the last few months alone, from EEI, NARUC, IEEE, to our own industry insights and more, we have participated on panels and spoken at conferences, broadcast webinars, and written a number of pieces in industry publications.

Our team's profile is high enough now that Anterix is sought out as a thought leader on utility communications, not only by utilities themselves, but also by regulators and the media. We believe it's the cumulative impact of all these efforts that will continue to drive customer contracts, is reflected in our Demonstrated Intent scorecard, and will lead to our goal of becoming the de facto broadband solution. With that, I'll turn it over to Tim for a brief financial update.

Tim Gray (CFO)

Thanks, Rob. I'm pleased to share that after delivering our first Xcel spectrum milestone for broadband licenses, we received approximately $21 million last week. We also expect to receive roughly $80 million of additional near-term proceeds based on the delivery of additional milestones to our current customers spread across the remainder of this fiscal year. We remain debt-free, are fully funded, and forecast to have free cash flow for fiscal 2024. As a reminder, we have approximately $26 million available to repurchase shares in our current program, and we anticipate efficiently using this plan during the remainder of the quarter by leveraging a majority of the funds we received last week from Xcel. Additionally, we intend to put a significantly more robust plan in place prior to the expiration of the current plan, subject to board approval.

With that, I'll turn it over to the operator for questions.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star one on your touch-tone telephone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your headset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Simon Flannery from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. Thank you very much. Tim, thanks for the clarification on the buybacks. Maybe you can just remind us on what you think an appropriate cash balance is for the company. Rob, I know you opened with, you know, talking about the frustrations with the delays with the utility industry. Can you just give us an update on, you know, what, what the, the key issues here are? Is it sort of just the layers of management, the layers of approval? Is it syncing with others in the, you know, whether it's equipment providers or other parts of a broader grid modernization? Just how do we think about this and, and why, you know, even, you know, even now, it's still taking longer than you expected?

Tim Gray (CFO)

Hey, Simon, this is Tim. On the cash balance piece, traditionally, I'd like to have at least to cover a year of our OpEx, but I don't look at that, like that as a standalone. I also look at the cash flows that we're gonna have coming in from the contracts that we've got. We've got. Of the $238 million we've signed to date, we've received $102 million, and we've got $136 million coming in still, with $80 million of that this year. I'm comfortable with where our cash position is with being able to buy back shares with the current cash balance.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. just remind us what you think a year of cash OpEx is?

Tim Gray (CFO)

Roughly $40 million, $45 million.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Simon, to your, to your second point, you know, I think, yeah, I think we, we, we went into probably more detail in our, in our April call about kind of some of the process issues that we're seeing and, and our learnings along the way. You know, these are cautious customers, cautious institutions that, you know, run our nation's electric grid, and when they make decisions, they make them for multiple decades, right? While it takes a long time on the front end of those decisions, because of the complexity of the, of the organizations and the way they have to get a, a agreement from the regulators, you know, they also, at the same time, are committing, as you know, to multi-decades, 20, 30, 40-year terms that we have in our, in our current agreements.

You know, long front end, but, equivalently long, back end of contracts. Part of it is, as you know, we, we really have, you know, we set it out 10 years ago to be the de facto provider here. We've really seen, what I see as the thought leaders and pioneers, step forward, who, in my mind, are inspiring the followers. This is a, you know, a very unique industry that they're influencing each other, and while it takes time to get that, that progress and momentum going, you can now see through the activity in all of the organizations that I just talked about, the participation.

I mean, open participation of senior executives that are now working, as part of our USAB, for example, Utility Strategic Advisory Board, that are not yet customers, but are committing their time to move forward in, in learning from other, signed customers. That's a, that's a, that's a great sign. Demonstrated Intent, as we've talked about it, that's just a quantification of all of the ways in which we're, we're working with these utilities to move forward, whether it's through their experimental licenses that are, where they're doing pilots, whether it's through through the USAB, through other efforts of how they, they need to bring their complex organizations. You know, the larger deals that we're doing, you know, in our pipeline, nine-figure deals, those require more work.

There are multiple opco, as we talked about, back in April, each of them have, have their own state regulatory environments, their own leadership, and need to make their individual decisions that then roll up into a broader holding company decision. They are complicated, again, these are customers, once we're embedded, as we can see from the five that we've got, we've signed, you know, all five that have made these wide area decisions for private LTE over the last three years, you know, we're, we're, we're batting a 1,000. It's unfortunate they, that it takes a while to get a new sector going like this, we're happy to see the, the, the whole progress.

You know, we're, we're working on closing an entire sector here, not just one at a time. While it's frustrating at the speed at which it's happening, the, the, the, the indications that we're seeing, including as measured from Demonstrated Intent, give us strong optimism.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Anything on the water opportunity? You mentioned the opportunity kind of sort of expanding your addressable market. Any more color you can give us on that?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think, you know, it's interesting, we approached it looking at alternatives originally, of ways in which we could monetize our spectrum. Simon, you've been following us for a long time. We're clearly committed, as I like to say, our bull's eye is the utility sector. It's where the spending is, to be fair, right? The utility sector is spending over $150 billion a year in capital expenditures. There's few sectors that you can look at that have that opportunity to monetize within them.

As you know, you know, when you look across the other sectors, if you added up everything else going on in the private markets, most likely, it's doesn't even equal what we've already signed for contracted proceeds and service territory in the 15 states with the five utilities that we have now. Ryan, anything you want to add?

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

Yeah, Simon, hey, it's Ryan here. One thing I'll add, too, I think, to come into relationship with that, you know, is we've just been continuing to grow the set of use cases that ultimately drive the underpinnings of why utilities push forward with broadband networks in the first place. You know, we've captured now, and I think LCRA is a great example of this, you know, a new, you know, relatively unique company, you know, in the, in the public power space, you know, that brings in additional use cases focused on transmission, distribution, and water management through the Lower Colorado River that they're responsible for.

All of these just add to this Rolodex of value, you know, and the value gets established through these different use cases. We get a lot of attention from the utilities as we're working with them through the pipeline, as they explore how do use cases ultimately underpin what they need to do, most importantly, as a utility. You know, a big part of the work that we do in establishing how to build a business case with the utility is rooted in that foundation of use cases. Kind of whether it opens up a brand new market or not, you know, they're all valuable in the cumulative because they, they help a utility understand the full scope of the potential of driving this kind of a transformation on broadband.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Walter Piecyk from LightShed. Please go ahead.

Walter Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Thanks. I don't know Rob Schwartz, I don't know if Chris Guttman-McCabe is on the call, but can you just kinda remind us and review again what government programs are out there? Not necessarily to fund purchases of, or leases of your spectrum, but to help these utilities upgrade the grid in order to reach Biden's goal. I'm just curious, like, how sticky some of that stuff is if we have a change. I mean, given the long lead time on a lot of this stuff, I mean, you know, it may ultimately result in getting into a new administration, how much of that funding falls away, or maybe what new opportunities would we have if the administration changes in the upcoming election?

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

Yeah, sure, Walt, great question. There are a range of programs, I know we've talked a little bit about this. The, the, the BIL IIJA has a, a multitude of programs. The ones that are-- that we're focused on are on one side, the broadband side, middle mile, and on the other side, the, the GRIP Program. What we've seen is that these programs are, they're over a number of years. So the ones that people just filed for were for the first two years. We will see these programs and this money available again over the next 3 years. We're excited in that we, we did participate with a number of utilities, in, in that first phase, that first two-year tranche.

Those programs or those applications and concept papers were given the green light, the thumbs up to move forward to the decision-making process. We've also seen, and it's been reported in the press, a number of our customers and potential customers received grants for middle mile deployments. You know, as we've said in the past, we're excited because we see these programs as opportunities to accelerate, to stimulate, to move opportunities that may have been further back in our pipeline to move them forward. I don't see any future where those programs don't continue because of the way that they've gone through the process. They're fully funded, and they're, you know, they're ready to be used over the range of the next three years beyond this two-year tranche.

I think they are sticky programs, to use one of your words, Walt, and I, I see them being around. We are actively working with the, the utility community. We're working with the, the consultants that they are working with, and we're, we're consistently meeting with folks on Capitol Hill and at the Department of Energy to ensure that these types of programs are, as written in, in the legislation, continue to be considered for funding.

Walter Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Let me ask you, I guess, more directly: Trump couldn't come in and basically blow them up if he's not necessarily a believer in the use of electric versus, you know, some other alter- energy alternatives out there? I mean, that could not be a casualty in terms of blowing up those programs. Similarly, again, I would assume that maybe I'm wrong, you know, and you're aware of something during his administration where he was into, you know, helping electric utilities, but I'm assuming that there would be probably less opportunity going forward under a Trump administration.

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

Right. Let, let, let me start by saying, we see these programs as additive. They are not, they are not a necessity for, for us to, you know, to, to drive our success. Could a new administration come in and have the Department of Energy interpret the legislative language differently? Absolutely. You know, the neat, the neat thing that, that we, were, were happy to see and obviously had a hand in, in putting in there, is a range of benefits. I think Rob calls it the Swiss Army knife, is what private LTE provides. The, the, the legislative language sort of recognizes that Swiss Army knife element in that the, the, the funding can support the integration of renewable energy.

It can also support the integration of, of wildfire mitigation tools, or the capture and analysis of data, or the cybersecurity benefits of private LTE. Even if an element or elements were, were interpreted differently by a new Department of Energy, there are so many benefits, you know, encapsulated in that language that private LTE underpins that, that, you know, we're excited about, you know, pretty much however it's interpreted. Again, it's, it's not a necessity, but we've always thought about it and set it up as additive going forward.

Walter Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Got it. Thank you.

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star followed by one The next question comes from Philip Cusich from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Philip Cusick (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Hi, guys. It looks like someone, or a customer moved up from tier 2 to tier 3. Can you give us any more detail as to sort of what criteria changes to, to get that customer up? Within that sort of highest tier of potential customers, anything additional you can tell us in terms of people getting closer or, what sort of contracted and ready to go versus, you know, not quite negotiated? Thank you.

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

Yeah. Hey, Phil, it's Ryan here. excellent question. Yeah, I mean, as, as you can imagine, I mean, we-- what we're looking at, you know, kind of across the factors is, you know, how the utilities are progressing, you know, in a variety of these, these 20 different metrics that we're looking at. You know, it's hard to distinguish a single one, even though, you know, one may move it above the threshold, you know, from a scorecard perspective. It's really the cumulative effect of all of them that, that we look at, that ultimately are how we measure, you know, kind of the combination effect of what those, those elements all mean in terms of, Demonstrated Intent.

Let me, let me give you a couple examples, you know, because we do continue to develop the opportunities both I'll describe it as above the line and below the line. You know, obviously, our primary focus every single day, you know, is to, you know, drive customers through to the end game and, and close contracts. That drives us to be able to continue to develop their opportunities as they sit above the line. A couple of the items, you know, that, that I've got, I'll pick, like, just one example, you know, of a utility that's sitting above the line as we've been continuing to work with them.

A couple of the measures that we've worked on specifically with them is they were progressing closer to the end state, you know, and realizing as we get closer to the end, having, you know, the executive champions, you know, the really the, the executive stakeholder that takes responsibility to help promote and drive the, the topic and the program through is a very important part, and we've talked about it here in these calls before, as they're stakeholdering across the organization. That's one of the elements that we've moved with this team. The other one was, you know, formulating with what they do internally around how they assign team allocations and budget.

In this, you ought to have a perspective of just, you know, utilities are relatively labor constrained, you know, in a lot of different ways and, and for a variety of reasons. When it comes to program allocation, I've always tracked how do utilities make conscious decisions around how they allocate people, and in turn, how they allocate money, as a measure to where they're putting their attention and what truly matters for them. So it's been another indicator on one of these deals as we're trying to progress it through at the, at the end stage, to put the kind of what I call a closing team together. You know, it's ultimately driving the decisions, the approvals, you know, getting ready for negotiations and such, as things as we're working through with them. So that's one kind of assist above the line.

We also talked about the metrics as we're continuing to promote the rest of the pipeline and how they develop, you know, coming up below the line. One to call out, this is where obviously we're seeing, you know, more volume of movement because there's more activity and there's just more, you know, more general utilities that sit below the threshold. You know, where, you know, we've had one customer, potential customer, you know, demonstrate movement in just in five indicators in just the last six months. That's one of the faster ones, you know, that I've seen in terms of the ability to progress them all the way through. They've done a handful of different things.

They've also got an executive sponsor, they've, they've created an internal working organization, assigned budget, cost centers, these kind of things to promote the work. They've also already brought in an outside firm, you know, which I track, you know, as an indicator of, again, where they're allocating budget, you know, and where they're making a commitment to invest time and external resources to be able to put together the kind of the third-party expertise necessary to be able to evaluate the components of, of, of putting a plan together. Those are just examples of the types of things that I'm seeing as they're, as they're moving their way through it and amongst all of the other activity.

As Rob highlighted, you know, we've seen, you know, a total of, of 50 movements here, you know, just since we started tracking it this way in, in February, which, which I look at positively, just in terms of the big picture of how we're generally seeing things move through.

Philip Cusick (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Okay. Thanks, guys.

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The last question for today's call comes from George Sutton, from Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

George Sutton (Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you. We have seen Ericsson begin marketing a partnership with NRTC, which, as you know, represents 1,500 rural utilities. They've said they're moving on 900 MHz, and they, of course, had the West Kentucky trial that was successful. How does something like that fit into your pipeline? How would that roll out as, as that would move forward?

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

Thanks for the question, George. I'll start, if anybody wants to add on. Right, so for those who don't know, NRTC is the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative. Their members are, you know, rural telcos, that also often operate utilities as well. They're a great organization, happen to be led by Nextel veterans as, as, as we are as well, so we've got a close alliance. As they develop opportunities, you know, we see opportunities for us to continue to work with them, to be able to, to drive, what I think of as to the, to the next segment of customers, right? They, they've got small, smaller rural co-ops and municipal organizations, most of whom are not in what we talk about in the top of our pipeline. They're a great opportunity.

They've, they've been a channel for many vendors for services and products, that could include, you know, metering systems, other, other kinds of equipment. They've, they've, they've done bulk purchasing, support, deployment of, of other systems. I think likely, that's, that's a way in which we could get to that next segment of customers. As you know, that's, you know, we're, we're focused initially on, on really where the, where the money is, which is in the larger IOUs. That's a, that's a segment that we're already starting to see, demand growing and, and we see opportunity.

Philip Cusick (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Yeah, I'll just add a little bit there. I mean, obviously-

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

... I've seen the announcements and stuff, too, and I think it's reflective of just kind of the broad industry-wide needs for communications, you know, digitalization, and adding resiliency and robustness. It's not unique to the IOUs, you know, even though they're our primary customer that we're targeting in the pipeline. So as Rob said, you know, I think looking at it as another channel, potentially, you know, and frankly, another area that we've seen some utilities start to explore is, you know, what other advantages, this is an IOU, for example, George, you know, what can they do to take advantage of, you know, a, a to-be-built private LTE network in terms of looking provided like-minded services to other constituents?

Not uncommon, you know, in the energy landscape either, you know, where other capabilities can be ported down, they provide services to others. You know, Southern Company is, is a great example of that, that we reference, who've used their network not just for their own services, but to be able to try to offer commercialization services to other industrial customers. Certainly we'll see, you know, a few of those opportunities kind of develop as they go forward.

George Sutton (Senior Research Analyst)

One other question on the Active Ecosystem. Obviously, you have a gaudy number of people that are working with you, 100 companies, I believe you referenced. You have 5 customers today. Obviously, those 100 companies are seeing a very different opportunity than what's represented by your current base. Can you just talk about any sort of examples of spending being done by those 100 companies to go after this opportunity, therefore suggesting that bigger opportunity?

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

Yeah. Yeah, I, I, I can't speak to specifics, but you, you're right in that they're participating in the ecosystem because it helps inform their understanding of the general trajectory of the market. You know, so by associating with the overall collective, and we hold, you know, kind of an annual event with them where we get together, we invite customers and prospective customers in to speak about what they're trying to do and where their private LTE journey is going. That informs, in like any product development business case, you know, those are critical inputs for them to understand kind of volumetrically what they see in their forecast to drive the R&D and vice- investment priorities in the form of chips and end devices and infrastructure solutions and services. So that's the particular reason why they're, why they're paying attention.

Let me add one other lens to it, too. You know, on top of this, we announced the formation of our Utility Strategic Advisory Board, which is our C-level governance structure, that is another reason why members participate in the ecosystem, and it's a specific value proposition that utilities can extract by having an association with us and that ecosystem. You know, so now through that, and that member group, you know, I'll just reflect back on, as we've been having sessions with them, we were face-to-face with them at EEI, down in Austin not that long ago. You know, having the opportunity to sit in the room with these C-level executives from the utilities, talking and having them share their experiences, because keep in mind, they're not all existing customers today, on the spectrum.

You know, so we've got participation there, you know, from some other large utilities that are hearing the lessons learned firsthand from the other utilities that have gone before them. More importantly, collectively, we're talking about the next set of priorities that those utilities collectively are seeing, so that we can drive and influence through the form of something that we call Collectives, just like we did with the cybersecurity Collective, to bring programs back into the Ecosystem so that we can create these programs, you know, that collectively, we try to put our heads together to find a way to tackle. Because honestly, the big picture of where this market's developing, the point aspects of the solutions aren't necessarily where the value is extracted.

You know, the tighter that we can bring these together and we can deliver real outcomes to the utilities, the more rapidly they're gonna be able to adopt them and extract value that ultimately helps them move forward with broadband faster, which, which is our goal.

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

George, it's Chris. You know, you had asked about sort of how they, and sort of what type of activity we're seeing from those 100+ members. You know, we, a full third of them have been developing products. In fact, I think it's, the number is like 21 have broadband-enabled products, already 900 MHz-enabled products. Those are, you know, those are companies like GE and Cisco and Motorola, Nokia, Ericsson. These are some of the, you know, the behemoths in both the utility sector and the wireless sector, who already have developed products, and they're commercially available. Another, you know, 10 or so have, like what we call showcase ready.

you know, 30, 30+ of our 100 already have products that they can either demonstrate or, or actively offer to utility customers. That aligns sensibly with what we're seeing this year, right? We're gonna see networks being built this year. you know, a number, number of our utilities are, are, are building towers, are putting up RAN, you know, deploying infrastructure. We're, you know, this is gonna be an exciting, active year in terms of, of really the deployment of, you know, 900 MHz and Anterix-enabled utility equipment.

George Sutton (Senior Research Analyst)

Gotcha. Perfect. Thanks, guys.

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question around the session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Rob Schwartz for any closing remarks.

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

Thank you, operator. Just in close, as I said earlier, the, the lagging stock price, the slowly developing market, frustrates us, no, no doubt. With that in mind, you know, as Tim said, we do intend, and we will use our proceeds from our contracts to take advantage of these prices to buy back stock. Really make no mistake, we remain confident in our future. We see activity throughout our pipeline. We see consistent signs of progress and intent, as we just shared with you all, and we appreciate everybody's patience and time today. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

The conference is now concluded. Thank you very much for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.