Anterix - Q2 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the Anterix Fiscal 2024 Second Quarter Investor Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need any 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, and if you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please also note that this event is being recorded today. I would now like to turn the conference over to Natasha Vecchiarelli. Please go ahead.

Natasha Vecchiarelli (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Communication)

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 Second 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 filings.

These files can be accessed on our website or on the SEC's website. After Rob provides his prepared remarks, 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, and thank you for joining us. As we continue to execute on our vision of an industry-wide movement centered on 900 MHz, I'm pleased to share that there has been significant progress made this past quarter across a number of key initiatives. Today, I'll focus my brief comments on three areas that emphasize our confidence in continuing to deliver value to our shareholders. First, I'll discuss our recently announced share repurchase program, which we'll be leveraging to transcend our anticipated contracted proceeds into shareholder value. Second, I'll provide examples of activities, accomplishments, and industry thought leadership that are important milestones on our path to move the utility industry in scale to 900 MHz private wireless broadband. And third, I'll provide an update on our customer-demonstrated intent scorecard. So let's start with our reviewing our new share repurchase program.

One way that we're marking our confidence in our future is through the robust share repurchase program we launched in September. Under the program, we have the ability to repurchase up to $250 million of our outstanding shares of common stock over a three-year period. With our current visibility, we see near-term opportunities in excess of this $250 million. We remain fully funded and are forecasted to have free cash flow for Fiscal 2024. In addition, we expect to receive $53 million in proceeds from our existing contracts during the remainder of this fiscal year. As we've said throughout our journey, Anterix is doing more than simply providing spectrum. Through our ongoing collaboration with our customers and a host of solutions providers, Anterix is enabling a nationwide platform for utilities that will support a resilient, secure, and clean energy future.

One of the most significant validators of our approach came last month during the Utility Broadband Alliance, or UBBA, Annual Summit. As many of you know, Anterix created, funded, and actively managed UBBA, and since 2019, UBBA has held an annual summit where leading utilities and the industry ecosystem come together with a specific and valuable focus of sharing experiences, use cases, and plans to build private wireless broadband networks. This year, Xcel Energy hosted this dynamic, sold-out event in Minneapolis, with more than 500 participants in attendance, including representatives from 35 utilities and increased C-level participation. To put it in perspective, the utilities in attendance represent more than 60% of our spectrum value. We also are pleased to have a group of investors and an equity analyst attend to witness this event directly. My thanks to those who participated.

At the show, I moderated a panel where several senior Xcel Energy executives, including their COO, shared insights on their 900 MHz private wireless LTE investment and how it will bring valuable business outcomes in support of Xcel's secure, resilient energy future. What was also visible in nearly all the sessions was that 900 MHz broadband was front and center. Our Anterix Active Ecosystem members were very well represented, showcasing 900 MHz-enabled devices and solutions. And Itron, an Anterix Active Ecosystem member and one of the industry's most respected technology and solutions providers, announced during the show that it now offers several 900 MHz-compatible devices, giving utilities and cities the flexibility to deploy and operate Itron solutions across Anterix-supported private LTE networks.

In the Anterix booth, we offered a live demonstration of CatalyX, our turnkey subscriber management and roaming solution that helps utilities realize even greater benefits from private broadband networks. We believe the growth of this forum directly correlates to our growing market and the opportunities we are driving and experiencing. Executive acknowledgment throughout the event that private wireless broadband is a critical asset underpinning most, if not all, of their primary utility objectives, strongly aligns with our effort to move the entire sector forward. The message that 900 MHz is a critical asset was again echoed last week, when EEI Foundation hosted a wildfire mitigation panel with our own COO and executives from SDG&E and Fortis.

The discussion, attended by representatives from more than 30 utilities, centered on combining a 900 MHz private LTE network with cutting-edge technology solutions to address critical existential issues facing the utility sector. SDG&E shared their updated experience on the deployment and successful operation of their wildfire mitigation solution. This executive-level industry focus has been reflected in the continuing significant movement we see within our demonstrated intent scorecard. As a reminder, the demonstrated intent metric, which we introduced several quarters ago, tracks the activity and movements of utilities across a range of 20 indicators toward a 900 MHz LTE contract. To summarize the scorecard movement, from just August until the beginning of November, of the utilities below the demonstrated intent threshold, seven have added a total of 11 demonstrated intent indicators to their scorecard.

Examples of these include the identification of a senior executive to lead the private LTE process, the provision of pricing data, exchange of contract language, and more. Currently, 16 utilities, representing approximately $900 million in potential contract proceeds, have crossed the demonstrated intent threshold, a point at which we believe indicates a high degree of confidence that a customer has clearly demonstrated their intent to move forward with Anterix on a 900 MHz contract. To give you a sense of the scale and intensity of the movement, in the last three quarters since we've introduced this measurement, we've recorded positive movement by customers on more than 60 new measurable indicators of intent throughout our DI scorecard. The totality of this activity and the indicators recorded on our scorecard underpin our confidence in continuing to deliver scale value to our shareholders.

Before I close, I'm pleased to note that we announced just a few days ago, Waseem Akhtar has joined Anterix as our Senior Vice President of Product Innovation, from a long career of bringing innovative solutions to utilities. He'll oversee the delivery of products and solutions that harness utility-owned 900 MHz private LTE networks in collaboration with our Anterix Active Ecosystem. We expect these solutions to produce value across the industry for utilities, ecosystem members, and Anterix shareholders. At Anterix, we continue to view the opportunity before us, not just by the water passing over the dam, but by the amount of water swelling behind it. I'll close with a summary of why I remain highly confident in our ability to continue delivering value to our shareholders.

The industry movement towards 900 MHz, represented at forums like UBBA's summit, the clear demonstrations of utility progress through our demonstrated intent scorecard, and finally, our confidence shown through our share repurchase program, and based on our visibility of the near-term opportunities in excess of $250 million. And with that, I'll turn it over to the operator for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw a question, you may press star then two. At this time, we will take our first question, which will come from George Sutton with Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

George Sutton (Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you. Nice to have you all in Minneapolis recently for UBBA. I'm curious if you've ever quantified, because, you know, the stark amount of both utilities and ecosystem partners that were represented at UBBA. Have you ever quantified the amount of investment being made by others to support and benefit from this ecosystem?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Hey, George, good morning, and thanks for the Minneapolis shout-out. It was great to be there for the UBBA event. I think I wanna make sure I understood your question clearly. You know, we do focus on the spectrum spend, clearly, of the ecosystem. You know, as we talked about, we had 60%, roughly, of our spectrum value represented at that recent Utility Broadband Alliance event in Minnesota. When you expand into the full ecosystem of partners that we have, I mean, we've said in the past that our spectrum represents, let's just say, roughly a third of the spend, and that varies based on the size and the nature of the build-outs. That's just of the network deployment full costs.

But obviously, the private LTE systems are part of much broader solution sets. Whether that's part of, you know, multi-billion dollar AMI RFPs, or whether that's part of large-scale SCADA systems that are being deployed or integrated into larger grid modernization projects, you know, when you look at the percentage of what the spend is for just the spectrum, it's a relatively small piece, compared to the grid modernization budgets. I mean, utilities are spending upwards of $150 billion a year in aggregate on capital projects, and so you can imagine that relative to what we're talking about, being a much smaller element of the overall budget.

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

Hey, George, it's Chris. You know, while we don't track the exact investment, one of the things, obviously, we're tracking membership in the active ecosystem, we talk about that regularly, but we also track those that have commercial-ready products, and that number keeps. So Itron, Rob referenced a few minutes ago. We're now at 23 companies that have commercial-ready products for 900 MHz. You know, within those companies, for some of them, there are a multitude of products. So we are seeing incredible, you know, third-party investment in this opportunity that... and platform that we're creating.

George Sutton (Senior Research Analyst)

... Well, for what it's worth, we summarized our takeaways as we're waiting on the inevitable. So, I'm curious, separately, if we could talk about the unfortunate situation in Hawaii and what happened there, and perhaps how boards at utilities have begun to respond with really moving this up to a much higher level of need rather than want.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Sure. Maybe I'll start on that and Ryan can add to it. A couple thoughts. First of all, we're actually, you know, reporting live here from Arizona at the EEI Financial Conference, where, you know, most of the C-suite of the IOUs, the investor-owned utilities, are gathering, talking about key issues and talking to their investors. You know, front and center is absolutely wildfire mitigation, unfortunately, given both the experience in Hawaii, but also the growing experience that many utilities are having. It's just been, you know, an ever-increasing issue, not just, you know, what used to be was an operational issue and then into kind of a logistics issue. Now it's, you know, a financial and liability issue, obviously, with what we've seen.

The level of focus and investment as a result, you know, Ryan, who can add some comments, who was on this, I mentioned in my comments on this, foundation, EEI Foundation call last week with the SDG&E wildfire leader, where they really had a chance to talk specifically about the application of private LTE 900 MHz on their wildfire mitigation plan, which they've now deployed on numerous circuits and actually seen positive results from it already. And so we think that that actual tangible realization of the solution set is gonna hopefully continue to spread throughout other utilities.

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

Yeah. Hey, George, Ryan here. Let me add a couple pieces of commentary. I agree with you, first off, you know, devastating to see the impact, you know, in Hawaii. You know, and the theme of the conversation, as Rob said, it's kind of not unique to Hawaii anymore, unfortunately. Part of the conversation we had with the foundation, this call was moderated by David Hutchens, the CIO of Fortis Energy, you know, was very specifically focused on, you know, just how pervasive, you know, these types of risks and threats are starting to become, moving out from beyond the West Coast. And, you know, I think there's a realism to it, you know, as we start going through these situations, around how do we be better prepared to deal with risks proactively?

You know, the specific topic that we were talking about with San Diego, and one of the benefits of the falling conductor protection solution is it's one of those technological solutions that's really purpose-built to be able to, you know, detect, you know, isolate, you know, and clear, you know, a line before it becomes a potential risk to ignite a fire. You know, quite different than detecting a fire and being able to drive mitigations and being able to, you know, slow it down or dispatch, you know, resources and crews. And so it's been a very important conversation, as Rob said, kind of risk and the risk attributes of it, you know, are very pervasive.

We're in many of these conversations actually here right now in Arizona at EEI. It is really a topic of the event, as they continue to manage risk and wildfire mitigation being one of those existential ones that are just impossible to ignore, given the both impact on human lives and the potential impact to you know drive utilities into bankruptcy. You know, and our role, you know, as it's continued to be identified, just how important it is to drive the advancement of multifaceted solutions to be able to deal with these kinds of risks, and technology is a major, major component to that, in addition to physical things like dealing with the tree canopy and pruning, you know, even elements of hardening and covered conductors, et cetera.

But the advancements of technologies are a necessary and critical component of that architecture, and being able to put those out there at pace, you know, is part of a solution.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Yeah, and George, Chris, I'll just finish it up by saying the rating agencies, right? So Moody's, S&P, Fitch, all of them are making this a focus. Fitch does a state of the sector breakfast every year that sort of helps to kick off this EEI financial that we're all at, and the entirety of their focus during the breakfast was on wildfire. As Ryan and Rob referenced, the risk issues and the impact, you know, the potential for bankruptcy, the existential elements of it, the payouts, things like that. So it is, as Ryan referenced, sort of front and center here, but you know, it's really illustrated in Fitch spending the entirety of the state of the sector breakfast that they do on this issue.

George Sutton (Senior Research Analyst)

Interesting stuff. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Thank you, George.

Operator (participant)

Our next question will come from Mike Crawford with B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Mike Crawford (Senior Managing Director and Head of the Discovery Group)

Thank you. Is there a second milestone you're expecting to occur with Evergy this quarter?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Mike, hey, this is Tim. So Evergy, they prepaid the $30 million at the beginning of the deal, right after we signed that one. I don't know if you're maybe referencing Exelon, but we've got money due from them this quarter, roughly twenty... Or excuse me, Xcel, not Exelon. I got the wrong name. But twenty million dollars due this quarter from them, you know, just roughly the same as we got last quarter.

Mike Crawford (Senior Managing Director and Head of the Discovery Group)

Okay, and then can you just remind me where the other $32 million is coming in, I guess, in the March quarter?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Correct. Yeah. So, we'll have another 16 from Xcel, and then we anticipate $50 million from LCRA as the beginning of that deal, which should come in actually December timeframe.

Mike Crawford (Senior Managing Director and Head of the Discovery Group)

... Oh, okay. Great, Tim. And then, I suppose what I can tell from your Demonstrated Intent is that you've had one additional utility representing about a $50 million licensing opportunity move into above the threshold, in the last three months. Is that accurate?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

That's correct.

Mike Crawford (Senior Managing Director and Head of the Discovery Group)

Okay. Thank you very much.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Thank you, Mike. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question will come from Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director)

Great. Thank you, and good morning. First on the buyback, nice to see the new program and the initiation on that. How are you thinking about cash balances and liquidity? And maybe you can kind of talk about the OpEx burn here, but should we think about basically taking the $53 net of the ongoing OpEx and then use that against buybacks? Is there any other way to think about it?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think, Simon, this is Tim. We would expect, you know, to wanna keep somewhere between $40 million and $50 million of cash on hand to cover the annual OPEX spend that we've got. And anything above that, we would consider, you know, looking at ongoing clearing. But outside of that, we'd look at that as kind of excess liquidity that we'd push into the buyback program. So we expect, you know, in this new program to be pretty active immediately. And so you'll start to see that as we report on the next few quarters.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director)

Great. Great. And, the T-Mobile and Dish, 800 megahertz is sort of coming to a head right now. The DOJ gave them, I think, until April, but I think Dish had said recently that their probability of being able to buy that spectrum from T-Mobile has dropped. There's other counterparties out there potentially looking at it, potentially for private networks. Would you be able to just comment on how that 800 fits against your 900, either for you as a partner or as a competitor? Would you have an interest in working around that?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Hey, Simon, it's Rob. So as you know, you know, we know that spectrum well since the origination of it was, you know... In fact, I think the license still say Nextel Communications on them.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director)

Of course.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

We follow them actively and you know, understand it. Our view is that you know, just broadly on any spectrum opportunities, we're always gonna be opportunistic in looking at ways to be able to you know, capture that for the benefit of our shareholders. You know, the specifics of the ongoing dialogues, both you know, in the courts and between the parties, you know, we talk to a lot of the folks, but also you know, read all the good research that you and others write about this. You know, it's hard to judge the tea leaves, but most likely, our view is that spectrum ends up within a valuable carrier network to do what carriers do well, which is serve you know, consumers enterprise.

Should it come to market in an auction, you know, there's a lot of hurdles that would have to go through in order to get there. You know, we'd be absolutely looking to see if there's opportunities for us, in whether it's in partnership with others, including the current or future owners of that spectrum. So just to go back to your other question, I just wanted to, you know, on the buyback piece, I think it's important to say, you know, that the— You heard it in my statement, but I wanna restate it. Our confidence in what we see in our near-term opportunities is really what gives us the confidence to put out that $250 million buyback program.

We've got great visibility of all the activities, spending time with these utilities, both, you know, at UBBA, and EEI, and so, really just gives us a strong confidence that we'll be able to utilize that program in the near future.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director)

Good. That, that's helpful. And then maybe just one last one. We continue to talk about LTE, but, you know, the carriers typically like talking about 5G and moving most of their traffic and most of their subscribers onto 5G devices, covering most of the country now. So what are you hearing from the utilities? And as this 5G ecosystem builds up, 5G standalone cores are out there, is there more interest in having a combo LTE 5G solution?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think, look, carriers don't like technology risk in any way. And so, you know, one of my favorite quotes from one of the leaders of Southern Company, you know, the pioneers in using private LTE, talks about 4G as being their workhorse. And we gotta realize, these LTE systems are replacing technologies they put out, you know, 15, 20, even 30 years ago. But what we're putting in place now, and there was a great forum at the Utility Broadband Alliance where we, along with Ericsson, Nokia, and Qualcomm, talked about the future of 5G on 900 MHz, of which all of them stated their high confidence of that migration path, and that's what the E in LTE is, right? The evolution.

But also, you know, the forward compatibility of the gear that's being sold by leaders like Nokia and Ericsson. So what utilities are putting in place now, you know, as infrastructure, will be software upgradable to be able to utilize 5G when they need it. There's no use cases today that are compelling that are driving that, but I'm certain there will be at the right time. And so, you know, we're signing 20-30-year relationships with these utilities, and so over that lifespan, we will continue to be their trusted advisor in helping them figure out that path of evolution.

And so we're working, you know, with the utilities and a lot of those ecosystem partners in the 3GPP process to make sure that our band continues to be supported through all the new revisions that occur. We're always looking at other ways of expanding our spectrum opportunity to, you know, in the future, should there be any additional needs. As utilities both serve their own needs, but they're also serving needs of other folks within their service territories, and those could be municipal and cooperative utilities... those could be other industrial entities. So, like, we think there's opportunities to take this initial infrastructure and continue to build upon it, both in services and products, but also in expanding to serve other parties, like-minded parties, what we like to say.

Simon Flannery (Managing Director)

Thank you.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Thanks, Simon.

Operator (participant)

If you have a question or a follow-up, please press star then one. Our next call will come from Walter Piecyk with LightShed. Please go ahead.

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Thanks. Rob, you've had, I think $500 million or so in phase three for, I guess, about a year. If there was, like, a phase four that you created where someone pens out, what, what, what do you think that would be in that mix of $500 million?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think, I mean, well, you know, we've had those phases out for you know since we've launched our commercial operations, you know, post the FCC ruling. We added demonstrated intent really to give you that kind of granularity and think of it in from a different facet. And so, you know, we're measuring element by element of the things that utilities are doing that are moving them through those phases and really driving them towards a contract process. So I think when you're looking for that kind of granularity within that phase, you know, our DI, as we call it, is probably the right way to understand that progress.

So when you see the movement that we've had, you know, just in the few quarters that we've been reporting, that continues to expand, even as we've had entities like LCRA signed, and they obviously fall out of that in a good way. We continue to see growth in those, as we say, above that threshold, where they're showing enough elements to show that they're, you know, showing significant intent that we have confidence about them contracting.

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

But maybe I'm confused. The DI is... That's a different tracker, right? Is that, so DI is, or demonstrated intent, is after someone's been in this phase three bucket, where it's, I think what's how do you describe it? Phase three, negotiation and commitment phase. So DI is after that, or is that before that?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Yeah, it's intersecting. I almost say, you know, so think about the-

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Ah.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

The three phases as kind of the classic, you know, sales funnel as we're tracking through those three categories. But DI measures on many more characteristics of the things that we've realized are indications of them getting to contract.

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Is it like a concentric circle-

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Ryan, do you wanna-

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Where DI, so all the DI is in phase three right now? Is that, do I have that right?

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

DI is actually, Walter, it's Ryan here. DI is actually covering phase two and phase three, specifically, you know, the 16 deals we referenced. But Rob said, like, it's intended to provide more overlap, you know, and, you know, granularity with the 20 metrics of the items. I'll give you one example. You know, there's different things that happen in the phases of the pipeline, but very specifically in DI, you know, one of the elements that we noted here, you know, is it when we're actually specifically passing contract papers. You know, and it was one of the pieces that we were flagged on. It obviously happens within the phases of the pipeline, but it's a very specific measure, obviously, of intent, as we're starting to, you know, pre-negotiate terms, for example.

Obviously, we don't break those out into a separate phase of the pipeline as we can't get down to that level of granularity.

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Well, that sounds like... But the way you describe it, that, the way you describe it sounds like negotiation and commitment. So I would think that all of DI should be in phase three, no?

Ryan Gerbrandt (COO)

Well, not all of them are at that level of step. That's one of 20 things, you know, so there's several other pieces, you know, that are equally important while we're even getting prepared for that. And that's why we've got some at, you know, kind of later stages of phase two, you know, as they work their way into phase three.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Just keep in mind also, we've had entities that have, you know, jumped past those phases. Some of the deals we've done where they've gone from a standing start, relatively, you know, below the threshold in DI and not in phase three, and suddenly accelerated because they, you know, for one reason or another, they've moved forward and contracted. So it's two different facets to the way we look at our customer flow, but we're happy to go into it in more detail with you.

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Okay. The DI, I guess, I guess I could ask my first question, maybe target at DI. So if there's a DI plus or a DI max in media terms, where someone's pen is out and getting ready, like, how much of the demonstrated intent is getting you closer to actually getting something on the table?

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think, you know, to bring our third number on the table in there, I think, you know, the what we just talked about with our share buyback program, by putting out that scale, and saying that we have visibility in our near-term opportunities in that scale, that's really what I'd... That's how I'd probably answer that question, Walt. You know, we-

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Okay.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Again, we have a strong influence on these opportunities. We can't predict the precise timing, but what we're seeing is this kind of broad movement and you're really trying to identify that tip of the iceberg. I think that's the best way to talk about the scale of what we're seeing.

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Okay. Just a question for Chris. You know, Biden put some stuff out yesterday, I think, who was it? I guess, I'm blanking on his name, not, Carr, had some negative, you know, Commissioner Carr had some perhaps negative things to say, but basically just saying it was kind of bullshit and that none of that spectrum was gonna hit the market anytime soon. I'm just curious, kind of, can you give us your take on, like, does any of that spectrum hit the market? Is that stuff that your utilities would look at, as they've looked at CBRS in the past, in terms of being integrated with the low-band spectrum that you can have to offer?

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

Yeah, I mean, Walt, I think, first of all, I think the process of getting that spectrum and the nation's sort of spectrum plan to market will take some time. I... You know, we're always excited to see potential spectrum opportunities, as Rob referenced, whether it's, you know, 800 or other bands that we think can be accretive and valuable and beneficial to our shareholders, and additive, like CBRS.

... you know, can be complementary to our, to our 900. So we definitely track that. You know, that spectrum will have to go through a process at the FCC. Much of it will likely be auctioned. You know, so we certainly are aware of it. You know, what we're doing and, you know, you've heard us talk about this, you've heard this theme throughout many of our calls, is we're building a solution set, sort of an ecosystem of solutions, that makes our spectrum different than other spectrum opportunities. Because it's wrapped into, you know, 110 companies and 11 utility strategic advisory board members. All the things we talk about, you know, in terms of creating value and creating solutions for the sector.

But certainly, if other, you know, opportunities from a spectrum perspective come, you know, come to play, we will be actively aware and participating.

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

I mean, where do you think the government is right now? Obviously, the government can change, you know, shortly, but where, where are they right now in terms of shared spectrum? There's been a lot of debate around CBRS. I mean, the cable guys claim they're using it, but it doesn't seem like it's actually getting deployed aggressively yet. Your customers have integrated it. Do you think that shared spectrum is something, for the future, regardless of who's in charge at the FCC? Or has it kind of lost its luster?

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

Yeah, so micro, macro. So I'll take micro. The sector we're serving, they want and need control. They want and need certainty. And so the idea of, you know, relying completely on a shared spectrum opportunity is just not in their core way of thinking. And so, you know, when you talk about CBRS, there are some utilities who bought those PAL licenses. Even those have some unique aspects and traits to them. And so we, you know, we likely will see many of them pursuing, you know, Anterix and 900 MHz. But shared... Then I'll go macro. Shared from a macro perspective, I think there are spectrum bands that only can be shared going forward. And so I think, I don't think the concept of shared will go away.

I think we'll still see it from time to time and in certain bands. And there is a little bit of a political element to it. Shared is appreciated more by the Democratic side of the aisle, and licensed and exclusive is generally. But both parties, I think, understand the benefit of both sides. And so, you know, the luster, you know, rises and falls from time to time, but I think we'll see both a shared spectrum model going forward and an exclusive licensed auctioned model going forward as well.

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Okay, and then just last question. You know, given the low-band nature of your spectrum, have you received any inquiries, anyone sniffing around in the satellite industry, perhaps LEO constellations that are planned or in process, that are looking for, you know, some additional uplink that they could use in order to achieve their, their goals of trying to provide satellite connectivity to phones?

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

Yeah, well, I think, look, we're watching, talking with leading vendors on all those fronts, you know, nothing specific to really share there. You know, we're really focused on saying this low-band spectrum has such high value for our utility partners and what they're doing. Absolutely, the eventual hybrid approach of terrestrial and satellite makes sense for them and others, and so not as a replacement, as a complement. And we foresee that will be a product that will also, you know, continue to supplement. I mean, it's just like what we've watched over the decades with carriers' evolution, starting with low-band and all the supplemental things they've added to those networks, the layer cake, other elements of technologies to strengthen those systems. We'll see the same thing here.

900 will be the foundational element for these utilities and other critical infrastructure, and we'll expand from there. And I'm sure that will include satellite over time.

Walt Piecyk (Partner and TMT Analyst)

Roger that. Thank you.

Chris Guttman-McCabe (Chief Regulatory and Communications Officer)

Thanks, Walt.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Rob Schwartz for any closing remarks.

Rob Schwartz (President and CEO)

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everybody, for joining us today. We're really looking forward to continue to share our progress, over time, and we'll talk to everyone soon. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect your lines.