Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR) CFO Jessica Fischer outlined the company’s operating priorities, competitive backdrop, and expectations for profitability, capital spending, and strategic initiatives during a recent investor discussion. Fischer repeatedly emphasized a central objective for the company: returning its broadband business to growth by expanding what she described as “converged connectivity” while continuing to improve customer service and control costs.
Priorities: broadband growth, customer experience, and network work
Fischer said Charter’s “number one priority” is getting broadband “back to growth,” which she tied to continued expansion of the company’s converged connectivity offering. She framed the effort around several levers, including marketing the value proposition to customers, improving customer service, and continuing network investments.
She also pointed to efficiency as a key focus in a more competitive broadband environment, describing ongoing digitization and automation efforts intended to reduce costs without harming sales and service activity.
Competitive environment: fixed wireless, fiber, and Starlink
Asked for a first-quarter broadband update, Fischer declined to provide a specific “sub-number,” but said the market remains competitive. On fixed wireless, she said the “overall tension” is not significantly different from prior periods, while noting AT&T has put additional fixed wireless markets online over the last few quarters.
Addressing investor concerns about share trends in mature fiber markets, Fischer argued that definitions of market “maturity” can vary and said Charter continues to have market share greater than its fiber competitors in mature markets where it competes against fiber. She attributed that to factors including converged offerings across the footprint, incumbency advantages, differentiated products (including video), and an emphasis on improving customer service. She acknowledged there has been some impact from fixed wireless and that there is “new competition” in those markets, but said Charter continues to compete well against fiber.
On Starlink, Fischer said there is “not a discernible impact” on trends “right now,” but added that the company is watching developments closely.
Leadership and customer service: “game of inches”
Fischer discussed the appointment of Nick Jeffery as chief operating officer, saying his prior experience aligns with Charter’s current priorities—particularly around customer focus, messaging value and utility to consumers, and customer service execution.
On Net Promoter Score (NPS) performance, she said Charter continues to face the legacy of cable’s historical reputation with consumers. She pointed to changes in pricing and packaging implemented roughly a year and a half ago, including longer price locks and lower “roll-offs” after promotional periods. She also cited initiatives such as insourcing, upskilling employees, and providing better tools to frontline teams. Fischer said improvements can take time to register in the market and emphasized the need to eliminate “paper cuts” across the many daily customer interactions, describing customer experience improvement as a “game of inches.”
ARPU and pricing: value, mix, and bundling
Fischer reiterated Charter’s expectation to grow broadband ARPU this year, describing drivers that go beyond pure price increases. She cited mix shifts toward higher-tier speeds—such as selling more gig products and “two-by-one” products where available—along with higher sell-in rates than in the past.
She also highlighted value-added services such as Invincible WiFi and continued bundling in multi-product packages. Fischer said Charter had been slower than some peers to push higher-value sell-ins, which she believes leaves room for additional gains.
Discussing the company’s “Life Unlimited” pricing introduced last year, Fischer said Charter is “not satisfied” with broadband subscriber trends overall, but added that Life Unlimited was not solely designed to change subscriber trends immediately. She said the offering is working well by increasing the number of products per customer, which the company believes should make customers “stickier” over the medium and long term. Fischer also said the longer rate locks and lower roll-offs should, over time, help improve NPS. She added that Charter continually tests pricing and packaging, but said the company is happy with Life Unlimited’s performance in terms of bundling and offer structure.
Wireless, video, business services, and the path to EBITDA growth
In wireless, Fischer said industry promotional activity has increased and described some offers in the market as “probably irrational.” She said Charter has continued to grow without matching that level of promotionality, which she characterized as evidence of the value consumers see in Charter’s product and the company’s ability to generate solid financial returns.
On Charter’s recently announced messaging around guaranteed savings of $1,000 for customers switching from the “big three” wireless carriers, Fischer described it as a restatement of the value the company has been highlighting in investor materials: bundling broadband and mobile can save customers significant amounts of money. She said Charter is confident the offer works economically.
Fischer also discussed Charter’s MVNO relationships, noting renewals with Verizon and a new MVNO agreement with T-Mobile for business customers. She emphasized Charter’s owned wireless capabilities, saying its WiFi and CBRS network carries “88% of the data” delivered to mobile phones on its network. On profitability, she said mobile service margins excluding subscriber acquisition costs (SAC) can continue to improve as the business gains scale efficiencies and benefits from automation and digitization in customer service, adding she expects “meaningful” growth in that margin metric over the next several years.
On video, Fischer said the business remains challenged, particularly due to programmer rate increases that must be passed through to customers to maintain margin. However, she said Charter learned in 4Q that “adding value back into the product” matters, citing the inclusion of “$125 worth of programmer streaming apps” as a driver of stickiness. She also said the company saw, for the first time, an increasing number of customers returning to fully provisioned video products. Fischer said video margin compression remains real, but limiting that compression could help broadband and mobile growth stand out financially, while video also serves as a differentiator that can support broadband outcomes.
In business services, Fischer said the small business segment faces fixed wireless pressure similar to residential, though she believes the addressable portion for fixed wireless is smaller in small business. She said Charter has a “good right to win” in small business and expects growth to improve once past the current window of pressure. In mid-market and large business, she said Charter has continued to grow “pretty well,” despite wholesale pressure.
Fischer also connected business services opportunities to the proposed Cox acquisition, assuming it closes. She pointed to Cox’s hospitality business, investments including Segra and RapidScale, and said Charter could bring those capabilities across a broader footprint.
On EBITDA, Fischer said Charter has a plan to grow EBITDA this year, citing several puts and takes:
- Political advertising, which she expects to grow over the course of the year
- Continued growth in mobile revenue
- Broadband headwinds from customer losses offset in part by expected ARPU growth
- Ongoing margin pressure in video, despite fewer customer losses
- Cost efficiencies from automation and tools that reduce transaction costs and, in some cases, transaction volume
Looking beyond 2026, Fischer said confidence in longer-term EBITDA growth stems from Charter’s strategy of maximizing customers attached to its network by delivering value, the capabilities of its network (which she said delivers “more than 99% fiber” to customers), and continued cost efficiency opportunities. She also argued that fixed wireless is likely to become capacity constrained over time, and that fiber build economics have limits, which she believes could lead to a more rational competitive environment in the long run.
On capital spending, Fischer reiterated the company’s view that CapEx can fall to under $8 billion in 2028 and beyond, arguing elevated CapEx has been driven by expansion and network evolution initiatives. She said the expansion initiative is “essentially complete this year” and network evolution is “substantially complete by the end of 2027,” and that completing those initiatives is sufficient to reduce CapEx back below $8 billion.
Regarding the Cox acquisition, Fischer said the deal has received FCC approval and has all federal and state approvals except California. She said Charter is working with California to accelerate the process and maintained the original midyear closing timeline. She described key opportunities as applying Charter’s operating strategy—particularly pricing, packaging, and value messaging—across Cox’s footprint, where she said mobile and video penetration are “very low.” She also highlighted technology and advertising opportunities, as well as the potential to bring certain Cox strengths back into Charter’s broader footprint.
Finally, on future M&A after Cox, Fischer said Charter likes cable assets and will continue to evaluate opportunities that are at the right price and accretive to shareholders, adding that Cox integration should not limit Charter’s ability to pursue value-creating deals.
About Charter Communications (NASDAQ:CHTR)
Charter Communications, Inc is a U.S.-based telecommunications and mass media company that provides broadband communications and video services to residential and business customers. Operating primarily under the Spectrum brand, the company offers high-speed internet, cable television, digital voice (phone) and wireless services, as well as managed and enterprise networking solutions for commercial customers. Charter’s service portfolio targets both consumer and business markets with bundled and standalone offerings designed to meet streaming, connectivity and communications needs.
The company’s consumer-facing products include Spectrum Internet, Spectrum TV and Spectrum Voice, while Spectrum Mobile provides wireless service through arrangements with national wireless carriers.
