Earnings Labs

Anterix Inc. (ATEX)

Q1 2021 Earnings Call· Wed, Sep 16, 2020

$46.76

-1.99%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-12.56%

1 Week

-24.17%

1 Month

-22.84%

vs S&P

-25.34%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Anterix Investor Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode and the floor will be open for your questions and comments following the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Natasha Vecchiarelli. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

Natasha Vecchiarelli

Management

Thank you, Catharine. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us. With me today are Morgan O'Brien, our Executive Chairman; Rob Schwartz, our President and CEO; Ryan Gerbrandt, our COO; and Tim Gray, our CFO. Before we begin, please note that any statements we make during this call that are not based on historical facts constitute forward-looking statements and our actual results could differ materially from those implied. Information regarding the risk factors that could cause such differences can be found in our public filings, report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on May 18, 2020 and quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2020 filed with SEC, August 6, 2020. Form 10-K and Form 10-Q can be found on our Investor Relations webpage. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Morgan O'Brien.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Thanks, Natasha. Welcome back, and good afternoon to our investors. Today is my first opportunity to address this audience since in July, Anterix promoted Rob Schwartz to the role of CEO and made me as the Executive Chairman of the Board. In my new role, I'll continue to pursue my highest priority of building shareholder value. But I'll do that by assisting Rob and his team to run the company. At the outset, let me say that the transition has been seamless, and I could not be happier with our progress and outlook. I want to reserve the bulk of our time this afternoon for Rob and for Ryan Gerbrandt, our Chief Operating Officer, to report on the many areas of progress that they're managing. So, I can't pass up the opportunity after all these years to share one last report on the FCC Report and Order. As expected, the FCC rulemaking process, which included the issuance of that order came to an end on August 27 without any party asking the FCC to reconsider the rules that are adopted to create the 900 megahertz broadband opportunity, or the FCC changing its mind on its own motion. So, this date passing means finality for the rules, which are foundational to our business case and gives us the unique position at 900 megahertz to bring nationwide broadband to the critical infrastructure industries. Our analysis of the new rules, plus constructive further discussions with FCC staff, corroborates our view that this outcome could not have been better for our shareholders. We believe your patience has been rewarded amply. A quick introduction from my chair, this afternoon’s reports from Rob, Ryan, and Tim includes these highlights. Our message of the availability of new wireless broadband spectrum has been promulgated extensively by media of…

Rob Schwartz

Management

Thanks, Morgan, and good afternoon, everyone. As I'm sure many of you remember, our last Investor Call in May marked the tremendous milestone of our FCC rulemaking. The issuance of the 900 megahertz Report and Order, which just about two weeks ago formally reached the end of the process as we passed the 40 day period on the Federal Register publication. As Morgan said, we couldn't be much more pleased with the outcome. So with the closing of this FCC chapter, we at Anterix are now completely focused on the next important phase, the execution of our business model, monetizing our spectrum to enable private LTE networks for utilities and other critical infrastructure entities throughout the U.S. And with the tailwinds from this rulemaking, we've experienced considerable progress with the growth of our company, with key developments in the utility industry, and most importantly, with our prospective customers. I'm going to touch on these three key items and then I'll happily pass it to Ryan, in his role will take you through more detail on our customer progress. As Morgan mentioned, we recently implemented our long-planned succession and I'm honored and humbled to be addressing you today in my new capacity as CEO. I thank Morgan, Brian, and the rest of the Anterix Board for their confidence in my continued leadership. I'm also incredibly proud of the expanded leadership team that we’ve put in place to execute on our commercial mission, and to steward Anterix into this next exciting chapter. In addition to our COO, Ryan Gerbrandt, we've made key senior hires, including sales and HR leadership. They've also empowered our team across the organization with a renewed focus on the execution of our customer-centric mission, driving customer adoption of our 900 megahertz spectrum to enable valuable private LTE networks…

Ryan Gerbrandt

Management

Thank you, Rob. And good afternoon, everyone. It's my pleasure to be able to join you all for the first time on the Anterix investor call, and I look forward to the ongoing opportunity to share my perspectives with you based on nearly 20 years of working with and providing technology solutions and services for critical infrastructure industries, namely utilities. As Rob and Morgan have previously noted, I had the privilege of joining the Anterix team in March of this year, and we've been extremely active since then preparing to unleash our capability to capture this growing market. Organizationally, we've been expanding our sales and commercial support resources and are on track to more than double this capacity before the end of the calendar year to meet this growing demand. Let me start by providing a high level view of how we see the market response and our substantial progress and commercial readiness post Report and Order. Overall by our last count, Anterix plus the broader industry has facilitated no fewer than 50 panels, publications, webinars and sessions that have been geared toward driving awareness of the FCC decision and how utilities with this new broadband spectrum tool could leverage its foundational mission-critical qualities to build and deploy private LTE. The word is out, 900 megahertz broadband spectrum, deployed with the global standard of LTE is a unique opportunity for laying the foundation of the modernized grid. As a result of these conversations and publicity, our customer engagements and ecosystem opportunities continue to grow. The pace is increasing, customers are initiating contact and we've seen a growing number of customer engagements proceed toward the selection of private LTE networks for their operations. With the breadth of this growing demand, our primary focus remains on the larger investor owned utilities as…

Tim Gray

Management

Thanks, Ryan, and good afternoon, everyone. How does our current pipeline relate to our previously stated revenue projections? Even without the assumption of additional customers coming into the pipeline, based on our current pipeline, we believe we will meet the fiscal year 2024 revenue goals that we have previously laid out. Note that our focus on fiscal 2024 factors in spectrum clearing and the fact that we have always understood that the decision-making and approval processes at utilities, as Ryan just explained, are time-consuming, and we built these into our model. Turning to our cash position. We ended June 2020 with approximately $125 million of cash and are debt-free. As a reminder, during our last update call in May, I stated that we expect to spend a total of $50 million to $60 million during our current fiscal year, which is inclusive of $20 million to $30 million in spectrum-clearing investments and approximately $30 million of operating expenses. We remain on track to spend within this forecasted range. And as I've discussed previously, we do expect our expenses to continue to gradually rise over this fiscal year as we add resources to enhance our organizational capabilities. The funding of our business plan would be assisted by the initial demand that we are seeing for prepaid leases. Based on our current discussions with our potential investor-owned utility customers, we now believe some of these customers will opt to prepay their spectrum lease there upfront or over the first 2 years of the lease. Prepayments of IOU spectrum leases appear to be an easier path forward for them, providing them the ability to capitalize their spectrum investment. It is still too early to tell that this will be a trend for a majority of our utility customers going forward. But as we've…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Your first question is coming from George Sutton. Your line is live.

George Sutton

Analyst

There was more discussion on rate cases and infrastructure funding and sort of the help that I think you'll provide the utilities in moving forward. And I'm just curious if -- was that an expected part of the process or has that been added as you're finding that to be part of the friction towards getting deals done?

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Hey, George, it's Morgan. Let me give a brief answer and then turn it perhaps to Rob. I would say we knew from the outset what a complex environment the investor and utilities operate within. So on the one hand, you have their great advantage that they can invest huge amounts of capital if they prove that it's a prudent investment and they can actually earn a return on it. So that put them solidly in our sites from the beginning. So we knew the complexity of the process. But of course, we're getting more and more savvy as we bring in all these experts. Rob, how do you want to amplify that?

Rob Schwartz

Management

Yes. I think it's spot on, George. No, I would not say it's anything new, it's just the opposite. We've been talking about our top-down and our bottom-up strategy approach to the segment from really when we started in that. We always saw that having top-down is our regulatory team, which was spread between the FCC and the industry now with the completion of the FCC process, we're really laser-focused on the industry regulatory. And on this advisory council, I talked about, we have former commissioners from California, as we mentioned, but also Texas and Illinois and experts from different areas of the utility industry, really helping what I think considered grease the skids and prepare the elements so that the rate cases get approved quicker so that regulators understand this. And the last piece you asked about sort of the federal funding. Obviously, you're reading as everyone else is about all of the potential for stimulus funding that's going to come through on a bipartisan basis potentially. And we definitely see -- just like history, I talked about it in 2009, the way money came through and flowed to a lot of the smart grid deployment, the smart meters that got deployed throughout the industry, we see another opportunity to be able to capitalize on this important need with the potential for more funding. And so, we're also helping and focusing those resources on driving to make sure they get their fair share of that for -- to put out broadband private networks.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Yes. And I would say that partly, we're now in response mode because we're getting more and more awareness as a result of the education coming from the PoCs. They're now asking us. We used to feel like fish out of water at NARUC meetings. Now we're right in the thick of things with high-quality advisers we’ve brought on. But it's a complex process to bring in a whole new category of capital investment into this space and demonstrate that it's prudent in an industry in which following is a lot more prevalent than leading. So nothing new. But for now, this is part of the sign of momentum. We're now in it. We're in that big dimension of getting these things to real term contracts.

George Sutton

Analyst

Got you. I'm curious on the timing of the CBRS auction and the decisions. Do you think that, that had some complicating factor? While it's simply complementary to what you're doing, it may have held up some moves forward by some of the utilities until they knew what their position would be?

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Well, I think absolutely, yes. What do you think, Rob?

Rob Schwartz

Management

Yes. I think, as we mentioned, the ones that we're working with, which is most of those who have received -- got winning bids through the auction process as everyone has seen have had really multi-band approaches. And really, when you look at the broader telecom landscape of utilities, they're using fiber, they're using lease lines, they're using commercial systems as well. And so private LTE is going to be a critical important element, but they're going to continue to use other bands, other technologies in filling out the full gamut of what they require. CBRS is a piece of that. And so yes, absolutely, I think there were utilities who were watching to see what happened in an auction. Again, our view that there was real capital put down in that auction by utilities that shows for the first time publicly about the -- beyond Southern Company that there's lots of other utilities that are interested in building private LTE. And CBRS has a very specific use case that I talked about, but if you really want to do service territory wide coverage, you have to have low band and really 900 as the ultimate solution right now in the marketplace, we think it puts us in a really great position. And again, the CBRS auction has not just increased awareness within the utility sector, which it has, the ecosystem that's growing of vendors and solution providers continues to expand. And those are providers of LTE technologies that typically are working across multiple bands. And so we're also going to see real benefit from that as well.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Let's take another last perspective on this. I think it's extremely positive. Historically, the utility industry took the position, they took it at the FCC repeatedly. We can't participate in auctions. We're not able to raise the capital to invest in spectrum. And we just saw a number of them obviously having overcome that participate in this auction. They'll participate in additional auctions, I am sure. We -- looking at the utility industry, there's something where we seek to be a long-term partner, we're fine with this movement. We think it's absolutely positive as the industry steps up -- finally, you might say, steps up to begin making considerable investments in spectrum. And since ours is foundational, we think it all bodes well for us.

George Sutton

Analyst

One more question, if I could. This is directed to Ryan. You mentioned that there are a number of others planning pilots and would love to have number of quantified, if possible. And also, any sense on the pilot cycle? Like what is the timeframe of contemplating a pilot to just simply getting a pilot in the works and announced?

Ryan Gerbrandt

Management

Yes. Excellent. Let me tackle the second half. Just give an expectation of kind of how utilities contemplate their cycles and what they're doing would be with pilots. They typically -- if you think about just the pilot cycle. So after all this, you’d have gone through some exercises, I mentioned, in the educational process, kind of the prework of getting to the point of the pilot, it's pretty common that what we're going to see is that, that testing time might take between 3 to 6 months. And so you have kind of a total duration in there of that plus whatever that incremental time is upfront and on the back. What you generally see with time, and I kind of made this point, is that the way that utilities pilot and test, it will be something that generally comes down with time. They do tend to share information on test outcomes and the process associated with those conclusions. And so it's been helpful in general, I'll say, in terms of with experience and with the level of sharing across the utilities. We're generally going to see the industry collaboration shorten that time. Now back to your first -- the first part of your question. Unfortunately, I can't get into the specific number of it. But safe to say, it's a handful of additional ones to the utilities that we already have with the experimental licenses, and we'll certainly hope to see more and be able to talk about them as the experimental license comes out here in the future.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Just let me just make one last point. Keep in mind that for a lot of these super conservative utilities, we've had rules authorizing us to go forward for exactly 1.5 week or 2 weeks. So this is new to them.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is coming from Phil Cusick. Your line is live.

Phil Cusick

Analyst

A couple of things. So first, as you think about the market -- reasonable market price for Ameren, how can you comp that to CBRS? And does that have any impact on how you talk to customers about potential spectrum prices?

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Rob, do you want to do that or Tim?

Rob Schwartz

Management

I'm sorry, Morgan. My phone actually cut off for a second. So if you can either repeat the question or -- I apologize.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Maybe Tim, did you -- Tim, did you hear the question?

Tim Gray

Management

Yes, Rob. I'll just repeat it real quick and then we can between the two of us tag team it. How is CBRS impacted when we look at regional pricing? And is there any real impact there? So -- and as Rob mentioned….

Phil Cusick

Analyst

And how does that compare to the price on the Ameren contract?

Tim Gray

Management

Yes. I don't think there's any significant impact on pricing or really any real impact on pricing as it relates to under 1 gigahertz wide area of coverage spectrum. So -- but Rob, do you want to add to that?

Rob Schwartz

Management

Yes. Sure. Look, so as you know well, Phil, and we've read your research about the difference of valuation on spectrum in low band, mid band, high band. I don't think there were any surprises from CBRS. On the aggregate, there clearly were some counties where there were anomalies. But overall, I think we saw what we expected. And we really look at the -- when we talk about fair market value spectrum, as we've talked about before, the previous auctions, 600 megahertz AWS to come up with -- in other private market transactions, what we think is fair market value. And as I mentioned in my comments, the Ameren agreement, as we see it coming to completion is going to be within what we think of as a very fair range of fair market value. So I think it's supportive. So no surprises for us from CBRS and it keeps us in line with what we think for the value of low-band spectrum separately from CBRS with Ameren specifically.

Phil Cusick

Analyst

Okay. Okay. And then second, there was a comment -- I'm sorry, the guy who is new on the call.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Ryan.

Phil Cusick

Analyst

Talking about principles making it into -- Ryan, planning documents. And is that sort of principles you've been espousing that are making it into RFPs? And maybe you can give us some examples of things like that?

Morgan O'Brien

Management

That's for you, Ryan.

Ryan Gerbrandt

Management

Yes. Got it. Yes. They make their way into a broad set of documents. But definitely, as we see, not just the language and the principles that Anterix is defining, but the broader understanding, some of the points I mentioned around this intersection between the importance of connectivity and the other kind of grid programs that are tend to be aligned to the outcomes that are associated with those use cases. And we'll see those come out. Sometimes they're in the form of technical documents that we may see in terms of a description of how those pieces come together. We can also see in other areas, as you suggest, more formal proceedings that preempt some of the regulatory process that just describes utility programs and how they envision the pieces coming together. And that's usually at a stage that before, obviously, they're doing the formal regulatory recovery programs in general and covers, like I said, the general principles around kind of how the avenues of spectrum and private LTE might fit in.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is coming from Simon Flannery. Your line is live.

Simon Flannery

Analyst

So on the Ameren deal, where are we on clearing in that geography? And how should we be thinking about revenue recognition assuming you do close that one, let's say, in the kind of before year-end? Would that mean you'd start recognizing revenues in the December quarter? Or what's the right way to think about that? And if you've got any color on whether they might be one who might consider the upfront payments? And then I think in the spring, you'd said that you hope to sign another one to two deals beyond Ameren by March of '21. Given what you've been saying about the kind of the time line here, is that still your expectation or has that got pushed a bit?

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Hey, Rob, do you want to try it?

Rob Schwartz

Management

Sure. So on Ameren's clearing, Simon, I'd say we're on track. It happens to be a very good market. And that we always talked about the spectrum being underutilized, that's a market where there are less incumbents, and we've been making great progress. And so I think we're on the right path to be able to deliver based on what is the build schedule that we know of, of Ameren. So I don't think there's any surprises there. On the revenue recognition, Tim, maybe you want to talk about that a bit. I know we can't reveal the detail, but how we would recognize at least.

Tim Gray

Management

Yes. So Simon, I would expect in our -- in the first quarter of our next fiscal year, we would start to be able to recognize revenue assuming they sign in relative short order.

Simon Flannery

Analyst

Is that the June quarter, is it?

Tim Gray

Management

Yes. Exactly.

Simon Flannery

Analyst

Okay. And anything on the upfront payment? Is that something they're talking about?

Rob Schwartz

Management

Yes. Unfortunately, Simon, we can't reveal the details of that because we are still under NDA. But again, as I said, I'm hoping we'll be able to do that soon when we come to a conclusion. And then, at that point, we'll give a lot more details about the terms.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

And on retuning, I think we mentioned this before, but if we did -- there's sort of one dominant player in St. Louis. And so it was important to get a deal with that player, which we did. And so now it's working through the process of moving around the various operations to get them off broadband and on to narrowband. So that's all very positive.

Tim Gray

Management

And Simon one of the technical things, I know you appreciate also. As we do clear our 3x3 is that because of the LTE standard configuration of starting with a 1.4, the smallest, I think we've been going up to a 3x3, we actually have the opportunity to utilize that part of the band in advance of clearing the full band. And we've looked with a number of utilities at the way in which that could be used. Because you can imagine, when they first put in service, they don't need the full 3x3. And so we actually have a glide path in our clearing very often that allows us to deliver the 1.4 first and then get to a 3x3.

Simon Flannery

Analyst

Okay. And on subsequent leases?

Tim Gray

Management

So I would say that we're -- you heard Ryan's comments about the pipeline. And Ryan, feel free to add any more comments. We're on course as we gave you all the right qualifications that these are difficult beasts to predict in the process of getting from -- getting to yes. But based on the robustness of our engagement with a lot of utilities at the bottom end of the -- of our pipeline, we're optimistic we'll be able to reach those targets.

Simon Flannery

Analyst

And then you talked a lot about LTE. Obviously, 5G is ramping here. And how has 5G sort of played into your conversations?

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Yes. So well, my answer is that our conversations always assume that there's going to be a migration from 4G to 5G in some way or another. Rob, anything you want to amplify?

Rob Schwartz

Management

What sticks in my mind, we've mentioned previously, but Southern Company’s Alabama Power hosted the Utility Broadband Alliance. And the keynote speaker was Tami Barron, the CEO of their telecom business, Southern Linc. And really addressing that question right upfront, she had talked about that they have a 4G system in place built by Ericsson, and that it's software upgradable from their view to 5G. And they said, currently, every use case they have is being well solved by it. But when it makes economic sense for them to upgrade, they will. And so we kind of take the same approach that that's why we're using LTE, that's why we go with the global standard, and especially those utilities that are now looking at that -- at new technology and equipment for 4G systems that most of the vendors are talking about the software upgradability of those systems. And so we believe that there's a natural glide path when they need it -- if they need it and when they need it. So we definitely see 5G on the radar as the technology gets optimized for the use of private networks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is coming from Mike Crawford. Your line is live.

Mike Crawford

Analyst

Mike Crawford from B. Riley Securities. So I understand your reticence to talk about exactly what you consider to be fair market value in a more quantifiable aspect. But maybe if we get back to, Tim, when you were reiterating your continued guidance of $125 million to $150 million of revenues by 2024. But you didn't say whether that was still through contracts of 6 to 11 of the top 20 IOUs or some different mix, given the other discussions you had about -- the other disclosure you had about now being in discussions with three quarters of the nationwide value packages?

Tim Gray

Management

Yes. So when we talk about the $125 million to $150 million, Mike, it was using 6 to 11 of the top 20 IOUs. That mix maybe slightly different to get the $125 million to $150 million to where the pipeline looks right now. But from a revenue perspective, we're still on track.

Mike Crawford

Analyst

Maybe on a up or down level of -- directionally, what’s your consideration of the fair market value of the spectrum? Has that changed?

Rob Schwartz

Management

Yes. I can jump in there. Mike, yes, I think as I said earlier, it hasn't changed. We -- our pricing model that we’ve develop our leases on and really get supported by numerous third parties often in our conversations with utilities, it's valuable to have other entities that come in. And really, I think Ryan talked about, the education of these customers is a key part of the first stage. These utilities have not been through all the work that all of us have, understanding value of spectrum, following spectrum auctions. And so just the education of historical pricing and what is fair market value. So our view is that there's still strong support for the rationale for the pricing we have, which is based on, as I talked about, all the elements of fair market value. Just going back to the 6 to 11 that we talked about a while back, that was really an illustrative example that you could take 6 to 11 of the top 20 customers to say that's the range of mix of the top 20. Obviously, as we talk about a much bigger pipeline now beyond those top 20, the mix could be different, but our objective of hitting those targets are still the same.

Mike Crawford

Analyst

Okay. And then, Rob, you also talked about this 1.4 glide path that we talked about in the past as well. But given that, that is the way that many of these potential agreements might roll out, does that also mean that even in the case where you're getting the upfront, well, how is that going to affect potential cash flows coming in from leases?

Rob Schwartz

Management

Yes. It -- unfortunately, it depends, and there's some of the details, which I can't really put out there yet because we're in different discussions and different mechanisms to be able to do that. I don't mean to be too vague. But absolutely, we could have pro rata pricing based on the spectrum that we deliver in some cases. So you may see a ramp-up in payments to get the full payment at a 3x3. Others were that we talked about where there might be prepayments, it's going to be less consequential. And others are looking for more spectrum upfront that could be in markets where there's more spectrum available. So I think you're going to see a range of outcomes relative to that issue.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is coming from James Ratcliffe. Your line is live.

James Ratcliffe

Analyst

Two quick ones, if I could. Just on the FY '24 revenue goal. Is reaching that affected at all about whether leases are prepaid versus pay-go or is the revenue recognition essentially the same? And second, just a follow-up on the CBRS spectrum. Anything in this auction that has caused you to change your view not just about absolute spectrum value, but about the relative value of spectrum in various markets when you look at that mix?

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Rob?

Rob Schwartz

Management

I think I'm going to -- I'll take the second one first, the CBRS one, because I think I addressed that earlier and, Tim, I'll pass the revenue recognition to you. Now as I said previously, the CBRS auction, I think -- and honestly, I'm reading all of your research, so it's great to be answering the question to the analysts about it. But I think we all saw what we would say at least fair market value or full value for that mid-band spectrum at 3.5 spectrum. And to us, it just solidifies the kind of values that we're talking about for our spectrum based on some of the historical auctions. We didn't see many anomalies. Ryan has said, there was a couple of counties that were sort of a bit out of whack for particular reasons. But otherwise, I think it continues to be supportive of both the aggregate value, but also the variation in pricing market by market, right, with places where spectrum is below average from a cost standpoint in places where it's above-average. But on the whole, we think it was pretty supportive.

Tim Gray

Management

Yes. And on the recognition, James, so from a revenue perspective, it's still going to be -- even if it's prepaid, it's still going to be straight line over the life of the lease. So the dollars related to a theoretical prepayment would be built into how we'd looked at the $125 million to $150 million.

Operator

Operator

And your last question is coming from...

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Hey, Rob, before we -- for one second. Haven't you also made the point that when you look at fair market value of CBRS payments versus on valuation, you have to add the significant fees that SAS, that the coordination process impose?

Rob Schwartz

Management

That is a good point. I think one that isn't really captured much by the research. But you all know, right, I've talked earlier about the SAS, right, the role of the spectrum coordination and the fees per endpoint. As you deploy a significant network, actually can add up pretty significantly as an operating expense, too, versus the capital expense, which is the purchase of the spectrum. Some of the models we've looked at, we've seen almost an equivalent cost, if you take the spectrum. So almost 50% increase of the cost when you add on those SAS costs as well, depending on -- it's based on the number of both base stations and endpoints that are higher power. So that is an important point, Morgan, I'm glad you brought it up.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

And I think the other point is that if you're down in the weeds, and you guys realize it, but others not realize that the PAL license is secondary in many places to -- is a practical manner to the Navy's use of it, and it's a complicating factor in encumbrance. And if you're in a place like San Diego or a lot of the West Coast, it's a factor impinging on value.

Operator

Operator

Your last question is coming from Chase White. Chase, your line is live.

Chase White

Analyst

Just a couple, if I may. So the first question I have is that any updates or feedback on -- from UPS on their testing of the 900 megahertz spectrum with their external license? And any meaningful interest from other non-utility critical infrastructure entities outside of UPS? You don't have to mention any names, but just curious.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

I think that falls into your bucket, Ryan.

Ryan Gerbrandt

Management

Rob, maybe you want to start with the UPS. I can hit the other segment.

Rob Schwartz

Management

Particularly on UPS. So not a lot of continued progress. I think what we've seen with COVID, and I think everyone sees this with the delivery of the UPS packages, UPS has been pretty busy working on some other critical efforts. And so I don't think there's a lot more report on that today. Hopefully, there will be more in the future. But we are seeing absolutely, I think this ties into the comments on the CBRS auction, interest from a lot of other sectors. You saw a lot of the other private entities that jumped into the CBRS auction around unusually, given the results of previous auctions. And I think as a result of that, we're starting to see segment interest continued, but increasing from sectors like oil and gas and transportation and others. And Ryan, maybe you want to talk about that and also the way you've built the team now to focus on developing some of those opportunities.

Ryan Gerbrandt

Management

Yes. Absolutely. No, you're right. There definitely has been interest. Even some of it in the form of imbalance in terms of seeking for participation and how do the other segments take advantage of the 900 megahertz license. We've been -- as Rob said, we've been building the team. Obviously, as I talked about our core focus in the prime component of the sales force that we're putting in place is to target larger IOUs that are the middle of the crosshairs of what we're going after. But we're starting to build out the competency for how to capture some of these adjacent spaces as they continue to emerge. Clearly, they're a little bit earlier in the pipeline process, but will become interesting opportunities in terms of complementary, either the geographical coverage and/or picking up other prime spots depending on how the pipeline plays out with the IOUs.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

And we're expecting and I think our utility customers are expecting, in some cases, that they can make the initial investment in the infrastructure and then find other users to fill in some of the capacity, so that they had a way to offset some of their costs.

Ryan Gerbrandt

Management

Yes. Agreed, Morgan. And one other point that I'll just add is, as we expand our partner ecosystem, has been a very positive avenue in terms of getting integrated into other direct segments where they may be more direct participants historically than we are. And as we've talked about, a lot of that activity is continuing to accelerate in addition to the customer contact.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Yes. And you may think, as we do, when you think of the utility, you may think, first of all, of electricity, but a lot of these guys have gas also. And so there are pipeline and other type of potential uses.

Operator

Operator

We have no further questions from the lines at this time.

Morgan O'Brien

Management

Well, thank you, everybody. We appreciate all the questions, all your time, continuing support. Thank you so much, until next time.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.