Valuations for both the Fab Five (+$85B) and the Telco Top Five (-$7B) were relatively unchanged this week. So far in 2025, the Fab Five have added $386 billion in value, about 10x the Telco Top Five ($35 billion). Earnings releases start on Monday (Verizon) with each of the 10 stocks we track slated to report over the next ten business days:
We laid out a series of questions related to telecom earnings in our most recent Brief here. For Verizon, we will be looking at capital spending, as well as postpaid churn (2Q tends to be the lowest rates of the year) and prepaid net additions (which we think will surprise to the upside). AT&T will also surprise with their fiber (and overall broadband) net additions, and will strike a more positive tone on capital spending and their Internet Air product. We aren’t quite sure if T-Mobile will have a blowout or merely an average quarter, but do expect both the Metronet and US Cellular transactions to officially close this month.
Cox and Charter also filed their public interest statement at the FCC this week (avail here). Because there is not a lot of overlap, we do not expect to see significant pushback from the FCC or the DOJ over the proposed transaction. This does not apply to state action, however, and we expect California to make the transfer process laborious and perhaps require a $15/ mo. basic offering for a 36-month term. We do not expect the transaction to have material difficulty in Arizona, Virginia, Florida, Nebraska, Oklahome, Nevada, or any other state where Cox has a material presence. Light Reading has a very good summary of the public interest statement here.
Finally, we failed to mention one of the more important transactions of 2025 in our last Brief. Oak Hill and Pamlico Capital are comining to purchase Ideatek, a Kansas-focused fiber to the home provider and Socket, a long-time ISP serving Missouri (news release here). Jim Gleason, a friend of the Sunday Brief, is going to be serving as the Executive Chairman of the combined company. We wish him well in this new role.
Full file is below. Have a terrific National Ice Cream Day!
