Earnings Labs

Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (CCOI)

Q3 2022 Earnings Call· Sun, Nov 6, 2022

$24.21

-1.90%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Cogent Communications Holdings Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and it will be available for replay at www.cogentco.com. A transcript of this conference call will be posted on the same website when it becomes available. Cogent's summary of financial and operational results attached to its press release can be downloaded from the Cogent website. [Operator Instructions] I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Dave Schaeffer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cogent Communications Holdings.

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

Thank you. And good morning3, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter 2022 earnings conference call. I'm Dave Schaffer, Cogent CEO. And with me on this morning's call is Tad Weed, our Chief Financial Officer. Hopefully you've had a chance to review our earnings press release. The press release includes a number of historical metrics that we present in a consistent manner for every quarter. Our revenue growth accelerated this quarter and our corporate revenues increased sequentially by 0.4% from the first quarter, the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, and is in part due to the increase in USF revenues. Excluding the $670,000 sequential increase in USF revenues, our corporate revenues were essentially flat sequentially for the quarter. Our total revenues increased sequentially by 1% to exactly $150 million, an increase of 1.4% year-over-year. Our total revenues and our Netcentric revenues were materially impacted by the negative impact of foreign exchange in the quarter and the continuing strengthening of the US dollar. For the quarter, the sequential negative impact of foreign exchange was $1.5 million and was negative $4.2 million on a year-over-year basis. On a constant currency basis, our revenues grew sequentially by 2% and grew by 4.3% year-over-year. Our Corporate business continues to be influenced by real estate activities in the central business districts of major North American cities. Two key statistics, including the level of security cards, rights and buildings, and leasing activities indicate that, year to date, the real estate market and leasing activities in these central business districts have seen some improvement, but have not yet returned to their pre-pandemic levels. Leasing activity across major markets and workers' return to offices continue to improve albeit slowly. On a US GAAP basis, our corporate revenues increased sequentially 0.4% for the first time since the…

Tad Weed

Analyst

Thank you, Dave. And good morning, everyone. This earnings conference call includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based upon our current intent, beliefs and expectations. These forward-looking statements and all other statements that may be made on this call that are not historical facts are subjected to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings for more information on the factors that could cause actual results to differ. Cogent undertakes no obligation to update or revise our forward-looking statements. If we use non-GAAP financial measures during this call, you will find these reconciled to this corresponding GAAP measurement in our earnings releases which are posted on our website at cogentco.com. Comment on COVID-19 and risk updates. Like many companies, we continue to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and our risk related to COVID-19 and other risks are described in more detail in our annual report on Form 10-K for 2021 and in our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q for the first and second quarter and this quarter's report which will be filed Friday. Corporate and Netcentric revenue and customer connections. We analyze our revenues based upon network connection type, which is on-net, off-net and non-core and we'll also analyze our revenues based upon customer type and classify all of our customers into two types, Netcentric customers and Corporate customers. Our Corporate customers buy bandwidth from us in large multi-tenant office buildings or in carrier neutral data centers. These customers are typically professional service firms, financial service firms, educational institutions located in multi-tenant office buildings or connected to our network through our carrier neutral data center footprint. Our Netcentric customers buy significant amounts of bandwidth from us in carrier neutral data centers and include streaming companies and content distribution…

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

Thanks, Ted. I'd like to highlight a few of the strengths of our network, our customer base and our sales force. Now for a couple of comments on our Netcentric performance. We achieved excellent revenue growth in our Netcentric business where year-over-year Netcentric revenue growth was 9.6% and was 16.8% on a constant currency basis, an acceleration from the 16.2% constant currency growth that we delivered in Q2. We're direct beneficiaries of an increasing trend of over-the-top video and streaming, particularly in international markets. At quarter's end, there were 1,433 carrier neutral data centers connected to our network, 54 Cogent data centers for a grand total of 14,187 data centers, more than any other carrier as measured by independent third-party research. The breadth of our coverage enables our Netcentric customers to better optimize their networks and reduce latency. We expect that we will continue to widen our lead in this market as we project to add over an additional 100 carrier neutral data centers to our network each year for the next several years. At quarter's end, we were directly connected to 7,766 networks that comprise the majority of the internet. This collection of ISPs, telephone companies, cable companies, mobile operators, and other carriers provide us access to the vast majority of the world's broadband and subscriber – and mobile subscriber customers. At quarter's end, we had a sales force of 208 sales professionals who focused exclusively on the Netcentric market. We believe that this sales force is one of the largest and most sophisticated sales teams for this market segment in the industry. Now for a couple of comments on our Corporate business. We are seeing some positive trends in our Corporate business. As work-from-home environment becomes established as part of people's normal work routines, we see many of…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. [Technical Difficulty].

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

Dave, can you just take us through the conversation with the board that led to the reduction in your sequential increase in the dividend, kind of what the thought process was there and how we should think about that going forward, especially post Sprint closing?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

As I reiterated on last earnings call and in numerous public venues over the last quarter, it is necessary for the growth rate and the dividend and the growth rate and free cash flow to come into alignment. I think the board looked at our current rate of growth in cash flow. They were encouraged by the underlying improvements in our Corporate business, but are also realistic that the improvements in the corporate environment are going to take some time. So, in order to mitigate the increase in net leverage, the board decided to moderate the rate of dividend growth to that $0.01 per share or 4.4% annually. We will continue to monitor the improvements in our business and its free cash flow generation. We are committed to being efficient stewards of capital and returning that capital to shareholders through either dividends or buybacks. And it is our expectation that our growth rate and free cash flow will reaccelerate in conjunction with the improvement in our Corporate business, but we're uncertain how quickly that improvement will occur. So it seemed more prudent to the board to take this more moderate rate of increase in the dividend.

Unidentified Participant

Analyst

Just one follow up is, seeing how the swap has performed for you guys over the past year or so and just looking – given your outlook for your company, the macro, the new mix of business, any change or any thought on what might change your target leverage ratios for the company? Are you satisfied with the current targets?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

You're absolutely correct, the swap has not worked out as well as we had hoped. While we had initial cash savings of $1.8 million, as Ted indicated, we will be in a cash deficit. This interest payment that'll be made today of $3.4 million. So, a net economic loss on the swap of about $1.6 million. We did not anticipate the velocity and magnitude of interest rate increases. While we anticipated some, the increase in the Fed's fund rate has been more accelerated than we had forecast. We also think that the underlying rate of inflation will continue to moderate and, therefore, that rate of increase in the interest will moderate and may even decline and most likely will decline during the swap period. So, I think the jury's out. But between now and 2026, we still think that the swap was the right decision, and we will be better off because of it because we will have diversified our borrowings to about 50% fixed and 50% variable. Now to the second part of your second question, which is the ultimate leverage target. Our range is 2.5 to 3 times on a net basis. We're at 3.93 today, which is above that range. We do have excess cash on the balance sheet. And as we have communicated to investors consistently, actually over the past decade, our goal has been to disgorge cash and return more than 100% of free cash flow to our equity holders. That policy remains in place. We think with the more moderate rate of increase in the dividend, we should expect to say the net leverage relatively peak where it is now and begin to decline. So, we're going to take a measured approach. We will look at the growth in our free cash flow and remain committed to returning that cash flow to equity.

Operator

Operator

And our next question will come from James Breen was William Blair.

James Breen

Analyst

Dave, you talked about some of the long-term targets for the business once the acquisition closes from a growth perspective. Can you just talk about how it might change the absolute EBITDA levels and CapEx levels? And then also, it seemed like CapEx jumped quite a bit this quarter sequentially. Can you just talk about some of the puts and takes there?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

Yeah, I'm going to take the CapEx one first and then talk about the long-term targets secondly. Our CapEx has been elevated for two – well, up to this quarter for one reason and now for two. The first reason, which still exists, is we are ordering excess equipment because of supply chain constraints from our vendors. The equipment that we order is modular. We order a complete kit of configuration and find ourselves receiving maybe only 70% or 80% of what we had ordered and then miscellaneous and somewhat random components ship much later. That has forced us to carry much higher levels of equipment and inventory than we are accustomed to. We believe – and this is in discussions with Cisco, our main vendor – that we have past the worst of these components shortages and the ability to ship anymore normalized schedule will continue to improve over the next 6 to 12 months and will be back to a more normalized order to delivery cycle. And we'll be able to draw down on those inventories. The second expenditure, which was unique to this quarter, was the beginning of spending monies to interconnect our network with the Sprint network in multiple locations around the world. We had told investors that there would be a one-time expenditure of about $50 million to achieve those interconnections. Some of the CapEx that we spent is as a result of these one-time expenses, and they will continue for the next several quarters. We can actually do this work anticipatorily and in advance of getting the regulatory approvals. Now we do run the risk of not getting regulatory approvals, but we view that risk as de minimis. Our purchase agreement does include a traditional hell and high water provision, so both sides will…

James Breen

Analyst

Just a quick follow-up to that. So as you look at the combined company revenue, obviously, a lot larger, but you're not taking on incremental debt. So does that mean off of that sort of low to mid 30s EBITDA margin combined, you'll have a higher free cash flow yield because the interest expense will be small relative to the revenue that you have now?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

That is absolutely correct, Jim. We will absolutely be producing significantly more free cash flow per share. Things may actually even be better than what we are forecasting. And again, we've tried to be transparent with investors. We are getting $700 million in cash over 54 months from T Mobile. In our forecasts of revenue, growth and margin. We are taking the most conservative approach and not counting any of that as revenue. It is highly likely that we can count some, possibly even all, I think that's unlikely, of that as revenue. If that is the case, our revenue growth will actually have a material step function up with those payments and our margins will be much better than what we are predicting.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Frank Louthan with Raymond James.

Frank Louthan

Analyst

When will you know what that status is with what you're able to recognize? And then, is the Sprint network kind of on the same pace that it was and some of the business sort of declining and so forth? Is that still on the same pace that it was when you announced the deal?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

First of all, let me take the rate of decline. It's actually accelerating, Frank. And reason is, in our agreement with T Mobile, the subscale and unprofitable products are being end-of-lifed. There are customer contractual obligations, so we can't turn off the switch. We are working with the engineering teams at Sprint and also the sales teams to give customers alternatives. But by design, we expect the revenue stream to decrease by close to 25%, from $560 million down to $450 million in about the one-year period from announcement to closing. That's actually about twice as fast as the rate of decline had historically been. However, once that set of unprofitable products is purged from the network, we expect the remaining products to remain stable and our ability to increase throughput by bringing those customers on-net using our metro footprint not only improves margin, but it allows the customer to get a 10x increase in their ultimate services. Ted?

Tad Weed

Analyst

With respect to the accounting for the contract – IP transit contracts with T Mobile, the accounting for that will be combined with the acquisition since that contract is entered into at the same time as the acquisition. And the final determination will be made once the appraisal is performed of the acquired business. We would expect that to be performed at the same time in the second half of next year. I will say, on a preliminary basis, it appears that the majority of the IP transit payments would be straight-line revenue over the term over the 54 months.

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

Yeah. And we're going to, ultimately, need that appraisal and work with our auditors, Ernst & Young, before we're comfortable in reporting that exact number to investors.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Nick Del Deo from MoffettNathanson.

Nick Del Deo

Analyst

First, one quick clarification and then two more substantive ones. I didn't write the numbers down fast enough as you were speaking. Were the total expected savings you articulated for the Sprint deal in your prepared remarks the same as what you shared at recent investor conferences?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

The answer is, yes, they were identical. And absent SG&A and headcount numbers, we're anticipating an aggregate set of savings of about $220 million a year. That being $180 million of North American Sprint network savings, about $25 million of international Sprint network savings, and approximately $15 million of North American Cogent network savings.

Nick Del Deo

Analyst

So, the first real question, your principal payments on capital leases were at a record level and your capital lease obligations were up about $34 million sequentially, which is pretty meaningful. What's behind that? Was there any sort of value or reclass like you had a couple of years ago? Or is it something else?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

Two very different things. The first point is, we began to acquire IRUs for fiber to physically interconnect the two networks. And when we do that, there's both a cash payment upfront, which was relatively modest, but we also have to reflect in the lease balance all of the O&M over that term. And actually, for some of those new fiber routes, the term is actually 44 years. So, that number can be pretty large. The second thing that happened in the quarter is a major IRU in France ended. There was no upfront payment, but we elected to extend that for another 20 years, and then have to reflect that obligation for O&M over that 20-year period. So those are the two reasons why both the balance and the initial payments increase.

Nick Del Deo

Analyst

Was there any OpEx impact to the extension in France?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

No, because it already was a capital lease when reclassification occurred three years, four years ago. The remaining several years of that moved from OpEx to CapEx, but just till that period, then we had this one-time window that we could have walked away and elected to extend. And part of our extension was a negotiation with the counterparty for a lower CPI adjustment, which sounds counterintuitive in this market, why they would lower the CPI rate of increase, but it's better to get something than nothing because kind of what we convinced them off.

Tad Weed

Analyst

And what happened really with the transaction in France is we had a number of individual leases that were all aggregated and made coterminous under one long term lease. So both extended the term and simplified really the accounting for it and the contract.

Nick Del Deo

Analyst

Last question. Dave, can you give us any updates on customer feedback or early expressions of interest you're getting regarding the potential to sell dark fiber or wavelengths post Sprint close?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

NANOG, the North American Network Operators Group, which is an engineering forum, held its quarterly conference in Los Angeles about a month ago. I was not initially attending to – planning to attend that conference, but chose to do so after we announced the Sprint deal, just so I could sit down with the engineering teams of many of our key customers, this being folks like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Charter, Cox, some of our larger Netcentric customers, and really kind of understand their wish list of what they would like to be able to purchase. And I left those meetings, not able to sign any waters because I can't until the deal closes, but very, very encouraged that there was a significant pool of demand for these services. And it was surprising to me that many customers have actually done their homework, came to meetings with shopping lists of very specific routes and city payers that they were interested in. And we told them we can kind of provide these services day one at closing, but we could not take those orders yet.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from David Barden with Bank of America.

David Barden

Analyst

Dave, just on that point. So, I guess, as we followed the company, we've got the Netcentric business where you've kind of had this very marginal cost strategy on pricing, which I think was really geared towards scaling up your relevance to the industry. And then, we've got the Corporate side where you've been making the money, really focused on a very simple, low cost broadband strategy. And as we think about this path between $8 million and the $400 million that you're trying to get to in the wavelength services, which of these two strategies is it? Is it kind of mercilessly lower price to win incremental share and figure out the profit later? Or is there something more like the Corporate strategy, where there's real money to be made in the nearer term? And then, the second piece, I guess, is related to the $700 million that you're going to get, I know that there's a tax potential piece – a taxable piece of this, I guess, that goes along with the audit that'll happen alongside closing, but would it be your intention to take that cash flow and apply it to your dividend thought process with the board on the far side of the closing?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

I'm going to take your first question first and I'm going to actually disagree slightly with the premise of the question, which is that we don't make money on the Netcentric business. The most profitable business at Cogent is our on-net services. In our Corporate product mix, 60% of revenues come from on-net and 40% come from off-net. In our Netcentric business, 90% of revenues come on-net and 10% off-net. In the wavelength products, it will be virtually a 100% on-net offering. So, really the only practical way to sell it and is part of the reason why sprint has struggled in the market. We also have a network with initially, day one, a negative cost basis. There is about a $2 billion addressable market that's dominated by two major players, Lumen and Zayo. We will be as aggressive in that market as we have been in the transit market. We rose out of a pool of 200 transit providers 20 years ago to now carrying nearly 24% of the world's traffic being number two and literally within a couple of percentage points of being number one. We have the same kind of ambitions for our wavelength business. So, we will be aggressive. We don't want to destroy the market. But we will capture share through the breadth of locations that we can offer and our pricing model. We will be profitable in doing this. Now to the kind of tax consequence of the payments from T Mobile. The more that is recognized as revenue, and you heard Ted say the majority we think will be, we will still pay taxes, but we pay them ratably as opposed to upfront. If a portion of that is ascribed to the assumption of uneconomic contracts, we have to recognize that gain upfront…

Operator

Operator

Next question will come from Brett Feldman with Goldman Sachs.

Brett Feldman

Analyst

Two follow-up questions, if you don't mind. So, you were just talking about how you're going to be aggressive in the wavelength market when the deal closes. And I think the point here is your acquiring assets have a low – I think it's a negative cost basis, meaning it's the assets you're acquiring that you intend to leverage in the market. I don't think it's your intent to start deploying new capital because you could be doing that now. So I want to clarify that because the question I really have is, what portion of the wavelength market do you think you can actually address with the assets you're acquiring? The second question – I'm certain I got the stats wrong, but I think you said you're going to see this asset transition from 30 products a day to 4 at close. And so, it's a two-part question. One is the accountability of winding down all those businesses. Like, are there mechanisms to make sure that when you get the asset, not only the revenue, but the expenses are gone? It's actually a clean asset. And then the four revenue streams that you're going to be taking on, are they actually growing today? Or does something have to happen to turn those into growth businesses at the close?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

Let's start with the wavelength business and dark fiber, which we haven't mentioned, because we haven't totally sized that market. Dark fiber would be 100% margin. And there's no incremental capital needed. It's just selling inventory. On wavelengths, it's a slightly more subtle answer, in that when we're spending the money upfront to tie the networks together, so we have a maximum number of endpoints that we could sell. That's a one-time expense. But we need to do that for the IP and for the VPN business anyhow, so it's not an incremental expense. We also know that, on a going-forward basis, the optical transport technology will continue to improve. The pluggable optics, the CR [ph] optics and the transponder cards will continue to improve. While we will be inheriting a large inventory of that equipment, we will be spending capital to continue to modernize that wavelength portfolio to remain at the cutting edge of technology. And that is embedded in our expectation of $30 million of incremental capital for the combined business. So, we think that we can eventually get to 25% to 30% of this market. Maybe better, but we prefer to set our sights realistically and then raise our targets. And we'll have to see how our competitors react. But so far, what appears to be happening is our competitors are going in different directions and focusing on different customer segments. Much as they have ceded share in transit to us, I think they will cede share in this product segment that will be very profitable for Cogent and may be less profitable for them. Now to the product part of your question, Brett. The answer is most of these products will end-of-life prior to closing. But there are customer relationships that extend beyond our expected close…

Brett Feldman

Analyst

Quick point of clarification, the 25% to 30% of the wavelength market you think you can address, is that the US wavelength market or is there an international component to that?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

It's North American. So, it's US and Canada, which is basically where we can utilize the Sprint network. We currently have no plans to expand that in Europe, LatAm, Africa or Asia-Pac. Obviously, if there were other acquisitions, we would look at that, but at this point, this is a North American product.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Sami Badri with Credit Suisse.

George Engroff

Analyst

This is George Engroff on for Sami. Just touching on something that you mentioned last quarter where you noted that the corporate growth rate was not materially impacted in prior recessions outside of the 2008/2009 period. Has anything sort of changed your view on a potential recession's impact to today's corporate growth rate or should we think about the sort of the dividend deceleration and free cash flow alignment as just sort of a normalization from the COVID period?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

I'll take those in reverse order. I think the dividend growth rate moderation is just a recognition that the impact of COVID on our Corporate business was longer and deeper than any of us anticipated and the recovery, while occurring, is slower than expected. And it just seems prudent to be able to align the growth in free cash flow to the growth in the dividend. To the recession part of the question, the buildings that we serve tend to be the most desirable in every market. The tenants tend to be more recession proof than the general business population. The only time we saw negative impact from a recession was a two-quarter period at the end of 2008, beginning of 2009 in our Corporate business in the Great Recession. Other recessions have not negatively impacted our Corporate business. And the fact that there is so much talk of recession and we're seeing continued improvement, albeit slow, in our Corporate business, we don't think there is a material risk to either our revenue streams or our ability to continue to grow the dividend. We also have been extremely fortunate that our Netcentric business is somewhat countercyclical. And that's actually been a historic pattern, not just COVID, that when there's a recession, people stream more video, and therefore, they actually end up consuming more bits and generating more revenue for us. I think these trends are in place. And kind of independent of what happens in the macroenvironment, absent some kind of major depression, we feel comfortable in our ability to grow the dividend.

George Engroff

Analyst

Just as a follow-up, I know in the past, the Board of Directors has been sort of hesitant to change the dividend growth rate. And so, I guess, adding on to that, if the growth rate in free cash flow does reaccelerate at a certain point in time, is there going to be a sort of similar lag where the Board of Directors wants to see and make sure that it is going to be a sustained reacceleration? I guess, what sort of way should we be thinking about that?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

First of all, the board has improved the growth rate in the dividend multiple times. It initially was $0.01 a share – $0.01 to $0.02 and then $0.025 a share. So the board has looked at the underlying performance and responded. This response was basically the recognition that the corporate improvement is slower and less linear than we expected even six months ago. I think the board would react pretty quickly to reaccelerating the rate of dividend growth, if cash flows continue to improve. Also, if interest rates moderate, the ability to use the balance sheet and take on leverage makes more sense. So we would look at both of those factors.

George Engroff

Analyst

Congrats on the quarter.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Michael Rollins with Citi.

Michael Rollins

Analyst

Two if I could. First, if you look at the market share that you have currently in Corporate buildings today of about 14%, Dave, what's the range of outcomes you're seeing in buildings where you've been operating in them for more than a year or two? And what do you think is the path for just pushing that higher? Is it just simply the return to office? Are there some other steps that the company is taking to push the share up? And then, just separately, also in these Corporate buildings, are you seeing any significant interest or demand for private wireless networks? And is cogent a natural partner to either provide the fiber connectivity for those networks? Or to actually provide and enable those private networks with DAS and small cells and just make that open to whichever carrier wants to join into that?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

First of all, the best buildings that we're in, we have some buildings that we have 90 plus percent market share. That is not normal. And those are buildings where the tenants tend to be the most levered to bandwidth and, therefore, are more interested in Cogent's products. I think what hurt Cogent's Corporate business is three factors. One, very obvious increase in vacancy rate. That's easy to understand. There's just less people to sell to in the building. Two, many customers basically stopped making changes because of the uncertainty of COVID and the uncertainty around work from home versus return to office. And I think that picture is still not perfectly clear to every company, but it's increasingly coming into focus and things are improving. And that improvement and clarity is allowing customers to now place orders, and it's helped us improve our Corporate growth rate. And the third factor is, we had a sales force that was remote. And while we tried as hard as we could to make them as productive as they could be when they work from home, because of our high turnover in a direct sales position that's telemarketed, we saw a decline in rep productivity. Now that we brought reps back to the office, our trainers are there in-person, we have seen rep productivity improve and rep turnover decline. Again, we can't predict the pandemic, but we sincerely hope that, with the vaccine policy that we've implemented, that we'll not ever be forced to send our people home again. I think this was a once-in-a-lifetime event, maybe hopefully once in hundreds of years. And as a result of that, all three of these factors, I think will help us improve our productivity. Now to your second question about Wi-Fi networks, DAS networks and small cell, we have worked very limitedly with some wireless carriers to provide all three of those different solutions. In the vast majority of our buildings, we have the right to do that. There are a small percentage of our buildings where we would have to go back to the landlord to get an additional right. But that would not significantly impact our ability to participate in this segment. So far, all three of these technologies, I would say, are limited in how widely they're being deployed. So the answer is yes, it's an opportunity. Yes, we're talking to the right players. But today, it's not a meaningful contributor to our revenues.

Operator

Operator

And our final question comes from Bora Lee with RBC Capital Markets.

Bora Lee

Analyst

Just one question from my side. Historically, you've spoken about CapEx declining over time. Given the international markets expansion and you've indicated that you're interested in actually expanding internationally further, given the opportunity provided by the Sprint assets, how should we be thinking about CapEx? Would it be elevated for, like, three to five years or X number of years before it starts resuming a downward trajectory? Or is that international market expansion actually included in that $30 million Sprint CapEx that you cited earlier?

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

The answer is it does include our international expansion. We, again, have tried to be very transparent. There's going to be this $50 million that we need to spend initially to kind of harmonize the networks and interconnect them. That's a one-timer. We also, quite honestly, did not anticipate the equipment supply chain issues that we've had to face for the past year-and-a-half. For the first six months of the pandemic, that was not an issue. But it probably peaked a couple of quarters ago, and it is improving. But there are still chip shortages of key components. And as a result, we've had to spend more capital and over inventory gear. That should go away. As a percentage of revenue, our CapEx should decline. And even on an absolute basis, it should decline, but because we're picking up the wavelength product, the revenue scale is larger, rather than get to a kind of non-expansion CapEx number of $35 million, which was our maintenance number for Cogent, I think that number will be closer to $65 million for the combined company. And we do think there will still be some additional expansion CapEx spent every year for the foreseeable future. I outlined the 100-plus data centers a year that we will be adding. So, I think for the next several years, investors should expect much more than $65 million. And remember, each data center is about a kind of $120,000 expense, roughly. And we're going to add 100 of those, we are going to still add a handful of MTOBs. So, our CapEx will go down, but it won't get to that kind of maintenance level for several more years.

Operator

Operator

And that will conclude today's question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call back to Mr. Dave Schaeffer for closing remarks.

Dave Schaeffer

Analyst

I'd like to thank everyone. I know our calls go long, but we try to answer all of the questions. I appreciate everyone's support and we will talk soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

Operator

Operator

And this will conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation and you may now disconnect.