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Lumen Technologies, Inc. (LUMN)

Q3 2011 Earnings Call· Thu, Nov 3, 2011

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to CenturyLink's Third Quarter 2011 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Tony Davis, Vice President of Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Tony Davis

Analyst

Thank you, Syed, and good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our call today to discuss CenturyLink's third quarter 2011 results released earlier this afternoon. Unless otherwise noted in the press release or in our remarks and related materials this afternoon, the third quarter results discussed in the press release and during this call relate to CenturyLink, including Savvis from July 15, 2011, and prospectively thereafter. The slide presentation we will be reviewing during the prepared remarks portion of today's call is available in the Investor Relations section of our corporate website at ir.centurylink.com. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks today, we'll open the call for question and answer. On Slide 2, you'll find our Safe Harbor language. We will be making certain forward-looking statements today, particularly as they pertain to guidance for fourth quarter and full year 2011, the integration of Embarq, Qwest and Savvis and other outlooks in our business. We ask that you review our disclosure found on this slide as well as in our press release and in our SEC filings, which describe factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected by us in our forward-looking statements. We ask that you also note that our earnings release issued earlier this afternoon and the slide presentation and remarks made during this call contain certain non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation between the non-GAAP financial measures and the GAAP financial measures are available in our earnings release and on our website at www.centurylink.com. Your host for today's call is Glen Post, on Slide 3, Chief Executive Officer and President of CenturyLink. Joining Glen will be Stewart Ewing, CenturyLink's Chief Financial Officer. And also available during the question-and-answer period of today's call will be Karen Puckett, CenturyLink's Chief Operating Officer. Our call today will be available for telephone replay through November 9, 2011, and accessible by webcast through November 23, 2011. Anyone listening to a taped or webcast replay or reading a written transcript of this call should note that all information presented is current only as of November 2, 2011, and should be considered valid only as of that date, regardless of the date heard or reviewed. With that, I'll turn the call over to your host today, Glen Post. Glen?

Glen F. Post

Analyst · Bank of America

Thank you, Tony. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we discuss CenturyLink's third quarter 2011 performance, and share our strategic areas of focus heading into the months ahead. I also have with us today our business unit heads. They will be available for questions as needed. We have Chris Ancell, who's over our BMG Group, Business Markets Group; Bill Cheek, over our wholesale Markets Group; and Jim Ousley, over at Savvis operations. Our results were solid for the quarter as we continue to invest in key areas of growth, meet our integration objectives and build positive momentum in a number of areas across our business in what continues to be a challenging economy and very competitive environment. Let's turn to Slide 5. Third quarter diluted earnings per share, excluding special items, were $0.34 at the top end of our guidance and reflect the full noncash impact of purchase accounting rules related to the Embarq, Qwest and Savvis transactions. Also included here is pro forma adjusted diluted earnings per share which were $0.61 for the third quarter and exclude certain noncash purchase accounting adjustments. We believe this adjusted diluted EPS figure provides a better view of the performance of our business. Stewart will provide more detail on the methodology for this calculation shortly. Operating revenues for the quarter were $4.596 billion on a consolidated basis compared to $1.748 billion in the third quarter 2010. The increase is due to the $2.73 billion and $223 million in revenue contributions we've realized with the Qwest and Savvis acquisitions, respectively. Our strategic revenues grew 5% to $2 billion, driven by growth in our high-speed Internet customer base, while our legacy revenues for the third quarter are $2.21 billion, a decrease of 11.2% from pro forma third quarter 2010. We expect…

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · Bank of America

Thank you, Glen. I'll take the next few minutes to review some of the financial highlights from this quarter, and I'll then spend a few moments explaining and expanding on the guidance that we included in our earnings press release. As Glen noted earlier, we have begun to report pro forma adjusted diluted EPS, a figure which calls out certain unique items that we believe will help you better understand our results and provide a clear picture of our underlying business. Pro forma adjusted diluted EPS excludes most of the impact of noncash items on diluted earnings per share resulting from business combination accounting rules, as others in our industry have done following large acquisitions. Those items excluded are the noncash impact of amortization of intangibles and the noncash impact to interest expense of the assignment of fair value to debt outstanding related to the Embarq, Qwest and Savvis transactions. For third quarter 2011, our adjusted diluted EPS was $0.61. Beginning with Slide 13, I will take you through our consolidated financial results. In order to be more relevant, I'll be reviewing the financial results on a pro forma basis as if Qwest and Savvis were fully included in the results for all periods. As you can see, we generated a strong operating revenues and cash flows during the quarter. Operating revenues were $4.63 billion compared with third quarter 2010 pro forma operating revenues, declined 4.6% from $4.86 billion a year ago. Strategic service revenues for the third quarter were $2 billion, up from $1.91 billion in pro forma third quarter 2010. Legacy service revenues for the third quarter were $2.21 billion, a decrease of 10.8% from the $2.48 billion in pro forma revenue in third quarter 2010. Data integration revenues represented $166 million and other revenue consisting primarily of…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from David Barden from Bank of America.

David W. Barden - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Bank of America

I guess first question, I guess, Stewart, in the text of the result, you guys stated you absorbed some significant costs related to storms that impacted the EBITDA, which I do not believe you excluded from the adjusted EBITDA number. If you could kind of walk us through that, it would be helpful. And then, I guess, the next question would be just on the larger issue of now that we've gotten to the resolution of the intercarrier comp and U.S. effort that it looks like we're getting closer there, and you look ahead to 2012 and 2013, do you guys see now or projecting potentially material impacts, positive or negative, to the cash flow outlook of the business?

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · Bank of America

Yes. So related to the storm expense, no, we did not exclude that as a special item in the third quarter. We had about $8 million to $10 million of expenses in the third quarter. We expect to have probably another $6 million of expenses related to storms in the fourth quarter. Glen, if you can address...

Glen F. Post

Analyst · Bank of America

David, on the FCC order, we, along with rest of the industry, are really waiting on the order to be published. It's basically a 500-page order. So we expect to be it in a lot more detail and it will ultimately really determine our view of it. But based on what we know today, we believe the reforms they are purposing are manageable for us and that long-term our customers and the company will benefit from the newly created Connect America Fund. Until we really have more detail though, we aren't going to really project the impacts. We will provide you more information when the order is published. But right now, we don't see any major impacts, positive or negative, is the way we view it right now.

David W. Barden - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Bank of America

And if I could just follow up guys one last one. Just on the line performance. The line losses improved pretty quickly relative to, I think, our expectations. Are you attributing that to the management approach in the local markets? Obviously, when the Embarq deal came through, it was mostly in the larger markets where they had an impact. Or is it the Prism TV or is it some other effect?

Glen F. Post

Analyst · Bank of America

Well, it's not Prism TV, Dave. We don't have that in any of the Qwest markets, an improvement for most part in the Qwest markets. Our local operating model, we think, had a major impact. Our go-to-market approach -- greater direct response marketing efforts that we've been successful in the smaller markets. And a lot of you don't think that work in the larger markets, we are proving that they do. We do get good response from those. And Karen may provide further detail later on the call, but we feel good about the approach we're taking in these markets and it’s making a difference.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Dave Coleman from RBC Capital Markets.

David G. Coleman - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Just a question on the guidance, the change in the EPS guidance, is that attributable just to the change in definition or is there any revised outlook on the operating fundamentals that's included in the updated EPS guidance? And then looking at the operating cash flow guidance, that's unchanged, but it would imply about $100 million sequential increase versus the 3Q run rate just to get to the midpoint of that guidance range. So I'm just wondering how you get to that improvement if it's more towards the low end that we should be expecting. And then just finally, operationally, you talked about cross-selling opportunities with Savvis and CenturyLink. I was just wondering if you could expand on those comments, and what kind of bookings you're seeing from legacy CenturyLink customers for like managed services and Colo?

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

So Dave, just from our guidance standpoint, the change in the EPS, basically, it's really the -- effectively, the guidance is the same as it was in the third quarter for the full year. We basically are just changing to eliminate the effects of the acquisition accounting with respect to amortization of the customer base. And the interest amortization that occurs as a result of the marking the debt to fair market value at the date of acquisitions. So that's really -- no real fundamental changes in the business, just to hopefully get some of the noise out of our EPS number related to the acquisition accounting. From the standpoint of the operating cash flow, improvement, I mean, we expect to get to somewhere around the midpoint basically.

David G. Coleman - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Just if I could interrupt for a second, how does that -- how do you get to the midpoint, is that going to be on revenue, stronger revenues, or OpEx reductions because if you just sort of assume 3Q operating cash flow for the fourth quarter, you're at $7.8 billion? So I'm just wondering how you get to that $7.9 billion if you think you're going to get to the midpoint?

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Yes. We are going to have to basically -- I'd like to get with you offline and just go through your numbers that you're looking at so we make sure that we're in sync. I mean, we're really expecting about the same level of operating cash flow that we were expecting into the third quarter. There's really no significant change in the guidance that we're giving.

Glen F. Post

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

The false cost setting [ph] opportunities with Savvis and business customers, the sales we've achieved so far have been relatively small, but there's a lot of activity, and we're seeing tremendous demand from our -- interest and demand from customers across our footprint with the BMG customers and also our small business customers already looking for hosting services. So it's a lot of activity going on. And also, we're seeing activity on the Savvis side for the expanded network capabilities that CenturyLink brings. So a lot of interest. So it will be -- this won't have to indicate -- it's the long sales cycles for really large customers, but we're seeing a lot of interest right now. I'm very optimistic about the opportunity here.

David G. Coleman - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Great. And just one follow-on. You mentioned that 3Q bookings in the Savvis business were slightly lower, but you expect 4Q bookings to be stronger than 3Q. What gives you that confidence in the improved bookings outlook?

Glen F. Post

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

Well, I'll let Jim add to this, but we saw a lot of slowdown in decision making by the financial institutions as reorganization in some of those non-res and some of those areas we expect to see decisions made in the fourth quarter that we thought were going to be happening in the third quarter. And we're just seeing a continuum of strong demand. Jim, do you want to add anything?

James E. Ousley

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets

The other major things that's causing -- this decision making is taking longer because of the economic environment, but also our deals are much larger now and thus the time to make the decision is dragging out. So we had -- and that's, it's a little lumpier. We have big deals in the quarter that get push into the first, next quarter. So we're going to see a very strong fourth quarter in bookings and we're going to see bigger size orders, both in the fourth quarter and going into next year.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Mike McCormack from Nomura Securities.

Michael McCormack - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst · Nomura Securities

Just a couple of things. First, on Prism, your thoughts on the Qwest that Burnhouse [ph] sets up there and can you give us some numbers around success-based capital -- I'm sorry, around passing capital. But could you give us a little more color on what are the costs on the success-based spaces and maybe some penetration data points in some of the early markets? And then lastly just for Stewart, on the credit markets, any thoughts, given the current environment out there, on your leverage targets and use of cash going forward?

Karen A. Puckett

Analyst · Nomura Securities

Mike, this is Karen Puckett. In terms of the Prism TV success base, the capital Glen was talking about, is capital all in of that usually about 20-plus percent is success based. And in terms of, I think, you had a question on penetration, we look at the maturity or the age of the market and we have benchmarks that improvement every 3 months over a year. First, we expect the market to be well over 10%, second year, in the high teens to low 20%.

Michael McCormack - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst · Nomura Securities

Karen, any expectations with respect to ARPU baked into your overall profitability expectation?

Karen A. Puckett

Analyst · Nomura Securities

We're experiencing -- in terms of our triple play ARPU right now, we're experiencing about 160 ARPU and that will grow as we get more customers and are able to do things like advertising and such, add more feature sets.

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · Nomura Securities

And Mike, with respect to the credit markets, if you look at trailing 12 months debt-to-EBITDA with leases, we were about 2.6x debt to EBITDA, without leases, about 2.5x. Our target is more in the low to mid-2 range. We do continue to expect to pay back between $1.5 billion and $2 billion of debt in 2011 and 2012, of which we've paid back a little over $700 million at this point.

Michael McCormack - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Analyst · Nomura Securities

And the target payout ratio is still, do you think, 50% is the right thing to think about or should we think about something higher than that?

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · Nomura Securities

I mean, I think it's -- our board will review our dividend periodically, but we are focused on retiring debt over time.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Batya Levi from UBS.

Batya Levi - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst · UBS

The metrics, when you look at broadband adds and line losses were much stronger than we expected. Can you provide some sense of that strength that continued into October or have you seen any increased activity from cables? And when you look at margins, it was a bit lower than we thought. You mentioned some one-off item, and I was wondering if you could talk about some of the underlying expense trends, if there is more opportunity to cut cost there and if we should expect that to improve from here on.

Glen F. Post

Analyst · UBS

Batya, we couldn't the first part of your question. You talked about the broadband adds, the line losses than expected. We couldn't hear the next -- the rest of that.

Batya Levi - UBS Investment Bank, Research Division

Analyst · UBS

Is the strength continued into October or have you seen any increased activity from the cable guys?

Karen A. Puckett

Analyst · UBS

Yes, I would just say that the programs that we have in place are working well for us. I think I just talk about the quarter for a moment in terms of our high-speed. We're very pleased and proud of the team for just excellent execution. The local model definitely is kicking in. We're holding the general managers accountable for the performance in their market. We put our new go-to-market in place. The increase in the shift into direct mail, direct response, marketing to noncustomers and marketing into Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets have had made a difference. We did get an incremental juice from the DTV, NFL package. They did a lot of promotion, so we benefited from that, pulled through some HSI on that, as well as our brand campaign that's been out. So that was some incremental juice that won't happen in fourth quarter. So the programs will remain. In fourth quarter, we normally see HSI seasonality does slow down and also just focused on the continuation of the bundle. And then in terms of just access line losses, we just continued to improve there -- the outs continue to improve as well as in.

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · UBS

And Batya, with respect to margins, we did have some one-time expenses in the third quarter, primarily around, generally one-time expenses, the storms, again, about $8 million or so. But again, we'll have some of that, again, in the fourth quarter. We'll have about $6 million, we think, probably in the fourth quarter. We also -- third quarter is a little bit heavier on maintenance and utilities, as you're aware, just with higher costs during the summer, and from a utility standpoint, higher utilization. And also we're able to get maintenance done then. In the fourth quarter, we would expect the margins to be about the same as they were in the third quarter. We're going to have a few expense increases in the fourth quarter, about $17 million of so, of which $15 million to $20 million really related to higher revenue along -- around Universal Service, and potentially CPE that we expect to sell to customers. And then we'll have wage increases for the union employees at Qwest that will take effect in the fourth quarter as well.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Simon Flannery from Morgan Stanley.

Simon Flannery - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Can you talk a little bit about, what are the, sort of, the next buckets to come through? You talked about ramping it up to $190 million to $200 million by the end of year, so is this network grooming? Is this headcount? What are the big projects in the near term? And then you've had a few months now with your Verizon Wireless relationship. I'd be interested in your reflections on how that's going and how you see wireless as part of your overall portfolio?

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

So, Simon, yes, I mean just in the buckets between the third quarter and the fourth quarter, we'll start to see additional synergies towards the end of the fourth quarter and early first quarter of next year really in the finance group as we get the SAP conversion done and for the finance and the HR systems, as well as some of the investments that we made this quarter and early fourth quarter related to consolidating the networks will start to show up in terms of synergies related to that as well. And those are probably the 2 larger buckets that we'll see between third and fourth quarter. Finally, regarding the wireless, the Verizon agreement, we've been pleased with the agreement thus far. We have actually focused more on the video model that we have, the wireless bundle in the last couple of quarters because that's where the opportunity was initially. We expect next year to put more emphasis on the wireless bundle, and we think the agreement with Verizon is very attractive. And as I mentioned earlier, we're actually making a little money with this agreement with them, so we don't have any real concerns at this point.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Frank Louthan from Raymond James. Frank G. Louthan - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: I guess a question for Karen. Is anything on the IT side, looking at through the improvements in some of the line metrics and so forth, and seeing you've gotten some of your go-to-market strategy in place in some of the Qwest territories, how much more do you have? Any more systems do you have, any other sort of IT barriers that left to beginning to sell, take that strategy to the entire network at this point?

Karen A. Puckett

Analyst · Raymond James

Well, the IT systems really don't keep us from taking our go-to-market or any of the changes that we need to make in the market. That's not a barrier or a challenge at all. I mean, there are set of different systems, but we're capable of making the changes and doing what we need to do in the Qwest market. Frank G. Louthan - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: Okay, great. And then, I guess for Jim, as you're looking at the Savvis transition here, where are you as far as, and I apologize I missed the early part of the call if you've covered this, so where are you as far as being able to cross sell within the Qwest territory? Is that part of why you're seeing the transition to larger end customers getting those larger opportunities? And what is sort of the outlook for getting in front of those customers over the next 12 months?

James E. Ousley

Analyst · Raymond James

Well, I think, the outlook is very good in that, but we're really at the beginning stages of this and basically just getting the engagement rules across channels, formalized which has happened, and we're just beginning training of the BMG sales organizations. So we have a lot of prospects which initially come into the system. They take some time to materialize. But as people get trained, we get the support [ph] of organizations in place. 2012 is when we'll start to see the real advantage. And the bigger customer issues were really generated -- were previously generated by our activities in Savvis. So those haven't come from those activities yet.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Rollins from Citi Investment.

Michael Rollins - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Analyst · Citi Investment

First, I was curious, if you look at just the expense structure, I know you did mention some of the transitory issues that you had, like from the storm costs, et cetera. But if you sort of take synergy out of the discussion for a moment, how should we think about the negative operating leverage in the business as you lose revenue and then translating that to the EBITDA line?

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · Citi Investment

Mike, we believe that we can continue to take costs out of the business now. Obviously, as you lose the high-margin legacy revenue, it becomes tougher and tougher on a dollar-for-dollar basis really take that out, but we'll be working next year to try to take additional costs out of the business. The other thing though that from a positive standpoint, we believe that there's really good opportunity on the revenue side to really turn the top line over time as well. It won't happen in 2012, may or may not happen in 2013. It's just hard to say at this point. We're not ready to put a pen in it, but we believe that with the products and services that Savvis has and the ability to cross sell those services into the customer base, that we have another tenet would be the IPTV rollout that Glen spoke about earlier and the additional revenue and lower customer losses we expect to see related to that. And then just the increased sales forces that we expect to have, both in the BMG Group and in the RMG Group, to try to take market share back away from the cable companies and the CLECs areas. We believe that these 3 opportunities really give us a lot of opportunities in the future to hopefully try to start growing revenue at some point.

Glen F. Post

Analyst · Citi Investment

This year, the fiber-to-the-tower investment should have stabilized as we're going forward as well.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Chris Larsen from Piper Jaffray.

Christopher M. Larsen - Piper Jaffray Companies, Research Division

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

So I had a few questions. First of all, let me go back to the comment on Prism. Qwest had rolled out high-speed data capabilities to about 3 million homes, if I'm not mistaken. What are your thoughts around rolling Prism out on top of those already upgraded data rates in the Qwest territory? And then secondly, on the integration of Savvis, you did a great job telling [ph] us the integration of the Embarq and the Qwest properties. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how the integration is going there. I know it's not so much about cost savings, but talk about integrating the sales force and then possibly even cross selling the Qwest data centers that you've got now in your portfolio that the Savvis sales force knows how to sell, your thoughts on that and where you are on that process.

Glen F. Post

Analyst · Piper Jaffray

Yes, first of all, Chris, the fiber-to-the-node has been very beneficial to us as we roll out Prism TV. You've got fiber deep into the network, closer to your customers, so it's a real advantage for us. It helped set up the rollout of Prism TV, and one of the reasons that the maximum we will spend in any year is $250 million. We expect it to be less than that in those years for the next 3 to 4 years. But that's a key reason. We can keep our cost per customer under $200 a customer for this effort. So it's certainly an asset for us. As far as with the Savvis and the Qwest data centers, we will actually move the Qwest data center operation over to Savvis beginning of the year. We should see impacts from that. Savvis is, obviously, that's where their focus is, and we have not seen a lot of growth in data hosting in the Qwest side, CenturyLink side to date. So we think that will be a positive for us. We've just -- Jim just mentioned we have completed the rules of engagement across the sales forces now. SO we are moving forward quickly with that. We're training the CenturyLink sales force, enterprise sales force, to sell the cloud and the hosting product. So we feel very good about where we're headed. We're also seeing demand from our business customers or interest by business customers for the expanded enhanced network that CenturyLink brings for the Savvis sales efforts to Savvis customers. So we feel very good about this whole process.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Scott Goldman of Goldman Sachs.

Scott Goldman - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

I want to revisit Prism for a second. You talked about spending up to $215 million in CapEx in any give year. It sounds like it could be a little bit lower than that based on what Glen just said. But if you could just refresh us on how much you spent in 2011 on Prism in terms of CapEx. And then as you sort of thinking about it, I know you're not going to give us guidance for next year, but as you sort of think about fiber-to-the-cell, fiber-to-the-node spend like are we staying at current levels, are you willing to bring CapEx above current pro forma levels to do Prism IPTV or is that something you think you can keep in doing under the current budget?

Glen F. Post

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

In 2011, we're spending about $90 million on Prism product, expectations and, Scott, we do not expect to increase the budget for this. We just had no other activity in the budget. We would expect to keep within our current guidance in the $3 billion range for our capital budget. So there may be other things that would eventually call us to make a decision to go a little higher, but it would not be the Prism investment.

Scott Goldman - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

Okay. And then just if I could, maybe talk about Qwest a little bit. You had another quarter quarter you've been to sort of take a look in the books and get to know the customers a little bit better. Anything else? Last quarter, you talked a bit about the CPE, maybe you can give us an update on maybe anything else you've learned over the quarter. And then as I look at the BMG results, looks as though strategic services revenues slowed a little bit. Maybe you can comment a little bit, is that macro related or just maybe comment about what's happening in the strategic services side of BMG.

Glen F. Post

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

First of all, at CPE, we have seen some delays last quarter and pushing into this quarter. The kind that we're seeing the slowdown in decision making, but there's a lot of activity. We're seeing some good bookings come into the fourth quarter at BMG on those quarter. And I'll let Chris -- you want to talk about maybe the strategic revenue question Qwest, Chris?

Christopher K. Ancell

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

We're seeing a couple of things on the strategic side. One of things is in the -- as Glen mentioned earlier, in the low-speed private line space, we continue to see pretty significant migration and cost compression go on there. And then the other one that we saw specifically in the strategic space is around acquisition and retention of new customers. As Glen said, we had a couple of significant wins where the expectation on the part of customer in terms of transition, credits and services are fairly significant. And so we saw some of that in the third quarter as well.

Glen F. Post

Analyst · Goldman Sachs

And to clarify that, we have a 3- to 5-year contract with the customer. When you renew the contract, process have gone down, so we have to renegotiate the new contract prices and that's what we're dealing with there.

Operator

Operator

And our final question for today comes from Tim Horan from Oppenheimer. Timothy K. Horan - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Karen, you obviously have a great track record of improving operational performance, but can you give us maybe a little bit more detail what you're doing to improve the buying growth here? And Stewart, can you maybe just remind us what the pro forma revenue growth trends have been in the last couple of quarters? And I guess the question being, is the 4.6% near the bottom of what you expect and we can start to see improvements here?

Karen A. Puckett

Analyst · Oppenheimer

Tim, the question was around improvement of -- you said line performance? Timothy K. Horan - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Well, line and broadband, you've done a great job here, but can you give a -- little more specific on what you're doing?

Karen A. Puckett

Analyst · Oppenheimer

Yes. If I just look at some of the basic foundational things, one, it really is holding the general manager as a local model. The accountability, they have clearly a line of sight that you can't have from a corporate headquarters, and so they know what are the right grassroots, the marketing programs to implement in their markets, be it military, colleges, schools. They also work back with the corporate marketing group to make sure that we've got the right placement in terms of media, in terms of our direct mail, just increasing that direct mail and marketing to more of the noncustomers, as well as the Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. We increased our promotional call volumes significantly as a result of that. The Price-Lock which is a high-speed, it's a double play, it's a data and a voice play, has worked very well for us. Customers like the Price-Lock for 5 years. The give them some assurance in terms of their budget and it gets them in a bundle. So those are really -- and then from a channel standpoint, the call center, there has been a lot of focus on just sales execution in our model in terms of how we sell from a top-down approach, working through the needs of the customer. And we've improved our sales per hundred rate in every category there too. So I'd say just good execution by the team.

R. Stewart Ewing

Analyst · Oppenheimer

And Tim, with respect to the revenue trends, yes, we do expect it to get better from here. Fourth quarter, we would expect somewhere between 3.5% to 4% if you look back fourth to fourth. So we do expect an improvement from the third quarter amount. Additionally, I guess, you'll have to look at 2012 to see what the impact of the FCC order is once we have an opportunity to first receive it and then get through the 500 pages. But as Glen mentioned, at this point, we don't expect that to be materially negative to us.

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer session for today. I would now like to hand the conference back over to Mr. Glen Post for any closing remarks.

Glen F. Post

Analyst · Bank of America

Thank you. Before closing, I would like to briefly outline our strategic objectives to drive long-term shareholder value, I think that's on Slide 21. First, we are committed to creating a powerful portfolio that will drive revenue and cash flow growth. Second, we are committed to investing in our network to increase penetration of broadband in our markets. We're also focused on intensifying customer and revenue growth and strengthening our customer and revenue and retention efforts. We are committed to investing in and developing new products in related business initiatives that will help us keep pace with our rapidly evolving industry. Fifth, we are focused on successfully completing the integration efforts surrounding the Qwest and Savvis transactions, and achieving our stated synergy targets. And finally, we remain vigilant about maintaining our strong balance sheet while managing operating expenses and making prudent investments in our business. In summary, overall, we are pleased with the third quarter results, and we are optimistic about our business in the months ahead. Thank you, all, for being on our call today, and we look forward to speaking with you in the months ahead. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes our program. You may all disconnect and have a wonderful day.