“This process is already underway and is expected to result in about $0.5 billion of additional capital investment in 2025 and about $3 billion of additional capital investment across 2026 and 2027 combined compared to the guidance we provided at our Analyst and Investor Day.”

In context

“recent legislation, we'd like to provide a few key updates to how we're thinking about our long-term outlook as we see things right now. We expect to realize between $6.5 billion and $8 billion in cash tax savings from 2025 through 2027 as a result of the tax provisions included in the legislation. As a reminder, the initial guidance we provided at our Analyst and Investor Day implied an outlook for cash taxes of approximately $3.5 billion in 2025 and approximately $4.5 billion in both 2026 and 2027. Relative to that guidance, we now expect cash taxes to be lower by $1.5 billion to $2 billion in 2025 and $2.5 billion to $3 billion in both 2026 and 2027. As John noted, we intend to invest a portion of these savings in our network, primarily by accelerating the pace of our fiber deployment. This process is already underway and is expected to result in about $0.5 billion of additional capital investment in 2025 and about $3 billion of additional capital investment across 2026 and 2027 combined compared to the guidance we provided at our Analyst and Investor Day. We also intend to contribute $1.5 billion of these savings into our employee pension plan by the end of 2026 with more than half of that coming in 2025. This contribution would elevate the plan's funded status to approximately 95% based on the last reported valuation. Our goal is to fully fund the employee pension plan by the early part of next decade. The remainder of the tax savings will be reflected in our free cash flow. In 2025, most of these savings will be reinvested, but we do see full year free cash flow trending slightly ahead of our initial outlook. We now expect free cash flow in the low to mid- $16 billion range versus our prior guidance of $16 billion plus. For 2026 and 2027, we expect approximately $1 billion of upside to the annual free cash flow guidance we provided at ou”