“We also continue to expect full-year capital investment in the $22 billion to $22.5 billion range, which implies fourth-quarter capital investments of roughly $7 billion to $7.5 billion.”

In context

“st-sale proceeds are reported within investing activities in the statement of cash flows and excluded from our reported free cash flow. Overall, our third-quarter results showed that we're executing well and are reiterating our full-year financial guidance. At a consolidated level, this includes service revenue growth in the low single-digit range and adjusted EBITDA growth of 3% or better. We had an opportunity to settle some out-of-pattern legal settlements that will impact our fourth-quarter free cash flow by approximately $500 million. The expense associated with these settlements was accrued in the third quarter and excluded from adjusted EPS. However, we continue to expect full-year free cash flow in the low to mid $16 billion range, including about $4 billion in the fourth quarter. We also continue to expect full-year capital investment in the $22 billion to $22.5 billion range, which implies fourth-quarter capital investments of roughly $7 billion to $7.5 billion. We also reiterate our full-year outlook for adjusted EPS of $1.97 to $2.07 and expect that we will come in closer to the high end of this range. Embedded within this guidance is an outlook for full-year depreciation and amortization expense that is up slightly versus 2024. In the fourth quarter, we expect to see sequentially lower depreciation and amortization expense as certain legacy assets become fully depreciated. So we expect our fourth-quarter depreciation and amortization expense of about $5 billion is more aligned with the quarterly run rate we expect heading into next year. As John noted, we're making great progress towards closing our pending acquisitions of fiber assets from Lumen and spectrum licenses from EchoStar. So we expect to provide an update to our long-term financial”