Dycom Industries Inc at UBS Global Media and Communications Conference Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Fantastic. As we do every time this year, I think the best way to start off is maybe talk a little bit about the key highlights from the year and what the priorities are for the company, as we look out into 2026.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Great. As we were talking about (inaudible) before we came in, our estimates show that fiber-to-home construction in the United States is set to continue to ramp, just given the efforts of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile. What's your view on the pace of fiber construction in the US over the next few years? LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 09, 2025 / 8:45PM, DY.N - Dycom Industries Inc at UBS Global Media and Communications Conference

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Yeah. That's an interesting aspect. Obviously, on our side, we track a number of homes passed each -- we have aa buildup. But -- so you're saying, it's not just a number of homes but it's the distance covered per home that actually drives you guys' revenue. From our standpoint, we'd love to hear, what are you seeing in that? Is there some difference in number of feet per home that we should expect over the next five years? Does it grow 10% a year, 20% a year, or something like that?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : The really have in more rural areas.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Not only the number of homes passed, you just introduced a new variable; and then, also fee for home going up. But then the aero versus buried, is there a correlation that, as we move into the rural areas, not only is it more fee per home but it's more buried versus aerial? I would imagine the aerials would be the dense suburbs in the cities, right? And then, maybe as we go out to those rural areas, we are already seeing more, more fee per home. You're also seeing more bury.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : And then, in terms of the buildout, we talk a lot about the big guys, right? Like, we just mentioned AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile. What about the smaller guys? Like, those are the guys that are a little bit under the radar screen. We try to track some of those guys that hit a certain level. But, like -- is there, like, the middle of the pack that we're missing that's also building and maybe even smaller guys that are completely under radar screen that may use Dycom for their buildout?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Yeah. I think that's the biggest incremental change we could see -- we know AT&T's plan with Lumen. That's the latest. Verizon, if anything, with the new CEO -- if anything, they might not do as much of a build as (inaudible) and I were excited for, just given the new capital focus. But it definitely sounds like T-Mobile is going to do more. It also sounds like BCE is ready for the next deal or next couple of deals. When you -- when a company like -- and I don't know if you -- these are -- if Lumos or a customer of yours but --

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : They are. When you get that injection, when that transaction happens -- and we expect more transactions with T-Mobile -- does construction accelerate when that -- if there's suddenly -- these companies, like Lumos, I mentioned; and then, anything smaller -- these companies are running to some additional headwinds, from a financing standpoint, and things like that but when they get investment or when BCE comes in and buys one of these smaller companies -- which, again, both of these things, we think, are going to happen in '26 -- is that good for you guys?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : I was skipping around a little bit but -- and I think this conversation (inaudible) [entiwne] with the BEAD program. But how far -- you said 125 million homes. Obviously, there are some homes that can't get built, right? They're just -- it doesn't make sense, especially with the (inaudible) programs. It's obviously a much more efficient way of getting broadband to people. What percentage of occupied homes do you think get built with fiber over a reasonable 5- to 10-year period? Maybe, how does BEAD play into that? That will be the --

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Of the original build plan for BEAD, which is, like, $5.5 million, right?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Got it. Makes sense. And then, the other side of the ledger is cable. We had Optimum (inaudible) here. It sounds like they're more measured, given some of the balance sheet issues that they have. What are the prospects of a -- first of all, how big of a source of business is the cable companies? And then, what are the prospects of them being bigger customers, as they are seeing more competition in broadband and potentially take it the next step, in terms of upgrading their networks? LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 09, 2025 / 8:45PM, DY.N - Dycom Industries Inc at UBS Global Media and Communications Conference

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : (inaudible) because you're involved in that too --

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Right. It does seem like -- we had Chris Winfrey here yesterday. And so it does seem like the rural builds are slowing a little bit. They certainly are for Charter. At least, that's the plan. I think you talked about -- but -- it sounds like you can do, for the cable company, a combination of in-region and out-of-region, where -- but that is the -- maybe talk about the entire spend? What does cable spend look like these days versus maybe five years ago? And then, how

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Do you think that, eventually -- we're not going to hold you to it and we're not going to tell the cable company you said this but do you think,

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Right. We talked about the big fiber guys, the smaller fiber guys, and the cable guys, what about the likes of really small guys? The company -- and there's dozens of these out there that -- most are not household names; people haven't heard of. What's that community doing, as it relates to -- because I would say, a couple of years ago, especially with BEAD oncoming, there is a tremendous amount of activity. I think -- and I get the impression that the funding is getting more difficult. How's that community's spending profile?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Right. That makes sense. Okay. Getting back to the cost for fiber construction. Can you give us a sense for the costs you -- the increases that you've been seeing? What's the -- or maybe for you, what's the average cost of a fiber build versus what it was a few years ago? What kind of -- and I think you laid it out well, in terms of more fee per home and more (inaudible) barrier but there -- first of all, are there other sources of inflation in the cost per build? Just, how has that trended? How do you expect it to trend?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Yeah. I think that's -- staying on this path now, I remember, just a couple of years -- again, pre-BEAD -- there was a a lot of worries. I was at Fiber Connect. I forget which one it was. But they were talking about -- I think the number was like [300] -- people expected 300,000 (inaudible) workers they're going to need to eventually deploy this fiber. It is -- first of all, I would say BEAD probably didn't -- wasn't the program we thought it would be, in terms of the number of homes that we originally started and how much of it was fiber. But is there still worries about sourcing labor, especially now? We cover the data centers and obvious AI compute build, these guys -- these thousands of people to build out these gigawatt-scale sites, is labor an issue for you guys now? Do you foresee it to be shortages, going forward?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : How much does that mean, in terms of -- so $18 billion in addressable market for the total fiber-to-the-home folk is BEAD?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : That's right. The HFC stuff. And then, what does that translate into, in terms of incremental new homes added per year to our build numbers? We just don't have any BEAD in it, I don't think. LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 09, 2025 / 8:45PM, DY.N - Dycom Industries Inc at UBS Global Media and Communications Conference

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : When you talk about the skilled workforce -- I know very little about this -- are the skills -- and basically the people you need that are involved in fiber-to-the-home -- are they the same guys with the same skill sets as building fiber to a data center or even, wiring a data center? You know what I mean? That all the connectivity through the data center distribution within the building, distributing to each rack. The amount of connectivity and fiber that needs to be laid, not just to the data centers but within the data centers, is astounding. Do you guys -- first of all, is that the same labor pool, number one? We're going to get to that -- complete different section but are you guys involved in that?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Yeah. It's amazing. We were at our tech conference last week. We met with the Crusoe guys about the Stargate site down in Abilene, Texas. It's going to be scaled to 1.2 gigawatts, if I'm correct. They have 8,000 worker there a day, every day, on that site. 8,000.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : There's a ton of these gigawatt-type projects all over the country, right now. That's just a lot of people. So yeah, things are going to get worse than get better. Can we talk about other bottlenecks, in terms of building fiber to the home and how they've trended outside of labor. What are the other -- I think permitting is always one of the things that is an issue. Does that -- is that a bit of a governor on your guys' growth?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : What is the timing on that? First of all, I love the [shot-clock] thing. I remember -- following the SEC for years with these deal approvals, they

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Yeah. What's the timing on potential change to the regulatory, to the permitting? You said (inaudible) there's some federal action.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Just finishing up on BEAD, I think you said that money really starts to flow in '26. And then, can you lay out half your expectations for how that scales? What's the biggest year, in terms of the BEAD build? First of all, I have to say I haven't been following it as much in the last, say, six months. But we used to -- going back three years.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Yeah. Exactly. I guess we got tired of it or something. I don't know. But we were writing about it, following each state. But if all the states approved -- remind me of the process there. I think they had to rebid, right? When the Trump administration came in and all the states have rebid, do we know who the winners are in each state and when when the money is going to be allocated?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Okay. Right. That's a lot of focus on the fiber-to-the-home opportunity. There's still a lot left. Frankly, the biggest year is still ahead of you, at least, based on our math. But let's pivot to the long-haul fiber opportunity. First of all, is it all driven by -- when I look -- think of the long-haul power, is that all driven by data centers? (inaudible) data center but are there other aspects to it?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : For sure.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : I hate to ask you because no one know the answer to this but that $20 billion number -- we follow data centers. We try to extrapolate, based on what, like, Sam Altamn is saying in any given day -- or all the big hyperscalers. He's talking about 250 gigawatts over the next -- I think, it's eight years. I think there's no way they're going to spend the trillions of dollars needed to do that. But, like, the $20 billion market size, what -- I think it's very hard to know this but, like, that can't assume that all this buildout that people are talking about -- that all these -- LSEG STREETEVENTS | www.lseg.com | Contact Us consent of LSEG. 'LSEG' and the LSEG logo are registered trademarks of LSEG and its affiliated companies. DECEMBER 09, 2025 / 8:45PM, DY.N - Dycom Industries Inc at UBS Global Media and Communications Conference

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : (multiple speakers) This $20 billion, this is the fiber spend for deals that you guys are -- for AI compute infrastructure that you feel you have a line of sight to getting built out over the next five years?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Okay. Where do you guys fit in the ecosystem? Like, obviously, Lumen is a big one. Zayo is another builder. We actually had the Optimum -- I can't use -- the Optimum guys in here talking about Lightpath. I think that's system-built. You guys are contractors for all these. You guys are actually doing the work that these guys are signing up.

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : It seems like the data center -- maybe this is similar to what you're seeing on the fiber-to-the-home world. But from -- probably in the data centers throughout -- you had core data center markets: Northern Virginia, maybe Silicon Valley, maybe Chicago. The fact that they're spreading to more tertiary and secondary markets -- frankly, where they can get power and or have the conditions for

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : You mentioned Power Solutions. Can you talk about the recent deal to acquire Power Solutions and how it helps you further your efforts in the data center area; and expectations for the integration process and the synergies --

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : It makes a lot of sense. It's vertical. You're just going deeper with your data center customers. All right. Maybe to wrap up here, could you talk a little bit about how you guys think about operating leverage for the company on a multiyear basis; and what the main priorities are, from a capital allocation standpoint?

Question: John Hodulik - UBS AG - Analyst : Great. Dan, this is great. I appreciate you being here.