Goodwill and Intangible Assets

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2025

Goodwill and Intangible Assets Disclosure [Abstract]

Note 3—Goodwill and Intangible Assets

Goodwill and Intangible assets, net on our consolidated balance sheets consisted of the following:


	September 30, 2025		December 31, 2024
	(Dollars in millions)
Goodwill, less accumulated impairment losses of $2,405 and $2,405(1)	$	5,650	6,955
Intangible assets, less accumulated amortization of $1,643 and $1,841	$	103	84

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(1) As of September 30, 2025, this amount excluded goodwill classified as held for sale of $1.3 billion. See Note 2—Planned Divestiture of the Lumen Mass Markets Fiber-to-the-Home Business.

As of September 30, 2025 and December 31, 2024, the gross carrying amount of goodwill and intangible assets was $7.4 billion and $8.9 billion.

Substantially all of our goodwill was derived from Lumen's acquisition of us in which the purchase price exceeded the fair value of the net assets acquired.

We are required to assess our goodwill for impairment annually, or under certain circumstances, more frequently, such as when events or changes in circumstances indicate there may be impairment. We are required to write down the value of goodwill only when our assessment determines the carrying value of equity of our reporting unit exceeds its fair value. Our annual impairment assessment date for goodwill is October 31, at which date we assess goodwill at our reporting unit. In reviewing the criteria for reporting units, we have determined that we have one reporting unit.

We determined that the classification of the Lumen Mass Markets fiber-to-the-home business as held for sale, as described in Note 2—Planned Divestiture of the Lumen Mass Markets Fiber-to-the-Home Business, was considered an event or change in circumstance which required an assessment of our goodwill for impairment as of April 30, 2025. We performed a pre-classification goodwill impairment test using the market approach to test for impairment prior to the classification of these assets as held for sale and to determine the April 30, 2025 fair values to be utilized for goodwill impairment testing. Applying this approach, we utilized company comparisons and analyst reports within the telecommunications industry which supported a range of fair values derived from annualized revenue and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization ("EBITDA") multiples between 1.8x and 3.1x and 5.8x and 8.0x, respectively.

As of April 30, 2025, based on our assessments performed, the estimated fair value of our equity exceeded our carrying value of equity by approximately 15% and 14% for the pre-classification and post-classification, respectively. We concluded that we had no impairment as of our April 30, 2025 assessment date.

The following table shows the rollforward of goodwill from December 31, 2024 to September 30, 2025.


	(Dollars in millions)

As of December 31, 2024(1)	$	6,955

Reclassified as held for sale(2)	(1,305)
As of September 30, 2025(1)	$	5,650

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(1) Goodwill at both September 30, 2025 and December 31, 2024 is net of accumulated impairment losses of $2.4 billion.

(2) Reflects the $1.3 billion of goodwill reclassified as held for sale related to our pending divestiture. See Note 2—Planned Divestiture of the Lumen Mass Markets Fiber-to-the-Home Business

Total amortization expense for finite-lived intangible assets for the three months ended September 30, 2025 and 2024 totaled $8 million and $4 million, respectively, and for the nine months ended September 30, 2025 and 2024 totaled $25 million and $29 million, respectively.