Wireless Licenses, Goodwill and Other Intangible Assets

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2023

Goodwill and Intangible Assets Disclosure [Abstract]

Wireless Licenses, Goodwill, and Other Intangible Assets


Note 4. Wireless Licenses, Goodwill, and Other Intangible Assets

Wireless Licenses

The carrying amounts of our Wireless licenses are as follows:


	At September 30,		At December 31,
(dollars in millions)	2023		2022
Wireless licenses	$	155,465	$	149,796

During the nine months ended September 30, 2023, we made payments of $578 million for obligations related to clearing costs and accelerated clearing incentives for wireless licenses. In October 2023, we made additional payments of $3.7 billion related to accelerated clearing incentive obligations for wireless licenses, which were accrued for as of September 30, 2023. See Note 3 for additional information.

At September 30, 2023 and 2022, approximately $22.1 billion and $45.4 billion, respectively, of wireless licenses were under development for commercial service for which we were capitalizing interest costs. We recorded approximately $1.2 billion and $1.3 billion of capitalized interest on wireless licenses for the nine months ended September 30, 2023 and 2022, respectively.

During the nine months ended September 30, 2023, we renewed various wireless licenses in accordance with FCC regulations. The average renewal period for these licenses was 10 years.

Goodwill

Changes in the carrying amount of Goodwill are as follows:


(dollars in millions)	Consumer		Business		Other		Total
Balance at January 1, 2023	$	21,142	$	7,502	$	27	$	28,671

Reclassifications, adjustments and other(1)	—		(2)		(27)		(29)
Balance at September 30, 2023	$	21,142	$	7,500	$	—	$	28,642

(1) Includes goodwill impairment charges of $27 million, related to non-strategic businesses presented within Other, recorded in Selling, general and administrative expense in our condensed consolidated statements of income for the nine months ended September 30, 2023.

Other Intangible Assets

The following table displays the composition of Other intangible assets, net as well as the respective amortization periods:


	At September 30, 2023						At December 31, 2022
(dollars in millions)	Gross Amount		Accumulated Amortization		Net Amount		Gross Amount		Accumulated Amortization		Net Amount
Customer lists (5 to 13 years)	$	4,335	$	(2,049)	$	2,286	$	4,335	$	(1,646)	$	2,689
Non-network internal-use software (7 years)	24,853		(17,586)		7,267		23,421		(16,397)		7,024
Other (4 to 25 years)	2,646		(1,247)		1,399		2,806		(1,058)		1,748
Total	$	31,834	$	(20,882)	$	10,952	$	30,562	$	(19,101)	$	11,461

The amortization expense for Other intangible assets was as follows:


	Three Months Ended		Nine Months Ended
(dollars in millions)	September 30,		September 30,
2023	$	690	$	1,990
2022	658		1,944

The estimated future amortization expense for Other intangible assets for the remainder of the current year and next 5 years is as follows:


Years	(dollars in millions)
Remainder of 2023	$	665
2024	2,481
2025	2,278
2026	2,031
2027	1,477
2028	1,065