Beginning with and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we witnessed a deteriorating real estate market in and around the buildings we service in central business districts in North America. As a result of the rising vacancy levels and falling lease initiations or renewals, we experienced a slowdown in new sales to our corporate customers, which negatively impacted our corporate revenue results. As the option to fully or partially work from home becomes permanently established at many companies, our corporate customers are integrating some of the new applications that became part of the remote work environment, which benefits our corporate business as these customers upgrade their Internet access infrastructure to higher capacity connections. Further, if and when companies eventually return to the buildings in which we operate, we believe it will present an opportunity for increased sales. However, the exact timing and path of these positive trends remains uncertain, and as the after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic linger, we may continue to see increased corporate customer turnover, fewer upgrades of existing corporate customer configurations and fewer new tenant opportunities, which would negatively impact our corporate revenue growth.
We continue to experience a slowdown in the availability and delivery of networking equipment and optical fiber. While we believe we can adequately manage the operation, maintenance, upgrading and growth of our network, a worsening or prolonged slowdown may impact our ability to expand and augment our network.
While worldwide capital markets have remained unstable or unpredictable since then, particularly for non-investment grade issuers, legislative bodies and reserve banks have taken various actions in response to the pandemic that have impacted the capital markets, and we expect that these efforts may continue. We cannot predict whether new COVID-19 variants will arise and spread widely, the impact of the spread of new COVID-19 variants on the global economy, how national and local governments may react to the spread of new variants nor predict the impact the variants and any measures taken in response may have on our operations, employee retention, revenue growth, cash flows and our profitability.
Critical Accounting Estimates
Management believes that as of March 31, 2023, there have been no material changes to our critical accounting policies and significant estimates from those listed in Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” of our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022.
ITEM 3. QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE DISCLOSURES ABOUT MARKET RISK
Management believes that as of March 31, 2023, there have been no material changes to our exposures to market risk from those disclosed in Item 7A “Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk” of our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, except as disclosed below under Item 1A “Risk Factors”.
ITEM 4. CONTROLS AND PROCEDURES.
We maintain disclosure controls and procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed in our reports under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rules and forms, and that such information is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate, to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosures. In designing and evaluating the disclosure controls and procedures, management recognizes that any controls and procedures, no matter how well designed and operated, can provide only reasonable assurance of achieving the desired control objectives, and management necessarily was required to apply its judgment in evaluating the cost-benefit relationship of possible controls and procedures.
As required by SEC Rule 13a-15(b), an evaluation was performed under the supervision and with the participation of our management, including our principal executive officer and our principal financial officer, of the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended) as of the end of the period covered by this report. Based upon that evaluation, our management, including our principal executive officer and our principal financial officer, concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were effective at the reasonable assurance level as of the end of the period covered by this report.
There has been no change in our internal control over financial reporting during our most recent fiscal quarter that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.