QWEST CORP 10-K

ITEM 2. PROPERTIES Our property, plant and equipment consists principally of telephone lines, cable, central office equipment, land and buildings related to our operations. Our gross property, plant and equipment consisted of the following components: As of December 31, 2021 2020 Land 2 % 2 % Fiber, conduit and other outside plant (1) 43 % 50 % Central office and other network electronics (2) 34 % 30 % Support assets (3) 18 % 16 % Construction in progress (4) 3 % 2 % Gross property, plant and equipment 100 % 100 % _______________________________________________________________________________ (1) Fiber, conduit and other outside plant consists of fiber and metallic cable, conduit, poles and other supporting structures. Fiber, conduit and other outside plant decreased as of December 31, 2021 compared to December 31, 2020 due to the retirement of a portion of our copper-based infrastructure being replaced with our Quantum Fiber infrastructure. (2) Central office and other network electronics consists of circuit and packet switches, routers, transmission electronics and electronics providing service to customers. (3) Support assets consist of buildings, computers and other administrative and support equipment. (4) Construction in progress includes inventory held for construction and property of the aforementioned categories that is under construction and has not yet been placed in service. We own a substantial portion of our telecommunications equipment required for our business. However, we lease from third parties certain facilities, plant and equipment and software under various finance and operating lease arrangements when the leasing arrangements are more favorable to us than purchasing the assets. We also own and lease administrative offices in major metropolitan locations primarily within our local service area. Substantially all of our network electronics equipment is located in buildings or on land that we own or lease within our local service area. Outside of our local service area, our assets are generally located on real property pursuant to an agreement with the property owner or another person with rights to the property. It is possible that we may lose our rights under one or more of these agreements, due to their termination or expiration or in connection with legal challenges to our rights under such agreements. 25 Our net property, plant and equipment was approximately $8.2 billion and $8.3 billion at December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. For additional information, see Note 8—Property, Plant and Equipment to our consolidated financial statements in Item 8 of Part II of this report.