Before turning the call over, I want to remind everyone that due to the FCC's anti-collusion rules related to Auction 107, which are still in effect, we will not be responding to any questions relating to that auction.
At UScellular, we executed on two $500 million bond transactions, increased the size of our term loan in EIP securitization program, and extended the term of our revolver.
I also want to highlight that in 2020, the CARES Act provided a unique opportunity to carry back tax losses from 2020 against profits made in prior years when the federal tax rates were 35%, which is 14% higher than the current rate.
The net effect of all this activity was an expected cash refund of approximately $180 million, the majority of which we expect to receive in the first half of 2021, which includes a permanent tax benefit of $60 million.
For GAAP accounting purposes, this yielded an unusually low effective tax rate of 6.4%.
If we flip to Page 6, just to state the obvious, 2020 was a challenging year.
We saw over 50% increases in data usage year-over-year.
Our traffic was down almost 30% in the fourth quarter, and that's just a little bit less impact than the retail industry in general over that same time period.
We realized increased income from our equity method investments and all of that together drove adjusted EBITDA to increase 5% year-over-year.
As I mentioned earlier, we experienced a 54% year-over-year increase in daily usage, but we managed our systems operations expenses to only a 3% year-over-year increase.
We ended the year with 5G capability at 24% of our cell sites.
And those cell sites handle 50% of our overall traffic.
Total smartphone connections increased by 47,000 over the course of the past 12 months.
That helps to drive more service revenue, given that smartphone ARPU is about $21 higher than feature phone ARPU.
As mentioned, we saw connected device gross additions increase by 12,000 year-over-year.
During Q4, we saw an average year-over-year decline in store traffic of around 30% related to the impacts of COVID-19.
Postpaid handset churn, depicted by the blue bars, was 1.01%, down from 1.11% a year ago.
And about 60% of the customers that were on the pledge at June 30 are actively paying.
Total postpaid churn, combining handsets and connected devices, was 1.21% for the fourth quarter of 2020, also lower than a year ago.
Total operating revenues for the fourth quarter were $1.073 billion, a modest increase year-over-year.
Retail service revenues increased by $17 million to $683 million.
Inbound roaming revenue was $33 million.
That was a decrease of $9 million year-over-year, driven by a decrease in data volume.
Other service revenues were $60 million, an increase of $5 million year-over-year, partially due to a 9% increase in tower rental revenues.
Finally, equipment sales revenues increased by $8 million year-over-year due to an increase in average revenue per unit for new smartphones, partially offset by lower accessory sales.
Average revenue per user or connection was $47.51 for the fourth quarter, up $0.94 or 2% year-over-year.
On a per account basis, average revenue grew by $3.88, or 3% year-over-year.
Fourth quarter tower rental revenues increased by 9% year-over-year.
As shown at the bottom of the slide, adjusted operating income was $178 million, a decrease of 2% year-over-year.
As I commented earlier, total operating revenues were $1.073 billion, a 2% increase year-over-year.
Total cash expenses were $895 million, increasing $24 million or 3% year-over-year.
Excluding roaming expense, system operations expense increased by 7%, driven partially by costs associated with our network modernization and 5G deployment, including higher maintenance and support costs for network operations, higher cell site rent expense and an increase in costs to decommission network assets.
Note that total system usage grew by 36% year-over-year.
Roaming expense increased $3 million, or 9% year-over-year, due to a 68% increase in off-net data usage, partially offset by lower data rates.
Cost of equipment sold increased $14 million, or 5% year-over-year, due primarily to an increase in the average cost per unit for new smartphones, partially offset by a decrease in accessory sales.
Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased $4 million, or 1% year-over-year, driven primarily by a decrease in bad debts expense.
Bad debts expense decreased $10 million, due to lower write-offs, driven by fewer non-pay customers as a result of a better credit mix and improved customer payment behavior.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $222 million, flat year-over-year.
Equity and earnings of unconsolidated entities increased by $4 million, or 11%.
Total operating revenues were $4 billion, a modest increase year-over-year.
Total cash expenses were $3.2 billion, a decrease of $29 million year-over-year.
System operations expense increased by 3%, despite a 54% increase in total system usage on our network and a 59% increase in off-network data usage.
Adjusted operating income and adjusted EBITDA grew by 5%.
For total service revenues, we expect a range of approximately $3.025 billion to $3.125 billion.
We expect adjusted operating income to be within a range of $800 million to $950 million, and adjusted EBITDA within a range of $975 million to $1.125 billion.
For capital expenditures, the estimate is in a range of $775 million to $875 million.
Despite the many challenges we had to overcome, we grew revenues 5% and reinvested savings from operational efficiencies into our growth initiatives, while still modestly improving adjusted EBITDA.
We have been extremely active in deploying fiber by investing a $130 million during 2020.
In addition to the expansion of fiber-to-the-home infrastructure, we connected over 67,000 service addresses to our network, bringing total fiber addresses to 307,000, both in existing markets and our growing expansion markets.
In our fourth year of investment under the A-CAM program, we spent $30 million and have exceeded our subscriber gross add and revenue projections for the year.
We are upgrading the existing plant to DOCSIS 3.1, and are deploying fiber in neighborhoods not previously built.
Now turning to slides 19 and 20.
Our goal for the year is to generate overall revenue growth of around 3%, with new market growth offsetting wireline commercial and wholesale erosion and cable continuing its strong performance.
We plan to deliver 150,000 new fiber service addresses by the end of 2021, more than doubling last year's address delivery and increasing our wireline footprint by nearly 20%.
Revenues increased 6% from the prior year, as growth from our fiber expansions, increases in broadband subscribers and the Continuum cable acquisition exceeded the declines we experienced in our legacy business.
Cash expenses increased 8%, due to additional spending from our growth initiatives and increases in facility maintenance.
Adjusted EBITDA declined 2% to $74 million.
Capital expenditures increased to $147 million, as we continue to increase our investment in fiber deployment and success-based spend.
Broadband residential connections grew 9% in the quarter, as we continue to fortify our network with fiber and expand into new markets.
From a broadband speed perspective, we are offering up to 1 gig broadband speeds in our fiber markets as 13% of our wireline customers are taking this product where offered.
Across our wireline residential base, including our new out-of-territory markets, 40% of broadband customers are taking 100 megabit speeds or greater compared to 33% a year ago, helping to drive a 5% increase in average residential revenue per connection.
Wireline residential video connections grew 8%.
And at the same time, we expanded our IPTV markets to 55, up from 40 a year ago.
Approximately 40% of our broadband customers in our IPTV markets take video.
Our IPTV services in total cover 41% of our wireline footprint today, leaving opportunity to further leverage our investment in video.
As a result of this strategy, over the last several years, 307,000 or 36% of our wireline service addresses are now served by fiber, which is up from 30% a year ago.
This is driving revenue growth, while also expanding the total wireline footprint 7% to 845,000 service addresses.
These additional markets bring our fiber program, which began in 2019, to 430,000 service addresses, which will expand our total footprint -- our total fiber footprint to 620,000 service addresses by 2024.
Total revenues increased 1% to $173 million, largely driven by the strong growth in residential revenues, which increased 8% due to growth from broadband and video connections as well as growth from within the broadband product mix, partially offset by a 2% decrease in residential voice connections.
Commercial revenues decreased 8% to $37 million in the quarter, primarily driven by lower CLEC connections.
Wholesale revenues decreased 3% to $46 million due to certain state USF timing support.
In wireline, cash expenses increased 3% on higher video programming fees, maintenance expense and advertising, partially offset by the capitalization of new modems previously expensed.
In total, wireline adjusted EBITDA decreased 8% to $50 million.
Total cable connections grew 2% to 379,000, driven by 8% increase in total broadband connections.
Broadband penetration continued to increase, up 200 basis points to 46%.
On Slide 26, total cable revenues increased 18% to $76 million, driven in part by the acquisition.
Without the acquisition, cable revenues grew 9%, driven by growth in broadband connections for both residential and commercial customers.
Our focus on broadband connection growth and fast reliable service has generated a 27% increase in total residential broadband revenue, including organic growth of $5 million or 18%.
Also driving the revenue change is a 6% increase in average residential revenue per connection, driven by higher-value product mix and price increases.
Cash expenses increased 19%, including those from the acquisition, or 12% excluding acquisition due to increased employee expense.
As a result, cable adjusted EBITDA increased 14% to $23 million in the quarter.
Revenues increased 5%, about half of which was due to the cable acquisition.
Cash expense also increased 5%, again, mostly due to the acquisition, but also as we redeploy spending from our legacy businesses to our growth initiatives and expansion into new markets.
Adjusted EBITDA grew 1% from last year to $317 million.
We are forecasting total Telecom revenues of $975 million to $1.025 billion in 2021, compared to $976 million in 2020.
This reflects our goal of 3% top line growth, driven by continued improvements in both the wireline and cable segments.
This includes contributions from our new fiber markets growing to $22 million in 2020 to nearly $50 million in 2021, offsetting declines in the legacy parts of our business.
The increase in revenue will contribute to an adjusted EBITDA that we expect will be between $290 million to $320 million in 2021, compared to $317 million in 2020.
Capital expenditures are expected to be between $425 million and $475 million in 2021 compared to $368 million in 2020.
Wireline capex guidance includes $240 million for fiber deployments, nearly double our 2020 spending as well as nearly $90 million in success-based spending in both wireline and cable and approximately $25 million for the A-CAM program.

Summary:
As I commented earlier, total operating revenues were $1.073 billion, a 2% increase year-over-year.
For capital expenditures, the estimate is in a range of $775 million to $875 million.