Verizon Awaiting Next C-Band Influx for Further Fixed-Wireless Expansion: Vestberg

April 25, 2023 – The CEO of Verizon said Tuesday that the telecom expects further growth in its fixed-wireless business as it awaits C-band spectrum clearance by the end of the year.

For the three months ending March 31, the company reported 393,000 net new fixed-wireless subscribers for the period, up from 194,000 it added in the same quarter last year. It has incrementally increased that subscriber base over the last five quarters to end with 1.9 million.

“We’re seeing growth quarter after quarter after quarter [as] fixed-wireless continues to scale and contribute to increasing our revenue performance,” said CEO Hans Vestberg on a first-quarter conference call Tuesday. “Our business customers are increasingly turning to fixed wireless access as their primary source of broadband connectivity, won over by the reliability and the overall value of the product.”

The company said fixed-wireless service has become one of the biggest uses for its 5G network. And executives said on the call that Verizon anticipates that it will be able to expand its growth in the segment as it gets more C-band spectrum – the airwaves that power wireless communications.

“[In] the latter part of this year, we will get our next chunk of C-band,” Vestberg said. “Right now we are covering about 70 out of over 400 markets.”

The bulk of the current C-band in the market has been in urban and suburban areas, Vestberg said. But the “majority” of the upcoming slices are for more suburban and rural areas, he added.

Vestberg also said the company is confident its network can handle the additional capacity from the influx of fixed-wireless subscribers because of new technologies, such as the more efficient use of spectrum that comes from carrier aggregation and new devices being able to utilize more spectrum.

While Verizon eyes more fixed-wireless investment, AT&T has said it isn’t a product that it is looking to heavily invest in as it targets more fiber connectivity.

At quarter-end, the company had a total of 143.3 million retail wireless subscribers – 121 million of which were postpaid versus 22.3 million prepaid – up from the 142.9 million in the same period last year. The figures include both consumer and business segments.

Consumer internet was up to 6.8 million subscribers by the end of the quarter year-over-year, as it added 63,000 new subscribers in the quarter compared to just 55,000 in the comparative period.

The company saw a slight revenue decline of 1.7 percent to $32.9 billion across its segments compared to the same quarter last year, which was attributed to lower service and equipment revenue. Its net income was up 6.5 percent to roughly $5 billion compared to the same period.