Hans Vestberg on 5G mobile edge: ‘We’re probably two years ahead of anybody else in the market, in the world even’
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg presented at the 2021 UBS Global TMT Conference earlier this week, where he touched on the company’s five “vectors of growth,” market competition and 5G mobile edge compute.
Vestberg said that Verizon has been building its current network and service strategy for the past three years and expects 2022 to be “an exciting year for [the company].”
“Of course, we’re going to launch … C-band next year,” he continued. “So we basically are going to have a fantastic network all the way from the best 4G network [and] the best-performing 5G network with both millimeter wave and the C-band.”
Verstberg also expressed excitement about Verizon’s nationwide broadband ambitions next year, as well as the recently closed TracFone acquisition, which he said will supply the carrier with “a fresh million value customers.”
“Then we have the network monetization, working with MVNOs on top of our network, which also is adding to our profitability and our return on investment. And finally, we have the old 5G mobile edge compute and the industrial IoT and everything we’re doing there,” he said.
He added that these “vectors of growth” have positioned the company to “have everything that [was] needed in Verizon 2.0,” which is a strategy that was laid out in 2018.
Despite Vestberg’s confidence in Verizon’s strategy, he admitted to an increase in market competition on the consumer side, suggesting that both the holiday season and the “second wave of 5G” are the cause.
In the first wave, he explained, you build the network, and you get users onto the network. In the second wave, it becomes very important to bring in customers and give them “the experience that they deserve.”
“At the third quarter, we said that 25% of our customers now have a 5G phone, and that’s in basically one year […] 4G after one year [that number] was 10%,” he added.
However, while “the competition is heating up a little bit,” Vesterg insisted it was “nothing unusual” and that Verizon was “differentiating” with its subsription tiers: About 70% of its customers are on the unlimited plan; 30% are still metered on its value play plan; and of the 70% on unlimited, 30% are on unlimited premium.
“Our job is, of course, to see that our customer get the maximum value moving up that ladder. That’s our main focus,” he said. “We would like to have 90% on unlimited and 50% of that on unlimited premium. So we have a way to go. But however, we’re ahead of that plan […] but there’s still a lot of expansion for us.
“I have to say ’22 is an important year, and we feel really excited about it.”
Claiming to be two years ahead of anyone else in the market, and even in the world, Vestberg shared insight into the company’s 5G mobile edge compute progress, commenting that there are different offerings: A private 5G network where a private fiber network is built and then cloud software is placed at the edge; and public 5G mobile edge compute.
Regarding the first approach, Vestberg said it is offered in conjunction with “the large-scale guys” — AWS and Microsoft — and represents a significant opportunity for Verizon because it provides a clear and quick go-to-market option. He said that industries interested in this service continue to emerge including automation, manufacturing, logistic and healthcare.
It’s also a great opportunity to the company to utilize its millimeter wave network: “With the bandwidth we have, we can just deploy this immediately. And now the ecosystem is coming. I mean, first, it was sort of we build the network. Now we have small cell indoors for millimeter wave. And now handsets and other devices are coming. So this is an very important area for us going into ’22.”
When it comes the public 5G mobile edge compute, Vestberg shared that while this has been available for a while, the C-band deployments will “amplify” the offering.
“We have been really preparing for these moments, both on public and private,” he continued. “Going into ’22, to start now scaling this as the ecosystem is coming out […] we build the network once, and we have another opportunity based on it. And we have talked about the opportunity, a multibillion-dollar market opportunity for us going forward.”
