Verizon CEO Looking Forward to Approval of Frontier Buy
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg expressed confidence Wednesday that his company will complete its $20 billion acquisition of Frontier (see 2409050010). He told a JPMorgan conference that preparing for Frontier to become part of his company was one of the areas where he spends the largest percentage of his time. Last week, the FCC’s informal 180-day shot clock on the deal expired.
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Vestberg said the postpaid wireless subscriber numbers for Verizon are improving. The carrier reported a net loss of 289,000 postpaid phone subscribers in Q1, after adding 568,000 in Q4 2024 (see 2504220033). “We're going to do better, I promise you,” Vestberg said.
Verizon is doing well in the prepaid market, with numerous offerings designed to appeal to a range of customers, he said. “A prepaid customer is fantastic. They pay in advance, and they have some limitations on how much [bandwidth] they can use.”
Also at the JPMorgan conference, T-Mobile CFO Peter Osvaldik touched on the carrier’s proposed buy of spectrum and other wireless assets from UScellular but didn’t comment on the timing. The purchase “will help and benefit certain areas of smaller markets and rural areas.”
The deal includes spectrum “that we’re very excited to put to work,” Osvaldik said: “We’re famously known for being able to rapidly deploy spectrum for the benefit of customers, including UScellular customers."
T-Mobile reported 495,000 postpaid phone net adds for Q1, and Osvaldik said the carrier’s growth is continuing this quarter. “May to date, gross adds are up year over year -- in fact, a little bit more than they were even in April.”
Osvaldik said T-Mobile remains interested in fiber after investing in Lumos and Metronet (see 2504010034). “We’ll continue to look [for] value-accretive fiber opportunities,” he said: “Part of the reason we chose Metronet and Lumos was [they’re] pure-play fiber and a way to disrupt. Much like T-Mobile has disrupted wireless over the decades, that’s the plan in fiber as well.”