Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo dismissed a media report that the company is mulling the sale of assets worth up to $10 billion, particularly in the enterprise sector, as “conjecture”.

“They are factless, they are conjecture, they are speculative, and there’s no foundation behind these comments,” blasted Shammo during a Q&A at the Wells Fargo Technology Media & Telecoms Event.

A report said Verizon is mulling a sale of the former MCI business, which provides connectivity for large businesses, as well as its Terremark data centre unit.

Shammo speculated about the motive for such stories: “So the question I kind of wonder about is are our competitors trying to get the enterprise customer a little antsy about Verizon and their continued support?”

He reiterated Verizon’s commitment to the enterprise market. “I think we’ve shown it. This is part of our portfolio and we will continue to support our enterprise customers. These rumors and speculative information is just ridiculous, so there’s really no comment to make beyond that.”

On a recent conference call, Shammo acknowledged that the company was working through “secular and economic challenges” in the enterprise market, and warning about its level of competition.

Verizon has been putting greater focus on the consumer market in recent times, including the recent, high-profile launch of its Go90 mobile video service that is targeted at the millennials market.

But some forms of price competition are not as harsh as they seem, according to other comments from Shammo during Wells Fargo’s Q&A. Yes, service revenue is declining per Mb/s on data, he said, but so are costs.

“So when people look at the revenue slope of service revenue going down everyone gets concerned, but keep in mind the cost to serve that megabit is also down,” he said.  The LTE network is four to five times more efficient than 3G, Shammo added.

The net effect is beneficial. “You can see that cost per bit continuing to decline and that’s why Verizon Wireless has continued to hold the profitability, even with all of this competitive environment going on. You have to work both sides of that equation,” he said.