Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam shrugged off a drop in wireless service revenue during the fourth quarter, explaining the operator is well positioned for future growth, in particular due to its focus on 5G.

The next-generation technology featured heavily in the operator’s Q4 2017 earnings call today (23 January). Though it’s leading with fixed-wireless, McAdam said Verizon is targeting a full range of 5G services, including mobility, home broadband, IoT and sub-millisecond use cases.

The executive acknowledged the market is extremely competitive, but said Verizon won’t lead the sector downward on price. However, he said the operator plans to leverage its asset portfolio – including Oath – to “be competitive in ways that the others can’t compete” as 5G deployments commence.

“There’s an insatiable demand for broadband, and it’s not mobile and it’s not fixed. Customers don’t care. I think who wins is going to be able to provide them the service that they can move seamlessly from fixed to mobile.”

Though he didn’t give any details about Verizon’s mobile 5G plans, McAdam noted the operator expects to see 5G-capable mobile devices by the end of the year with more releases following in 2019.

Earnings
Net income attributable to Verizon soared from $4.4 billion in Q4 2016 to $18.7 billion in the recent quarter, as total revenue grew 5 per cent year-on-year to $33.9 billion.

Wireless service revenue dipped 2.9 per cent to $15.9 billion despite the operator racking up net additions of 1.2 million post paid connections, which includes 431,000 net subscriber additions.

Fixed testing continues
McAdam said Verizon is continuing its fixed-wireless 5G trials, with more than 200 sites up and running. With tests yielding peak speeds of 10Gb/s, McAdam added: “We are very comfortable with being able to deliver a gigabit of service to everyone that we’re providing service to.”

Though Verizon still plans to launch with pre-standard 5G technology, McAdam noted the operator is expecting to move to a standards-based implementation once Qualcomm releases the necessary chips in the second half of this year.