Verizon's Dunne Predicts C-Band Momentum

Verizon is seeing traffic growth at its stores as the pandemic wanes, and is recruiting an additional 1,000 retail employees to keep pace, Verizon Consumer Group CEO Ronan Dunne told a Bernstein virtual conference Wednesday. Verizon is seeing strong economic recovery, “we're seeing the evidence of consumer confidence, we're seeing activity levels both on the network and in the marketplace, back to 2019 and maybe even above,” he said. Dunne predicted growing momentum for Verizon as its C-band spectrum comes online later this year. All “key” handsets are compatible with the newly opened band, which will offer 5G similar to what’s available now using high-band spectrum, he said. Verizon’s high-band 5G covers only a small percentage of customers, “but we make no apologies for that because we're delivering millimeter wave as a fundamental enhancement of experience and capacity in the areas that have the densest demand for traffic,” he said.