Agreement on C-Band Is the Final Word: Verizon CTO

Verizon has no doubts it will be able to start turning on its C band in two weeks, after reaching an agreement with the FAA and aviation industry (see 2201040070), said Chief Technology Officer Kyle Malady at a Citi virtual conference Wednesday. “This is the final agreement,” he said: “We feel this is it.” The presentation was the first by a top Verizon official since the agreement was unveiled.

The agreement means Verizon won’t have C band around airports, Malady said. All other spectrum will be available “so nobody loses anything,” he said. “Over time, this will get worked out, and then we’ll be able to turn on the C band all over,” he said.

C band is a “game changer” for Verizon, Malady said. “We’ve acquired spectrum in low band, primarily, but very, very thin swaths, and then kind of cobbled it all together to make it work, which was quite an engineering challenge.” Verizon was “really aggressive” in the C-band auction because it considered the auction unique, he said (requires registration). “This is generational spectrum,” he said: “We have access to that spectrum. We have legal rights to that spectrum.”

In recent years, the government has made a “vast amount of spectrum available,” starting with millimeter-wave, Malady said, acknowledging high-band limitations. “It doesn’t carry that far,” he said: “It’s the best tool there is in dense urban environments, in places that people congregate, airports, stadiums.” Low-band provides good coverage, but with limited bandwidth, he said. With C band, “we have the coverage, and we have greater bandwidth capabilities,” he said.

Manon Brouillette, CEO of Verizon Consumer Group, said the company sees room for growth in the years ahead. “The market is quite healthy,” she said. “There is a lot of room for connectivity. … All connectivity combined there’s a lot of growth ahead.” Verizon wants to grab as much of the market as possible, she said.

With more spectrum available, Malady predicted growth in all kinds of devices, from smartphones to robots and drones. “It’s revenue coming in,” he said. “It’s connected to the network, and at the end of the day we just want everything connected to our network.” Verizon has allocated the money to deploy spectrum “as fast as we humanly can,” he said.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr slammed the C-band agreement in an emailed comment. “The FCC -- the expert agency Congress charged with regulating the airwaves -- determined the 5G rules for C Band years ago through a public and open rulemaking process,” he said: “I have never seen such a dysfunctional process -- and I have been at the FCC for ten years. I am worried that the precedent this process sets will undermine U.S. leadership in wireless by inviting further rogue conduct by agencies that disagree with the outcomes determined through the FCC process Congress established."

“Because of the importance to the U.S. of getting 5G services launched as soon as possible, consistent with a proper resolution of the safety concerns,” President Joe Biden was right to get involved, emailed Free State President Randolph May: “It’s encouraging that President Biden says he is committed to rapid 5G deployment, because presidential leadership may be needed in other regards to make this commitment a meaningful reality."

AT&T released partial Q4 results before a presentation at the Citi conference by CEO John Stankey. The carrier announced 880,000 postpaid phone net adds in the quarter, and 1.3 million total postpaid adds, with 270,000 fiber net adds. It reported nearly 74 million HBO Max and HBO subscribers.

“I’m just delighted to get through one of the most significant and competitive quarters in wireless,” Stankey said. Customers don’t want to have to think about how they’re getting connected, he said. “We’re going to see more consolidated offers going out to customers where people are selling a bundle of connectivity, and it doesn’t matter where you are or where you need to use it,” he said.

With AT&T’s low-band spectrum “our network is performing incredibly well right now,” Stankey said (registration required). AT&T is going to follow a “deliberate” approach in deploying C band, he said. “You want to make sure that you’re using the right electronics and the right time to be on a tower once, as opposed to multiple times,” he said.

Expectations on phone net adds “were creeping up following comments from AT&T and the other carriers at conferences towards the end of last year,” New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin told investors Wednesday. Investors in T-Mobile “will likely be relieved that AT&T adds weren’t even stronger,” he said. Chaplin said the fiber net adds were “disappointing,” since AT&T passed an additional 1.7 million homes during the quarter.

Stankey said he wants to move away from a homes passed focus in favor of customer growth. “I’m really pleased with 270,000 fiber adds,” he said, predicting more than 300,000 in coming quarters. Investors should look at whether adds “continue to scale and grow, irrespective of what we’re doing with the footprint,” he said.