Verizon explains exactly how it will make money from 5G

Verizon hosted a strategy session for investors this week, detailing its 5G network upgrade efforts and – perhaps more importantly – how it plans to make money from the construction of that network.

In a response to questions from analysts on the topic, Verizon CFO Matthew Ellis said that the operator expects to recoup its investment into 5G.

Much of Verizon’s presentation focused on the operator’s 5G network and its efforts to improve services on both its lowband spectrum holdings as well as its highband, millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum holdings.

“I think I could characterize it [2020] as a year of execution, execution, execution,” said Verizon CTO Kyle Malady.

Building the network

Overall, Malady said that Verizon has managed to keep pace with its customers’ data demands, even in the face of rising network usage stemming from stay-at-home orders sparked by the pandemic.

“COVID really shifted our usage patterns,” Malady explained. “People moved out of urban [areas] and moved into rural and suburban [areas] during the pandemic.”

He said the operator responded by adding more capacity to its network than it had previously planned. Verizon is in part using the newly freed CBRS spectrum band to add capacity to its 4G network.

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