Speaking at yesterday's 35th annual UBS Global Media & Communications conference Verizon President and COO Denny Strigl touted his company's recently announced plans to open its wireless network to any device (that meets technical requirements) and any application. Strigl said that open access would provide the company with a "phenomenal" new source of revenue because it will allow customers to use all types of applications that developers will produce, which could potential drive lots of data traffic over the network. At the same time, he said that the model will help the firm reduce costs because it won't be a drain on customer service. "Customer service is not a heavy expenditure on this business but will be done by those that bring services to this model," Strigl said.
Regarding the firm's plans to migrate to LTE as its next-generation of infrastructure technology, Strigl assured investors that LTE would not cause a major spike in capital expenditure. Instead he characterized it as an upgrade that will be very similar to the firm's current network upgrade to EVDO Rev. A.
Strigl confirmed reports that Verizon would support Google's Android operating system but explained that while Verizon hasn't signed any formal agreement with Google, the company's support for Android would be no different than its support for any other operating systems. -Sue
Related article: The industry sounds off on Verizon's decision [1]
Links:
[1] http://www.fiercewireless.com/story/feature-sound-industry-insiders-discuss-verizons-open-access-announcement/2007-11-30