Where We’ve Been.
Today we celebrate Verizon’s 25th year as a company, after the historic merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE, which catalyzed the evolution of the communications industry in the United States. What was once a landscape of regional phone companies is now a national and global market for mobility, broadband and private networks. We are powering and empowering how our customers live, work and play, enabling the AI ecosystem and creating spaces for people to invent and sell new services.
As we grew, our responsibilities expanded alongside our potential to make people’s lives better. Verizon provided mobility services to first responders on 9/11, and decades later we optimized our network during COVID-19 to meet the sudden (and lasting) rise in demand. The team ran to the crisis then, and we have ever since. Verizon is always there to help people adapt and work together, rebuilding and enhancing the telecommunications infrastructure that powers the world economy.
Verizon took bold actions, including our launch of the world’s first commercial 5G services. I stood in the home where the first-ever 5G connection was made. It was a groundbreaking moment, one of the most memorable in my career. We helped spread mobility services around the world, untethering the internet from people’s desks. The app economy, smart tech and now artificial intelligence all rely on our networks. People unleash their creativity using our technology, innovating in ways that surprise and delight.
Where We Are.
We have more than 150 million connections between wireless and broadband, serving consumers and businesses. Each one represents real events in people’s lives. It’s friends sharing gameday videos or concert photos, and relatives separated by distance, sharing moments together. It’s a florist winning a new account or a restaurant taking reservations for the first time. It’s a global company standing up a private network to bring all of its offices together. Everything we do is essential to everyday life in ways that are now so common, we barely see them.
With the largest customer base in mobility, a leading share of the business market, and through our pioneering work in broadband and fixed wireless access, we have been close partners to so many of you during the first quarter of the 21st century. Along with you, our customers, shareholders and the V Team, I want to look forward to the next 25 years and beyond as we deepen our customer relationships even further to deliver personalized services and experiences.
Where We’re Going, Together.
There are so many exciting new technologies on the horizon and we’re at the center of it as they get designed on our network. Tomorrow’s innovators all recognize that we have the best network in the country, and they come to us first when they want to test a new device and service. These new technologies will unlock efficiencies for businesses while making life more enjoyable and helping you deepen your connections with the people who matter most to you. When I get a glimpse of what’s to come, I am very excited. And our network just gets better and better. This year, we broke upload and download speed records as we expanded our network’s power to support the massive data demands of real-time applications, seamless cloud connectivity, and AI-driven workloads.
Every day, I see the growing importance of connectivity in the lives of our customers. The average Verizon household has 18 networked devices. Data usage is up at some of the world’s biggest live events, year after year. The ecosystem around 5G is advancing and we are breaking records. I have seen businesses from small to global enterprises transformed from good to great by the power of our network.
Over the last 7 years, we have invested nearly $200B into our business in the US, and I promise you that we will continue to do so. Following the close of our pending acquisition of Frontier, we anticipate expanding our fiber footprint to more than 25 million households. We are enhancing service through satellite partnerships. We are bringing choice and control to our mobile plans and to home internet with myPlan and myHome, as well as customized business offerings. We will continue to extend our network superiority to meet and exceed the demands of new AI services and personalization.
Thank you to everybody who has helped Verizon reach 25 years and for continuing to share the journey.
