Okay, it was really the quote of a few days ago, but financial analyst Arnie Berman of Cowen and Company told me he thinks the financial press will be lauding Verizon in a short two years for its gigantic investment in fiber. We were talking about how Verizon, given its responsibility to shareholders, has been able to get away with spending such huge amounts on an infrastructure build-out. In my opinion, there’s a tech perspective on this (we need bandwidth to do more stuff!) and a patriotic perspective (we need bandwidth to outmatch our global competitors). However, neither of those perspectives is complete without the financial angle.
Verizon’s FiOS has been a darling of the technology press, but certainly less well-favored by financial media. Despite significant FiOS gains, the fiber investment still brought earnings down about 11 cents per share last quarter. Tough news for shareholders to swallow. However, Broadband Daily pointed out that at the same time Verizon’s Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) is rising. It’s not on par with cable, but it’s getting closer.
In a couple of years the Verizon landscape will look a lot different. Presumably broadband expenditures will be down and revenues up. Hence Arnie’s prediction.
You may be wondering where Motorola fits into all of this. Beyond Motorola’s direct relationship with Verizon’s FiOS service (BPON, GPON and set-tops), Motorola is involved in every capacity imaginable with regard to increasing bandwidth across the country. (And across the globe, but that’s a different post) Be it Verizon’s approach to bandwidth management, which is likely to be rewarded soon, or Comcast’s, which is being rewarded now, or some other broadband provider, Motorola is in the thick of it. Bandwidth is a huge part of the foundation for the connected home.
