Verizon’s Frontier acquisition bolsters its fiber/wireless converged plans
Key Highlights
- Verizon aims to reach over 50 million homes with fiber through acquisitions and strategic partnerships, including Tillman Global Holdings.
- The company is prioritizing broadband investments, viewing fiber as a key competitive advantage for higher speeds and converged services.
- Recent acquisitions of Frontier and Starry expand Verizon’s market reach, especially in urban multi-dwelling units and new markets.
- Converged wireless and broadband customers exhibit lower churn rates and higher ARPU, supporting Verizon’s growth strategy.
- In Q1, Verizon added 341,000 broadband net customers, with total connections reaching 16.8 million, and reported $34.4 billion in revenue, up 2.9% year-over-year.
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Here are other stories on Verizon:
- Verizon’s CEO will consider inorganic deals and partnerships to reach 40 to 50M fiber passings
- Verizon’s CEO says convergence is our most significant near-term growth opportunity
- Verizon’s CFO says Frontier’s assets are a catalyst for fiber expansion and broadband growth
- Verizon’s CEO says it's on track to reach 650K new Fios subscribers in 2025
Convergence remains a key part of Verizon’s playbook. The company sees the Frontier acquisition, completed in January, to access new markets and cross-sell wireless and broadband services.
Besides Frontier, Verizon also closed its acquisition of Starry, a wireless broadband provider focused on multi-dwelling units (MDUs) in urban areas.
Speaking to investors during its first-quarter 2026 earnings call, Dan Schulman, CEO of Verizon, said that convergence is a key vector, and it will leverage its growing fiber footprint to meet its goals. It sees an opportunity to upsell broadband to wireless customers.
“Only approximately 20% of our postpaid consumer base has broadband, so we see significant go-to-market opportunities there,” Schulman said. “Fiber has inherent advantages over FWA, and we're going to prioritize it where we have coverage. And you should expect a mix shift from where we've previously been.”
He added that converged customer churn rates are lower than standalone subscribers. “Churn is almost 30% less on converged offers and has a higher ARPU and ARPA,” Schulman said.
Bolstering fiber broadband
Verizon continues to look for ways to bolster its fiber broadband network through partnerships and acquisitions to reach its stated goal of serving 40-50 million homes.
Verizon is confident that it will reach its goal of passing 32 million homes with fiber by the end of this year, and further increase that number through a series of acquisitions and partnerships.
The service provider previously revealed that it could reach 40 to 50 million homes with fiber, supported by acquisitions and partnerships, including Tillman Global Holdings.
Schulman said that investing “heavily in broadband” remains a top priority for the company.
“We're going to have at least 32 million passings,” he said. “We're looking at more partnerships, potential acquisitions to speed the number of homes past. There's no question, we think that Fiber is a key differentiator against competitors who don't have it.”
Fiber not only enables Verizon to offer higher speeds but also provides an opportunity to reach more customers with a converged wireless/wireline service bundle.
“Our attachment rate of wireless when a customer has broadband, I think it's best in the industry at approximately 55% right now,” Schulman said. “So, I expect that you'll see improvement in our broadband numbers as we go through the year, and we're looking for the optimal, most efficient way to deliver Broadband to the home.”
Overcoming seasonal challenges
While the first quarter is typically slow for all service providers due to seasonal factors, Verizon still managed to grow its Fios and Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) broadband base.
During the first quarter, Verizon enhanced its broadband market share, delivering 341,000 Broadband net adds. This includes 214,000 FWA net adds and 127,000 fiber net adds.
At the end of the quarter, Verizon had 16.8 million broadband connections.
"Overall, we're pleased with our operating results for the first quarter as we have seen significant improvement in our net adds,” said Anthony Skiadis, CFO of Verizon.
Mobility and broadband service revenue reached approximately $22.9 billion, up 1.6 percent year-over-year. The company's first-quarter revenue result includes an 80-basis-point impact on wireless service revenue growth from the January network outage. In March, mobility and broadband service revenue grew within the 2.0 percent to 3.0 percent guidance range.
Skiadis said the company is “confident in the long-term success of our broadband strategy” and that the Frontier and Starry deals will open new growth opportunities in broadband and wireless.
“Frontier accelerates our opportunity to grow our Broadband subscribers as well as our converged offerings, a key enabler to growing wireless share in under-penetrated Frontier markets,” he said. “In the first quarter, in addition to Frontier, we've also closed the Starry transaction, an investment that will enable us to drive further Broadband growth opportunities in multi-dwelling units within urban areas.”
From an overall financial perspective, Verizon reported total first-quarter operating revenue of $34.4 billion, up 2.9 percent year-over year.
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Sean Buckley
Sean is responsible for establishing and executing the editorial strategy of Lightwave across its website, email newsletters, events, and other information products.