Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said the carrier would see up to $2 billion in tax savings this year tied to a recently passed budget bill, a windfall that will help bolster its fiber deployments centered on its $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications, which Vestberg said remains on track despite a potential West Coast hurdle.

Vestberg told an audience at this week’s Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference that Verizon would see a positive impact of between $1.5 billion and $2 billion this year due to President Donald Trump’s recently passed budget. The executive noted that this “sizable money” would boost its network investments.

“We're investing in our business by buying Frontier,” Vestberg said on how Verizon is prioritizing its investment spend.

The Frontier deal was initially announced in mid-2024, and includes a fiber networking business with 7.2 million fiber locations that serve 2.2 million subscribers across 25 states. Those assets are set to bolster Verizon’s approximately 7.4 million fiber connections across nine states and Washington, D.C., with a combined entity counting approximately 10 million fiber customers across 31 states and Washington D.C., and fiber networks passing more than 25 million premises.

Verizon has since said it plans to extend its fiber footprint to more than 30 million premises by 2028, on its way to 40 million passings longer term.

“We want to have better visibility when we close, and then we're going to have an investor update with how much passing, how much capital allocation we want to do, what type of revenues entities do we see, and all of that we will, of course, come in one full package, and how much capex we want to spend,” Vestberg said of its fiber expansion plans. “So it's a lot of things still to unpack on it.”

Vestberg quickly added that the pending Frontier acquisition was “going according to plan and we’re really excited for it.”

That response comes in the shadow of an ongoing fight against the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) over state approval of the deal.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the deal in May, which came shortly after Verizon filed a letter with the government regulator that stated the carrier was eliminating its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies following an evaluation of the practices. However, the CPUC is now looking into whether that move violates California’s telecom regulatory rules.

Verizon in a CPUC filing last week said it would comply with the state’s supplier diversity laws and offered to submit reports on those efforts every two years for audit. The carrier also committed to minimum spending amounts targeted at state business programs, with a final request that the state grant approval of the Frontier deal by December 18.

Tax money toward fiber

Verizon’s rivals AT&T and T-Mobile US are also pushing aggressively into the fiber space, with AT&T CEO John Stankey earlier this year echoing Vestberg in tying a tax windfall to increased fiber investments.

Stankey during AT&T’s second-quarter earnings call said the carrier expects to see up to $8 billion in tax savings over the next three years, with up to $2 billion of that in 2025, and up $3 billion in each of the next two years. The executive noted that this tax savings, combined with other “pro-investment” policy moves, has set the telecom industry up for significant financial growth.

“I've not seen the situation where those tailwinds were all aligned as strong as they are anytime in my career as they are right now. And I’m surprised I don’t see more commentary on that,” Stankey said. “I would even say the alignment of those policy things that are going on right now in the direction that's occurring, the lack of friction in getting some changes done is even more significant than when the Telecom Act of [1996] was passed.”

Satellite and edge opportunities

Vestberg also told attendees at this week’s inverstor conference that EchoStar’s deal to sell wireless spectrum to SpaceX was somewhat expected and will further open up satellite communication opportunities for Verizon. The carrier has been working with a handful of satellite-based communication entities like AST SpaceMobile, Skylo, and supporting device-based services from Apple.

“This will just create more opportunities in the market and partners for us to go there, but it's a little bit early to say,” Vestberg said of the enhanced SpaceX operations. “Clearly this was in the in the cards, after [EchoStar] sold out, what it did the last week or two weeks ago, that now their operations will be less of an operation company and now they are selling out their spectrum.”

Vestberg also continued to wistfully tout Verizon’s network edge opportunities, especially as they are tied to the growing adoption of AI services.

“We built the whole metro network and the edge capabilities five years ago, way early maybe, but that's really what we want to see when AI will start to have devices that want to connect with the network in a totally different way,” Vestberg said. “They're probably a couple of years out, but that is the next boundary of wireless growth for us. We're both going to have new offerings for these type of devices, and of course the manufacturer of the device needs to have edge capabilities from us that we can charge as well.”

Verizon late last year signed a deal with Nvidia to power enterprise AI services and digital transformation efforts running over the carrier’s 5G private network and mobile edge compute (MEC) infrastructure. Adam Koeppe, SVP of technology planning at Verizon, in a recent interview with SDxCentral, touted the carrier’s architecture and its ability to support AI-derived use cases.

“I think it’s really important to look at what these capabilities exist within the architecture, and how can AI, true AI, augment things that are already being done or create things that are brand new,” Koeppe said. “Where I see our evolution occurring is when you have an advanced cloud platform, as we do, you have an orchestration layer on top that we already have, and you then find ways to incorporate new AI capabilities on top of that. That’s going to allow your engineers and your operators to interface differently.”

These new AI interface opportunities are expected to push further edge investments.

“As the focus of AI shifts from training to inference, edge computing will be required to address the need for reduced latency and enhanced privacy,” Dave McCarthy, research VP for cloud and edge services at IDC, wrote in a report last year. “This trend not only optimizes operation efficiencies but also fosters new business models that were previously not possible with centralized infrastructure. Distributing applications and data to edge locations enables faster decision-making with reduced network congestion.”