Patrick Sullivan, AVP for international sales at Verizon Partner Solutions, explains how the company is expanding in areas including IoT, FWA and security.
What are the main opportunities that Verizon currently sees with IoT?
By leveraging our global MNO and MVNO partnerships, Verizon is focused on global IoT orchestration, which streamlines out-of-the-box wireless connectivity for connected products in the US and abroad via eSIM localisation.
From a Verizon Partner Solutions [VPS] perspective, we have a great opportunity in being a premier partner for IoT termination in the US. We support MNOs and MVNOs seeking to deploy a vast range of IoT use cases, including retail, manufacturing, energy, healthcare and transportation – each with an ever-expanding number of applications that measure, monitor, implement and enable the world of IoT.
Terminating this IoT traffic on the number-one US wireless network, according to J.D. Power, provides our customers with a high-quality user experience, further enabled through a number of APIs into our ThingSpace management platform, providing simplicity and ease of business.
Why does fixed-wireless access [FWA] continue to be such a big focus in the US market and for Verizon? And where are things with that as we enter 2024?
FWA remains a pivotal focus in the US communications market due to its potential to revolutionise broadband accessibility. The technology provides high-speed internet via wireless networks, offering a cost-effective and efficient alternative in areas with limited infrastructure. Verizon in particular is investing in FWA to expand its broadband footprint, especially in rural and underserved regions.
As we enter 2024, we look forward to continued growth in FWA for several reasons. One is 5G integration, whereby our customers will have increasing opportunities to leverage the power of 4G and 5G as an alternative to ageing infrastructure that will be decommissioned, providing faster and more reliable connectivity.
Another is that FWA offers businesses a flexible and scalable connectivity option, driving increased adoption for commercial use. And a third is that consumer demand continues to grow for reliable, high-speed internet, especially in remote areas, fuelling the expansion of FWA services and in so doing addressing the digital divide.
VPS anticipates that the adoption of FWA will continue to grow as we expand the 5G network and customers become ever more comfortable with the technology.
How do you see things going with FWA this year and will momentum continue at a similar rate to 2023?
Verizon saw significant adoption of FWA in 2023 and has among the fastest-growing product offerings in the US. Third-party market analysis anticipates further increases for FWA and wholesale services over the next three to five years amid SD-WAN integration and an ever-increasing number of primary connection use cases.
As Verizon continues to expand our C-band network, along with additional spectrum we have recently freed up, we anticipate continued growth and expansion. Our customers are coming up with innovative ways to incorporate wireless into their current offerings and we expect this to continue in 2024, with our goal being to expand on the momentum established in 2023.
What are your partners saying about their experience of FWA and how does it compare with traditional fixed broadband services?
Our partners have been complimentary of our FWA services, especially in the 5G C-band, whereby we offer ‘unlimited 5G’ services with no deprioritisation or throttling on the network. A key differentiator for FWA services will be advanced features enabled by standalone architecture like network slicing, which will allow for more bespoke network and security solutions with greater flexibility and speed of deployment comparable to fixed service offerings.
How would you assess where things stand in the global wholesale communications market overall?
VPS has continued to focus on delivering best-in-class services for strategic networking, fixed-wireless access, IoT, data centres and colocation, cybersecurity products and professional services. Ensuring interoperability is the best practice to allow scale, with a standards-based approach providing our partners with a faster path to automation of processes. This is critically important as we see virtualisation continue to grow.
We will continue to focus on bundling services and options that our partners can effectively white label both in the US and by leveraging our global portfolio of wholesale solutions.
How is Verizon approaching the challenge of cybersecurity, which is more important than ever for all organisations considering the geopolitical environment?
In addition to building and operating world-class networks, Verizon offers a portfolio of managed security services. We have over 25 years of security experience as we leverage our visibility of billions of connections across our network to provide superior, actionable cybersecurity intelligence. We have captured great insights in our annual Data Breach Investigative Report [DBIR], which recently celebrated 15 years since it was first published in 2008.
The DBIR continues to highlight areas of increasing concern in the cybersecurity environment, as threats expand in their complexity in such a dynamic global environment. We welcome the opportunity to partner with our customers on detection, analysis and mitigation strategies.
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