Verizon Executive: The 'philosophy that Verizon is spectrum short is just false'

Verizon chief financial officer Fran Shammo is fighting back against the notion that Verizon is rapidly running out of capacity on its wireless network. Shammo said that only 40 percent of the carrier's total spectrum assets are currently being used by its LTE network technology, which he said indicates the carrier still has enough network capacity to continue to grow. "We are extremely efficient the way we deploy spectrum," Shammo said. "I still have 60 percent of a spectrum capacity sitting out there [using CDMA/EVDO network technology] that I can move in time [to LTE] to create capacity within my network without really spending any additional money on spectrum. So this philosophy that Verizon is spectrum short is just false. We have plenty of spectrum."

Shammo explained that, until recently, the cheapest way for a wireless carrier to add capacity to its network was through purchasing new spectrum. And he pointed out that Verizon continues to do that; the carrier purchased $10.4 billion worth of spectrum licenses during the Federal Communications Commission's recent AWS-3 spectrum auction. But he said that, due to the rising cost of spectrum, it's now more financially efficient for Verizon to improve its network capacity by refarming its spectrum to the more efficient LTE technology, and also by densifying its network.