Verizon's not scared of cable MVNO's mobile push – says it wins either way
Verizon's feeling pretty confident these days when it comes to competing with cable companies like Comcast and Charter in the mobile space. Even though those cable giants have been gaining customers fast, Verizon says the tide may be turning. At a recent investor event, as LightReading reports, one of the company's top execs shared why he thinks Verizon is actually in a strong position – both when it wins and when it loses customers. Verizon 's chief revenue officer, Frank Boulben, says the company is continuing to gain ground against cable MVNOs like Comcast's Xfinity Mobile and Charter's Spectrum Mobile. Boulben says that he thinks these MVNOs have peaked, and that Verizon 's "port ratios" have been improving against the mobile offerings from US cable providers.Basically, a "port ratio" is the number of customers a wireless provider gains from competitors through porting, compared to the number of customers it loses to competitors. This number indicates how well a carrier is competitively against its rivals.
According to Boulben, these MVNOs are probably starting to lose some of their mobile customers, even if they aren't disclosing it. He says that's how Verizon can explain the port ratios that are now starting to improve.
Image Credit - PhoneArena
Both Charter and Comcast recorded record gains in the first quarter of 2025. Actually, the US cable industry captured in total of 886,000 mobile lines during the period, which is an improvement over the 804,000 lines a year ago. On the other hand, Verizon lost 289,000 postpaid phone customers during the first quarter, its worst result on record...
Of course, Verizon runs the wireless network that these two MVNOs operate on, but it seems the carrier is doing just fine in that partnership. Apparently, it's even helping Verizon as it adds value or enhances its profitability per share.
Boulben explains that when Verizon loses a retail customer to the cable companies, it loses the spread between retail and wholesale. However, when cable companies acquire a customer from somebody else in the market, Verizon gets the wholesale revenue. Basically, when you add up the spread it loses and the wholesale it gains, Verizon seems to be winning.
Meanwhile, the Verizon exec also says that MSOs (Multiple System Operators, or cable companies) are taking less from Verizon than its fair share of the market. It's reported that Verizon is now trying to renegotiate its MVNO agreements with Comcast and Charter, but Boulben didn't comment on those efforts. In the meantime, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg, during the company's quarterly earnings conference call, said that Verizon has a very good relationship with its MVNO partners.
It's possible that the FWA (Fixed Wireless Access) business is complicating Verizon 's MVNO negotiations, underlines LightReading. There are similar offerings from Verizon 's competitors AT&T and T-Mobile, and those cut into the core broadband businesses of most of the cable providers in the country.
Boulben also says he hasn't seen a change in the NPS (Net Promoter Score) of cable companies. NPS reflects customer loyalty, or pretty much how likely customers are to recommend a carrier, a company, or a product to someone else.
According to Boulben, there are still some practices MVNOs do that customers hate. | Image Credit - PhoneArena
He notes that the MVNOs still use some practices that customers hate. For example, promotional roll-off. He notes that Verizon stopped doing that practice on Fios almost five years ago, and he claims the carrier didn't take a hit when it stopped it. Boulben notes that customers value transparency, and a pain point for customers is that you have a price year one, and then, at the end of the first year, you're faced with an inevitable price hike of 30 or 40%. And indeed, this practice is pretty annoying, if I may add. Recently, Boulben started speaking as a Verizon representative among investment banks. He was also the person that the carrier gave the responsibility of warning about a slowdown in the growth of new customers. This led to Verizon 's shares plummeting in March.
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