Verizon COO: No consumer ‘softness’ here

Verizon's Denny Strigl counters AT&T's economic outlook

Verizon Communications is not seeing the same slowdown in consumer markets that AT&T reported this week, according to Denny Strigl, Verizon’s chief operating officer.

AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson sent stock prices dropping earlier this week when he described an overall “softness” in the company’s consumer markets, evident in growing disconnects of AT&T’s non-paying customers.

Asked about it today at the same investor conference, Strigl said, “I’m not so sure what all the hub-bub’s been about out of this conference this week.”

“We’ll keep our ear to the ground, but we’re not seeing it,” he said. “Total access lines are fine. We continue to be in good shape.”

Asked about residential broadband specifically, he said, “From my point of view, we’re seeing more of a competitive impact than any economic impact at this point.”

Enterprise and small and medium business markets show no sign of softening either, he said.

“In terms of wireless, we’ve seen a slight up tic in bad debt,” he said. “Our bad debt in wireless was the best in the business--under 2%. That comes not from the economy but is more focused on prepaid than anything. Wireless is not really touched by the economy.”

Similar comments came from Citizens Communications CEO Maggie Wilderotter at the conference yesterday.