- During Q3, Verizon added 137,000 postpaid net accounts and 406,000 postpaid phone net adds
- Earlier this year, Verizon purchased the FWA company Starry, and now it’s tapping its own mmWave spectrum to propel FWA
- In broadband, Verizon delivered 314,000 net additions in the third quarter
Dan Schulman took over as CEO of Verizon about a year ago and has systematically transformed the company. And the focus seems to be having a positive effect on the company’s financials.
On today’s Q3 2026 earnings call, Schulman said, “Clearly, the tech and the wireless landscape is rapidly evolving. And we need to rapidly evolve along with that. That’s why I’ve been so demanding from everyone at Verizon. I just don’t want us to get incrementally better. I want us to leapfrog. I want us to think about not improving by 10%, which is great, but how do we improve by 10x? How do we do that in months, not years?”
During the third quarter, Verizon added 137,000 postpaid net accounts, marking the company's best performance in over a decade. And it delivered 406,000 postpaid phone net additions, a more than 820% increase year over year.
It acquired nearly 1.7 million mobility and broadband subscribers in the first nine months of 2026, compared to 879,000 in the first nine months of 2025.
It now expects its postpaid phone net adds for 2026 to be 1.1-1.2 million, more than three times last year’s result.
Schulman said, “We obviously had a good strong quarter on both lines and accounts. But the thing that I’m most proud about in the quarter is the way that we did it. No free lines. Every single line and account came with revenue. And the costs to acquire those net accounts and net lines were down 41%.”
The company’s mobility and broadband service revenue of $23.5 billion grew 2.9% year over year, up sequentially and forecast to grow approximately 4% in the fourth quarter. Its Q3 adjusted EPS of $1.31 grew 8% year over year, and it now expects 2026 full-year adjusted EPS growth to be 7% to 7.5%, up from its previous range of 6% to 7%.
Verizon total revenue rose 1.5% year over year to $34.31 billion, missing expectations of $34.85 billion.
Verizon has bigger plans for FWA
Earlier this year, Verizon purchased the FWA company Starry, and Schulman talked about fixed wireless access (FWA) on today’s call.
Sounding a bit like T-Mobile, he said FWA “demands a more sophisticated, segmented approach.” T-Mobile has been talking about this for years, saying it has to manage the capacity demands of FWA to make sure it doesn’t degrade its regular mobility service. Today, Schulman said, “Where we can’t deliver the speed a particular segment of customers expect from Verizon, we won’t sell it. We began to implement that philosophy earlier this quarter.”
Schulman said that using its millimeter wave spectrum, Verizon has developed an innovative solution that will enable it to deliver a 1 gig FWA product in metro areas across the country. “Over the medium term, it is our goal to substantially increase the number of premises we can serve with 1 gig of speed by an incremental 10 to 15 million through FWA, and that is over and above our 40 to 50 million fiber build,” he said.
Verizon plans to begin to scale its new mmWave FWA service beginning this quarter and throughout 2027 and beyond.
“Our 1,700 Mhz of millimeter wave spectrum has suddenly become a differentiated and competitive advantage,” said Schulman. “And it also has a dual benefit, in that it will create substantial incremental efficiencies and capacity in our existing C-band spectrum.”
Broadband updates
In broadband, Verizon delivered 314,000 net additions in the third quarter. This includes total FWA net additions of 159,000, and fiber broadband net additions of 155,000.
But Wolf Research analyst Peter Supino said, both FWA and fiber net adds missed expectations: FWA net adds were expected to be about 200,000, and fiber net adds were expected at 180,000.
Verizon said it’s seeing over 55% of its new fiber broadband customers take 1 gig or more download speeds, driving increases in its average revenue per user (ARPU).
It continues to anticipate its fiber passings will exceed 32 million by year-end. And over the medium term it remains on track to deliver 40 to 50 million fiber passings.
Finally, during the quarter, it announced a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar agreement with Corning for more than 80 million miles of fiber through 2032, supporting both its fiber broadband expansion and the long-haul backbone that AI hyperscalers need.
AI Connect and hyperscaler agreements
Today, Verizon announced a dark fiber agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) valued at over $2 billion, building on the $1 billion Google agreement it announced last quarter.
These deals are part of an initiative inside Verizon called AI Connect, which was launched in 2025 under former Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg.
Schulman said, “We now have an active pipeline of additional hyperscalers, neo-cloud providers and large enterprise clients who are in negotiations to have us supply them with either dark or lit fiber connectivity.”
In addition, the company is working with “numerous partners” to use its central offices for AI inference and edge computing. Between its hyperscaler deals and edge computing agreements, it’s now signed contracts for about $4 billion.
SpaceX concerns
SpaceX is moving fast on both Starlink Mobile as well as Starlink Broadband. Last week, Bloomberg reported that the company was talking with tower companies to possibly lease up to 80,000 wireless towers to build a standalone mobile network.
Schulman said today, “I operate under the assumption that everything SpaceX says they will do, they will do. And that they will execute flawlessly.”
He said, “We always knew that they needed a terrestrial network to have any chance at providing a competitive service. And so, I think that SpaceX realizes this. And they’re exploring a potential path to creating a terrestrial network. I think we should take it quite seriously.”
He said Verizon has heard from market players that SpaceX is talking to tower companies. “Inside the industry, we know exactly what they’re thinking about doing,” said Schulman. “And if they build a terrestrial network, it will basically look and feel like every other network. There’s no magic wand. There’s no secret sauce. There’s no radically lower structural cost advantage.”
He said SpaceX will have to do all the heavy lifting of any wireless operator: build macro tower sites and backhaul, buy RAN equipment and enough spectrum, and set up a retail business and all the back-office systems.
“Assuming they try to do that, it’s going to take a minimum of four to six years to fully build that out. It’s going to cost hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. I assume somewhere between $300 billion and half a trillion over the next seven or eight years.”
And then to conclude with the question on everybody’s mind: Will Verizon break ranks from the other wireless operators and strike an MVNO deal with SpaceX? Schulman said, “I see absolutely no benefit whatsoever to extending an MVNO deal to any satellite provider.”
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