Verizon CEO: Network Virtualization Is 60% Complete

Verizon’s journey to transform and virtualize its various networks under a common, unified framework is 60% complete, CEO Hans Vesterg said at a UBS investor conference. The journey hasn’t been easy, he explained, because Verizon’s network assets were previously divided among wireline and wireless, and new software layers are being added to blend operations onto a single platform. “We built a virtualized intelligent edge network, which is basically we took four different networks and we made one” with a unified transport and single network core, Vestberg said. “A lot of that has been plumbed all the way from the data center to the access point. We want to have commonality of all the equipment and how we deal with it. We are 60% through that, and that’s why we see so much efficiency in our capex.”