Verizon (News - Alert) Communications continues to report that it sees no sign that economic woes are causing its customers — consumer or business — to cut back on services. “The overall impact on Verizon Wireless, Verizon Business (News - Alert), and Verizon in total has been almost nothing,” says Denny Strigl, Verizon Communications COO.

 

That appears to be in contrast to reports from other regions of customers in the Midwest, in particular, who are not paying their bills. The Midwest also seems to have a higher rate of businesses that are closing offices or delaying purchase of telecom services, some contend.

 

Strigl also is quite optimistic about Verizon's continued build-out of FIOS fiber-optic broadband service. “”We’ll pass 12 million by the end of this year, 15 million the next, 18 million the next,” Strigl says. “I think even within that same time period, there may be some upside for us in number of homes passed without significantly changing the capital requirements,” he adds.

 

It is worth noting that Verizon has been reporting no impact from “economic or housing” issues since the fourth quarter of 2007. That hasn’t been true for service providers in other regions. AT&T (News - Alert), for example, reported as early as the fourth quarter of 2007 that is was seeing some effect. AT&T has lots of customers in the Midwest.