Verizon believes network virtualisation offers a “robust” opportunity to unlock value as the US number one operator pushes to cut $10 billion in costs over the next four years.

In September, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam unveiled a plan to slash $10 billion in business costs by 2022. The move is meant to help the company fund its investor dividend despite slowing service revenue growth in a competitive market.

Speaking at an investor conference today, EVP and President of Global Operations John Stratton said Verizon has already taken a lot of cost out of its business, and in the process has managed to improve service quality for customers through development of new service channels like the operator’s My Verizon app.

While rival T-Mobile recently reported it slashed customer care calls from six per user per year to four, Stratton said Verizon’s figure for the same metric stands at less than one call per customer per year.

Still, Stratton indicated Verizon is looking for additional efficiencies in its wireless business by further honing customer service as well as distribution.

But the operator is also working to pull value from the network itself through the implementation of virtualisation. Efforts on that front include software-defined networking, network function virtualisation and pushing the cloud to the edge of the network, Stratton said.

“[Verizon’s network team has] been engaged in finding ways to leverage the investments we make there, most recently in the last year or so, maybe two, with orientation toward virtualisation of the network,” Stratton commented.

“There is a tremendous amount of work that Hans Vestberg, who joined the business about seven months ago, is leading and he’s just getting started. The opportunity to unlock value there remains very robust,” he stated.