After starting off with a fairly boilerplate introduction to Verizon (NYSE: VZ) at Citi’s 18th Annual Global Entertainment, Media & Telecommunications Conference, COO and President Denny Strigl was asked right off the bat about the economy—definitely the issue of the week. Strigl’s surprise answer: so far, not much. “I’m not so sure what all the hubbub out of this conference has been this week… We have seen virtually no economic impact.” He did acknowledge that there’s been a slight uptick in bad debt on the wireless side, but for the most part, his message sounded much different than what came out of both AT&T (NYSE: T) and Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA). Perhaps incredulous about the answer, during the Q&A an investor asked Strigl whether he was getting good information from his underlings and he inquired as to how often he talks to the people on the ground. Strigl assured him that his info was fresh and that he’d continue keeping his ear to the ground. (Investors appear relieved, as the company’s shares moved up over 1 percent following the remarks.)

SEE ALSO: Citi Media: Randall Stephenson, CEO, AT&T; The Story Begins With Wireless

Open access: The company isn’t going to make any predictions about how significant its open access announcement from last year will be. It has a developer conference later this quarter, which will be the first chance to really gauge interest in its plans.

Growth: Not surprisingly, the future is in data. Right now, only 50 percent of the company’s customers have data-capable devices, so there’s room to grow there. Voice penetration is high, but it too could grow as customers start adopting multiple handsets. Machine-to-machine communications (which ties in to open access) is seen as an untapped area. After some prodding, Strigl suggested that mid-teen revenue growth on the wireless side could be expected.

4G: The official line is that the company isn’t worried about WiMAX, although that doesn’t say much about what the company is thinking internally. LTE trials, meanwhile, will begin this year. The actual rollout of LTE isn’t expected to cause a big spike in capex, a point he’s made before.