If you're looking for a cheap stock with strong earnings growth potential that also pays an impressive dividend, Verizon (VZ) - Get Report should belong on any shopping list. True, shares of the New-York based wireless telecom giant -- down some 5% on the year and 6% in 12 months -- has disappointed shareholders in 2015.

But ahead of the company's third-quarter earnings results Tuesday, Verizon's earnings per share (EPS) for the just-ended quarter is projected to climb 15% above last year. Better still, for all of 2015, Verizon's projected EPS of $3.94 a share would translate to a roughly 18% year-over-year increase.

For the quarter that ended in September, the average analyst earnings-per-share estimate calls for $1.02 a share on revenue of $32.95 billion, compared to the year-ago quarter when Verizon earned 89 cents a share on revenue of $31.59 billion. For the full-year, earnings are projected to be $3.94 a share, while revenue of $131.21 billion would mark a year-over-year increase of 3.3%.

Not only would Verizon's increase in full-year EPS amount to three times the growth rate produced by the average company in the S&P 500 (SPX) index in the past few years, it would also be four times higher than the projected EPS growth rate of rival AT&T (T) - Get Report .

Based on both the quarterly and full-year projections, Verizon is expected to grow profits at more than three times the rate of revenue, underscoring its focus on operating efficiency and returning value to shareholders. Plus, that Verizon is expected to achieve that level of profitability amid increased competition from smaller telecom players likeSprint (S) - Get Report and T-Mobile US (TMUS) - Get Report , denotes the strength of both its underlying business and -- perhaps more important -- its wireless network.

It doesn't appear to have an effect on Verizon that both T-Mobile and Sprint have heightened their promotional tactics to grow their respective subscribers bases.

In second quarter, for instance, Verizon added more than one million retail wireless postpaid connections, bringing its total subscriber base to almost 104 million. At the same time, retail postpaid churn -- a measure of customer cancellations -- fell to 0.9%, Verizon's lowest since 2012.

With both its profitability and subscribers on the rise, the company is on strong fundamental footing, making its stock -- trading at 18 times earnings with a consensus buy rating -- excellent value. Not only does Verizon stock trade at a P/E that is three points below the S&P 500 index, it also pays a 5.30% annual dividend yield -- some 3.3 percentage points higher than average dividend payer in the S&P 500.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held no positions in the stocks mentioned.