Verizon, Critics Continue Back And Forth On Net Neutrality
August 25, 2010
| 4:14 PM
The back and forth continued Wednesday between Verizon and critics of the policy framework the telecommunications giant unveiled earlier this month with Google aimed at providing a compromise on the network neutrality issue.
The fireworks began Monday when Verizon Executive Vice President Tom Tauke defended the proposal during a speech at the Technology Policy Institute's conference in Aspen, Colo. The Google-Verizon policy framework calls for imposing net neutrality rules on wireline Internet access while exempting wireless Internet access and "differentiated services."
Tauke and Google officials say their proposal was aimed at breaking a longtime stalemate over whether the FCC should impose net neutrality rules, which would bar broadband providers from discriminating against Internet content, but has done little to quiet debate over the issue.
"We believe the proposal is rational, addresses the issues of concern at the time," Tauke said. "It fulfills the president's campaign promise of non-discrimination and transparency on the Internet."
FreePress, which has been among the most vocal critics of the Verizon-Google proposal, fired back Tuesday with a statement from Research Director S. Derek Turner, saying the "deal contains no protections for wireless access, which accounts for nearly one-third of all Internet connections, giving Verizon and other ISPs the green light to block or degrade content on their wireless networks. In addition, it would allow Internet service providers to discriminate online by offering private Internet services alongside those on the 'public' Internet. As a candidate, Obama himself opposed the two-tiered Internet this proposal would create."
Verizon spokesman David Fish delivered the latest salvo Wednesday with a blog post that detailed facts about the proposal that he claimed critics are ignoring, including that the framework "includes a presumption against all prioritization on Internet connections."
He also defended the framework's different approaches to wireline and wireless broadband by arguing there is more competition in the wireless market. "Openness is fast becoming the standard in the wireless industry, as the FCC envisioned," Fish added. He noted, as Tauke did in Monday's speech, that Verizon is the only wireless company that has so far agreed to open Internet and nondiscrimination requirements when it purchased spectrum for deployment of its national 4G wireless network as part of a 2008 FCC auction.
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