In remarks at a Q&A session for the Council on Foreign Relations, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg characterized the entire net neutrality debate as a false dilemma invented by software companies to protect them from competition.
He said, "I think people who... fashioned this Net neutrality argument did it for competitive reasons."
Seidenberg continued, "their view was anything that Verizon, or AT&T, or any of the carriers did was an encroachment on the software business. So the best thing is to come up with a strategy that defines "network" and segments it away from software, and therefore you create a whole argument around Net neutrality."
Net neutrality has become a major issue for broadband internet providers who want a free hand to restrict traffic for third party applications, but often offer competing services of their own.
Last week an FCC ruling against Comcast for their traffic management practices was overturned on appeal. This has lead to speculation internet service could be reclassified as a common carrier service to allow more FCC regulation.
Their lack of regulatory authority is due to the current classification of internet connections and "information services."
In reality net neutrality is mostly about the telecom and cable companies who control most broadband internet markets and their lack of competition. Having just two, or sometimes even one, broadband provider available to most consumers gives those companies a significant competitive advantage in delivering services.
With little choice of which pipe they get data through, consumers could be denied their choice of services by a provider looking to increase profits from their own competing offering.
When asked about how Verizon plans to monetize the "explosion of data" from mobile internet users, he talked about finding the heaviest users and charging them more.
He said, "those are the people we will throttle and we will find them and we will charge them something else." He added, ""we don't want to throttle demand. We don't want to do that."
If, as he seems to suggest at another point in the session, mobile internet has a significant role to play as a primary internet connection for much of the world, it doesn't make much sense to base your business on a model discarded by dialup providers more than a decade ago due to customer demand.
He ignored repeated attempts to clarify if the heavy users he was referring to are using the network for video. Targeting video traffic is a particularly touchy subject among wireless carriers like Verizon who are selling their own mobile video services.
We've already seen AT&T's willingness to restrict Slingbox traffic on their mobile network while simultaneously selling mobile TV across the same connection.
It wasn't Sling who didn't want competition. It was AT&T.
If innovation and growth are key to improving broadband internet in the US competition is perhaps the best tool for the job. Competition would logically result in improved services at lower prices and ultimately benefit both providers and consumers by expanding the market.
It also makes little sense to have significant additional charges for each device you want to connect to the internet. It's also another strategy that has been tried before, in the early days of consumer broadband, and rejected by customers.
At first glance $15 for 250MB of data for a device like an iPad might not seem too bad. But that's on top of whatever you might already be paying to connect your smartphone and possibly a computer. Which is all in addition to whatever you're paying for internet access at home.
If more devices are going to be mobile internet enabled, providers like Verizon are going to have to come up with more reasonable pricing and plan on significantly more traffic.
It would be in the best interest of Verizon and the US broadband market as a whole, for them to concentrate on improving their mobile network and streamlining service offerings to ultimately expand the market and provide service to more customers.
Seidenberg continued, "their view was anything that Verizon, or AT&T, or any of the carriers did was an encroachment on the software business. So the best thing is to come up with a strategy that defines "network" and segments it away from software, and therefore you create a whole argument around Net neutrality."
Net neutrality has become a major issue for broadband internet providers who want a free hand to restrict traffic for third party applications, but often offer competing services of their own.
Last week an FCC ruling against Comcast for their traffic management practices was overturned on appeal. This has lead to speculation internet service could be reclassified as a common carrier service to allow more FCC regulation.
Their lack of regulatory authority is due to the current classification of internet connections and "information services."
In reality net neutrality is mostly about the telecom and cable companies who control most broadband internet markets and their lack of competition. Having just two, or sometimes even one, broadband provider available to most consumers gives those companies a significant competitive advantage in delivering services.
With little choice of which pipe they get data through, consumers could be denied their choice of services by a provider looking to increase profits from their own competing offering.
When asked about how Verizon plans to monetize the "explosion of data" from mobile internet users, he talked about finding the heaviest users and charging them more.
He said, "those are the people we will throttle and we will find them and we will charge them something else." He added, ""we don't want to throttle demand. We don't want to do that."
If, as he seems to suggest at another point in the session, mobile internet has a significant role to play as a primary internet connection for much of the world, it doesn't make much sense to base your business on a model discarded by dialup providers more than a decade ago due to customer demand.
He ignored repeated attempts to clarify if the heavy users he was referring to are using the network for video. Targeting video traffic is a particularly touchy subject among wireless carriers like Verizon who are selling their own mobile video services.
We've already seen AT&T's willingness to restrict Slingbox traffic on their mobile network while simultaneously selling mobile TV across the same connection.
It wasn't Sling who didn't want competition. It was AT&T.
If innovation and growth are key to improving broadband internet in the US competition is perhaps the best tool for the job. Competition would logically result in improved services at lower prices and ultimately benefit both providers and consumers by expanding the market.
It also makes little sense to have significant additional charges for each device you want to connect to the internet. It's also another strategy that has been tried before, in the early days of consumer broadband, and rejected by customers.
At first glance $15 for 250MB of data for a device like an iPad might not seem too bad. But that's on top of whatever you might already be paying to connect your smartphone and possibly a computer. Which is all in addition to whatever you're paying for internet access at home.
If more devices are going to be mobile internet enabled, providers like Verizon are going to have to come up with more reasonable pricing and plan on significantly more traffic.
It would be in the best interest of Verizon and the US broadband market as a whole, for them to concentrate on improving their mobile network and streamlining service offerings to ultimately expand the market and provide service to more customers.
