Verizon’s Policy Blog has been updated with a joint statement from Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam and Google CEO Eric Schmidt regarding the FCC’s push for national net neutrality policy which begins tomorrow with preliminary policy development.
The following points were agreed upon by both executives:
“we both think it’s essential that the Internet remains an unrestricted and open platform where people can access any content (so long as it’s legal), as well as the services and applications of their choice.”
The post goes on to detail the following points that need to be considered in the net neutrality debate and potential addition to the national policy:
1.) Users should continue to have the final say about their web experience. Control by one or more entities will kill the web in its current form.
2.) Investment in advanced networks is vital with the existing wireline broadband rules appearing to be sufficient if they are enforced properly.
3.) Flexibility in government policy is key with dense, overbearing legislation being detrimental to the spirit of net neutrality.
4.) Broadband network providers should have the flexibility to manage their networks to deal with threats of any kind with transparency being a necessity.
5.) Broadband providers also need to present customers with clear information about their services without confusing them.
This follows Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg’s recent comments which sharply criticized the need for a national net neutrality policy, stating that Verizon was in fact troubled by the policy proposed by the FCC along with AT&T and Comcast, who are also opposed.
Seidenberg stated that innovation and investment will be stifled while citing examples such as telemedicine that he stated would require Verizon be able to prioritize such traffic. Without the ability to prioritize under the proposed policy, he states the company would not be able to offer such services.
Utterly ridiculous. Looksl ike Google sold us out. We knew where Verizon stood, but I’m dissapointed to see Google join them.
I wonder if this is part of some secret deal for Verizon to start carrying more Google branded phones.
Look not even one day has passed and Verizon is already changing its tune. No the devil is in the details and hopefully the FCC sticks to its guns and does what is right for everyone not just the ones that can afford millions to lobby.
Anyone reading this, please go to http://www.savetheinternet.com/index.php
and sign their petiton (which sends an email the FCC and your local congress reps).
We don’t have a lot of time on this. The telecom industry has more paid lobbyists fighting net nuetrality than there are members of Congress. this certainly isn’t much, but it’s better thannothing. And it will only work if we all band together.
Visit the site, sign the petition, and spread the link to everywhere you can think of. it has easy one click links to share it on facebook and twitter too, so make sure you at least do that…
[…] The ramifications of such an agreement could have lasting consequences regarding the net neutrality debate, as Google has been a staunch supporter of the current FCC administration’s efforts to enforce the idea of net neutrality through the Comcast-BitTorrent decision in 2008 which was overturned in April, and through the preliminary formulation of an official policy on net neutrality in October of last year, with both Verizon and Google CEOs reaching a slight consensus. […]