Internet Fast Lanes a Fiction, Verizon Official Says
Verizon is taking a wait-and-see approach on proposed net neutrality rules, approved at the FCC’s May 15 meeting (CD May 16 p1), Verizon Senior Vice President Craig Silliman said during an interview for C-SPAN’s The Communicators, set to air this weekend. “This is an NPRM; we're at the beginning of a process,” he said. “We'll have to see what the final rule is."
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What’s not at stake is whether consumers will have access to an open Internet, Silliman said. For ISPs like Verizon “it’s in our own self-interest to provide an open Internet to our customers,” he said. “That’s always been the case.” The issue is not Internet fast lanes, since content already is delivered to customers at different speeds, Silliman said. Content from Google or YouTube will load “probably 10 times faster” than from a smaller company because of the distribution networks, he said. “This concept of fast lanes I find a little bewildering,” he said. It’s a concept someone came up with and people continue to repeat it as a “mantra,” he said.
Regardless of what the net neutrality rules are, wireless is different and should be treated differently, Silliman said. Spectrum scarcity and network management issues are unique in wireless, he said. “You need the flexibility to continue to actively manage those networks in order to serve your customers well,” he said. Asked if a legal challenge is inevitable, Silliman said it depends on the final rules. If the FCC decides to reclassify broadband as a common carrier service, a court fight is probably inevitable, he said.
The FCC got a lot right in rules for the TV incentive auction, also approved May 15 (CD May 16 p5), but Verizon remains concerned about spectrum aggregation rules for the auction, Silliman said. The rules effectively restrict bidding by AT&T and Verizon for licenses in the incentive auction. “We have concerns about putting any sort of restrictions in auctions,” he said. “We think the incentive auction is an incredibly complicated auction as it is.” Micromanaging the auction is a “bad precedent” that creates risk, he said. Silliman said it’s premature to say whether Verizon will bid in the AWS-3 or incentive auction.
Verizon supports a rewrite of the Telecommunications Act, which is now 18 years old, Silliman noted. Many of the current communications policy fights point to a single problem, he said: “We are operating under an outdated communications statutory framework” that’s not “well suited” to today’s challenges. “We absolutely need to modernize the communications laws,” he said.