Verizon: Concerns About Paid Prioritization Are 'Demagoguery' For the last few weeks, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has been sending letters to the nation's largest telecom companies, urging them to commit to avoiding paid prioritization and "fast lanes" on the Internet. The government is using AT&T and Comcast merger approval as regulatory bait, but as usual on the net neutrality front the wild card appears to be Verizon. In a letter (pdf) addressing Leahy's concerns this week, Verizon complains that concerns about paid prioritization are "demagoguery," stating several times that no ISPs have plans to erect such systems. Verizon also proceeds to insist that the FCC has enforcement authority to protect consumers from such plans without resorting to Title II: quote: All of the other major broadband providers and their trade associations have agreed that the FCC has authority under Section 706 to address harmful paid prioritization, limiting the universe of parties who could potentially challenge FCC rules on this point and making any move to ill-fitting Title II regulation gratuitous. Unfortunately, the fever pitch over “paid prioritization” and “fast lanes” among advocates of greater Internet regulation is just demagoguery since no major ISP has expressed an interest in offering “paid prioritization” and all agree that the FCC has a valid legal path to prohibit it. Of course this is not only the same Verizon that Of course this is not only the same Verizon that annoyed the rest of the industry by suing to overturn neutrality rules that didn't do much of anything in the first place. Verizon also proceeds to call the move to Title II an "unprecedented" shift toward heavy-handed regulations that would harm the industry, again ignoring that their wireless services -- and in some cases FiOS are classified under Title II with no problem in investment or profit. Meanwhile, this is the same company with a very long history of waging heated war on competitors and disruptive technologies, so it's not clear what promises of good behavior are exactly worth when coming from big red.







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Most recommended from 17 comments

kaila

join:2000-10-11

Lincolnshire, IL 2 recommendations kaila Member Ok then Verizon... Go ahead and cancel that little accounts receivable arrangement you have with Netflix. And while you're at it, make your customers happy and spend 1 days worth of your marketing budget and upgrade all your peering ports.