Bloomberg / Business Week
Verizon Communications Inc.’s proposal with Google Inc. for Internet-traffic rules will meet demand for an open Internet, said Thomas Tauke, Verizon executive vice president for public affairs.
“We need to get this right” to promote investment, Tauke said in a speech at an Aspen, Colorado, conference.
U.S. regulators and lawmakers are considering what rules are needed to keep companies from throttling rivals’ Web traffic. Verizon and Google announced a proposal on Aug. 9 that would bar providers from selectively slowing content traveling over their wires while exempting Web use on mobile devices from government regulation.
The Google-Verizon accord may lead to discrimination against some wireless Internet traffic, and a provision allowing special services might “create a tiered ‘private Internet’ reserved for a few big corporations,” the Washington-based advocacy group Free Press said in a statement.
Tauke, at the Aspen Forum organized by the Washington-based Technology Policy Institute that studies innovation, said consumers would benefit from added services.
“We want to protect the Internet but we also want to offer consumers more services,” such as remote monitoring of blood pressure, Tauke said. “The broadband platform, in addition to the open Internet, is the platform for innovation and growth in the years ahead.”
A U.S. court rules in April that the Federal Communications Commission didn’t have authority to regulate Comcast Corp.’s Web practices. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has proposed to reclaim power by applying rules written for telephone service.
Verizon, AT&T Inc. and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association representing Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc. oppose the idea, which is backed by Free Press and Consumer Federation of America.
“We need to get this right” to promote investment, Tauke said in a speech at an Aspen, Colorado, conference.
U.S. regulators and lawmakers are considering what rules are needed to keep companies from throttling rivals’ Web traffic. Verizon and Google announced a proposal on Aug. 9 that would bar providers from selectively slowing content traveling over their wires while exempting Web use on mobile devices from government regulation.
The Google-Verizon accord may lead to discrimination against some wireless Internet traffic, and a provision allowing special services might “create a tiered ‘private Internet’ reserved for a few big corporations,” the Washington-based advocacy group Free Press said in a statement.
Tauke, at the Aspen Forum organized by the Washington-based Technology Policy Institute that studies innovation, said consumers would benefit from added services.
“We want to protect the Internet but we also want to offer consumers more services,” such as remote monitoring of blood pressure, Tauke said. “The broadband platform, in addition to the open Internet, is the platform for innovation and growth in the years ahead.”
A U.S. court rules in April that the Federal Communications Commission didn’t have authority to regulate Comcast Corp.’s Web practices. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has proposed to reclaim power by applying rules written for telephone service.
Verizon, AT&T Inc. and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association representing Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc. oppose the idea, which is backed by Free Press and Consumer Federation of America.
