#112: Verizon Shifts on Business Broadband

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2016

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is Verizon moving away from broadband and fiber deployment? Earlier this month, the company filed an ex parte with the FCC indicating support for price regulation on business broadband. Bruce Mehlman, Co-Chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance, argued in a recent article that the telecom giant’s ex parte represents a significant departure from its past positions. Why the sudden change? Is price regulation making capital investment less attractive? What can the FCC do to encourage new infrastructure? Bruce and Evan discuss.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Swartz-Trubber. On today's show, following up on a topic
0:07.4	we've discussed on the show before, rate regulation of business broadband. And on today's show,
0:13.5	we're talking about Verizon. And this is a big telephone company. You're obviously familiar with it.
0:19.9	And an ex parte filing with the FCC earlier
0:22.4	this month suggests that the company is changing its perspective about an issue. And the question is,
0:29.7	why? Is this the result of regulation? Is the company responding to incentives? Or is this an
0:36.2	unprincipled departure from longstanding practices?
0:39.4	Joining me to discuss this is Bruce Melman, co-chairman of the Internet Innovation Alliance, and he
0:44.1	discussed this show, or sorry, he discussed this topic on the show before. Bruce, thanks for joining
0:48.0	again. Thanks for having me back. So you had a piece in the street, which was very interesting.
0:52.6	And as I mentioned, I was emailed it multiple
0:54.7	times by colleagues, so well done. And it seems like Verizon has endorsed rate regulation in
1:02.3	business data services. Why is this happening? Well, the Verizon of 2016, 2017 is not the Verizon of 2000. And if you take a look at how they're
1:15.9	operating as a business and how they're looking to go forward, they're no longer going to be
1:20.4	investing in wireline fiber facilities, the old Fios properties they've substantially sold.
1:26.9	And they are aligning themselves with the so-called
1:30.0	CLECs. And rather than investing in infrastructure, they're looking for regulations that give them
1:34.9	access at subsidized rates to infrastructure. And just to recap for listeners, and you can correct me
1:40.1	if I'm wrong, since you are the policy wonk. We're talking about when an incumbent telephone
1:45.0	company, right, someone like Verizon, they wire a building and they sell business data services,
1:51.5	which is often things like VoIP, voice over IP, phone calls, et cetera, just the kind of internet-based
1:59.9	services you need to run a business. They sell those and they are, I cetera, just the kind of internet-based services you need to run a business.
	...

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