Verizon Wireless Files Suit Against "Open" Rules Affixed To 700MHz Auction

Posted by Paul Glazowski on September 14th, 2007

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, open is good. Open is very good. It allows for lots of cooperation, commiseration, and, believe it or not, progression. Yes, progression. It’s true.

Unfortunately, Verizon Wireless doesn’t appear to like progression all that much.

The company has filed suit in federal court, asking that the rules the FCC is "imposing on the winner of valuable wireless airwaves to be auctioned this winter" be struck down and removed from the sales sheet, as it were. The rules, quite simply, would provide consumers utilizing the 700MHz spectrum with the freedom to use "any device or software" technologically compatible with said frequency. Verizon’s argument against this Google-proposed and now FCC-enforced “open-access” measure is that it is unconstitutional. The company claims the US Federal Communications Commission "overstepped its authority when it approved [the rules] on July 31st of this year".

Verizon’s argument is, in a word, ridiculous. How could the FCC possibly have "overstepped its authority" in backing the aforementioned open measures? Is not the Commission the official arbiter and regulator of the airwaves? Is the Commission not the body auctioning the spectrum? Is it not the responsibility of the FCC to keep in mind the public’s interest when dealing with corporate issues in the communications space? Is it not in the public’s interest that the FCC ensure the presence of choice in the marketplace?

Clearly, Verizon Wireless, a company owned by both Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group, isn’t pleased with the prospect of being forced to allow such open access if it indeed ends up the winner of the 700MHz spectrum. It’s used to operating in a closed fashion, in which only Verizon-approved applications and services can be accessed by its customers. This has allowed it to provide a level of always-on-and-always-working satisfaction to its users, something which has been all but unmatched by any other competing network.

But like all companies of such grandiose designs, it has its faults. Performance problems, however few relative to the network as a whole, do arise, and there is certainly a percentage of customers that would most certainly like to experience more in the way of an expanded variety of products and services than the present supply.

So Verizon Wireless has its strengths and its weaknesses. The same goes for just about every other wireless network in existence today.

Therefore, it only makes sense to allow greater choice into the market.

Which is what the rules attached to the 700MHz spectrum sale intend to provide. If consumers want more choice, and want to do things their own way, they should be allowed such freedoms.

Verizon Wireless simply wishes to continue on the path it has taken for many years already. It’s set in its ways, and the thought of having to adhere to an open mantra frightens the company. But the FCC wasn’t assembled to ensure that telcos like Verizon Wireless get to do what they want, and only what they want. It was designed to regulate the industry to favor the free and open consumer market, to the benefit of both corporations and consumers. While it arguably failed to live up to such responsibilities in years past in terms of keeping tabs on the wireless front, it seems that it has finally chosen the right path with these new rules.

It’d really be a shame if Verizon Wireless managed to get the FCC to reverse course, but I don’t believe they’ll get their way this time around. One can’t be sure one-hundred percent, but certain? I think so.

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