Verizon Wireless and Google Reach Slight Consensus on Net Neutrality

Verizon’s Policy Blog has been updated with a joint statement from Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam and Google CEO Eric Schmidt regarding the FCC’s push for national net neutrality policy which begins tomorrow with preliminary policy development.

The following points were agreed upon by both executives:

“we both think it’s essential that the Internet remains an unrestricted and open platform where people can access any content (so long as it’s legal), as well as the services and applications of their choice.”

The post goes on to detail the following points that need to be considered in the net neutrality debate and potential addition to the national policy:

1.) Users should continue to have the final say about their web experience. Control by one or more entities will kill the web in its current form.

2.) Investment in advanced networks is vital with the existing wireline broadband rules appearing to be sufficient if they are enforced properly.

3.) Flexibility in government policy is key with dense, overbearing legislation being detrimental to the spirit of net neutrality.

4.) Broadband network providers should have the flexibility to manage their networks to deal with threats of any kind with transparency being a necessity.

5.) Broadband providers also need to present customers with clear information about their services without confusing them.

This follows Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg’s recent comments which sharply criticized the need for a national net neutrality policy, stating that Verizon was in fact troubled by the policy proposed by the FCC along with AT&T and Comcast, who are also opposed.

Seidenberg stated that innovation and investment will be stifiled whle citing examples such as telemedicine that he stated would require Verizon be able to prioritize such traffic. Without the ability to prioritize under the proposed policy, he states the company would not be able to offer such services.