The great thing about being an executive at a Silicon Valley giant (aside from the obscene paychecks) is that you don't have to mess with consumer technology problems. You have minions to handle such quotidian chores. But the rest of us, particularly those who rely on wireless technology to do our jobs, have no such luxury. And all too often, we're the victims of shoddy customer service, products that don't work as advertised, and nasty little gotchas that push already sky-high wireless bills even higher.
And that's one reason I'm outraged by the position taken this week by Google and Verizon Wireless that the wireless Web should not be "restrained" by the principles of Net neutrality. Indeed, what the two companies and their pampered executives really mean is that the FCC and the states shouldn't regulate the wireless industry at all.
Consumers be damned.
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The wired Internet is far from dead; wireless services are still unable to deliver high-bandwidth applications nearly as well. Nevertheless, the future is wireless, and carriers like Verizon Wireless are quickly moving investment and R&D dollars away from the so-called public Internet to focus on wireless services, applications, and devices.
So it's no surprise that Verizon Wireless and other carriers want a free hand in wireless. And while it might seem surprising that Google has essentially backed off on its earlier position in favor of Net neutrality, it really isn't. The search engine giant is lavishing money and attention on the Android mobile platform and is casting covetous eyes on wireless as an advertising platform.
All of them are now making arguments filled with falsehoods and obfuscations meant to hoodwink you, me, Congress, and regulators into giving them control over the public spectrum and the open Internet (wired and wireless) it enables and that we all should have.
