SBC CEO Ed Whitacre’s ill-phrased threat to block carriage of Google and Yahoo because the telco’s broadband lines are his “pipes” keeps boomeranging on the phone company. Not only is everybody in the communications arena familiar with Whitacre’s now-famous Business Week interview, but the Washington Post fronted its business section today with an article on what Whitacre said.
Internet companies said Whitacre was stating what they have long feared — that SBC and others may manage their networks to choke off access to Web sites or to target competing firms such as Vonage Holdings Corp. and Skype Technologies SA, which provide Internet-based phone services.
What came through loud and clear in the piece is the glee, if not outright joy, that net-neutrality advocates are feeling in the wake of the comment. Whitacre has handed independent VoIP companies, Google, Yahoo and public interest advocates a very useful weapon for advocating new laws to bar broadband network owners from using their powerful distribution platforms for extracting monopoly profits from emerging broadband services.
“He is basically making the case for regulation,” said Gigi B. Sohn, the president of Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group that advocates an open Internet.
Update: MuniWireless has an item about a campaign spurred by Whitacre’s comments. NYCWireless, which advocates free public Wi-Fi, has started the Broadband Challenge campaign, asking each broadband provider in New York City to sign a statement in favor of net neutrality. Not surprisingly, no one has signed the statement yet.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:31 AM|Comments(0)
Blogs We Read
