IP Democracy: Does Verizon Have an 80% Plan?

Cathering Yang has this piece in today’s Business Week online that contends Verizon plans to reserve 80% of its Internet capacity for itself, leaving only 20% for everybody else, a notion that fits right in with the fears of net neutrality advocates.

Now, Cerf [Internet pioneer Vint Cerf who now works for Google] and his Net compatriots have new ammunition to back up their fears. Documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission show that Verizon Communications (VZ) is setting aside a wide lane on its fiber-optic network for delivering its own television service. According to Marvin Sirbu, an engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who examined the documents, more than 80% of Verizon’s current capacity is earmarked for carrying its service, while all other traffic jostles in the remainder.

Silicon Valley companies plan to raise a stink about this network configuration at a February 7 Congressional hearing. I wonder (but don’t know) if this allegation isn’t just a bit distorted and a bit unfair. I suspect that Verizon’s capacity allocation plans are for Verizon’s fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) networks, which the telco plans to use to deliver multichannel video, high-def television and so forth.

If that’s the case, even 20% of the FTTP networks is probably a heck of a lot more capacity than users get today with only DSL. So it’s not like Verizon will be squeezing anybody out. Using an imperfect analogy, cable operators today probably reserve 99% of their networks’ capacities for themselves and not the open Internet.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on February 2, 2006 7:41 AM to IP Democracy