Verizon General Counsel: We Still Support Net Neutrality

Verizon general counsel Craig Silliman says his company supports the principles of network neutrality, but the current fight is about "the jurisdictional hook the [Federal Communications Commission] used to get there." He also says zero rating is nothing new and likens it to Amazon’s free shipping. Verizon was a key player in the ongoing fight, having filed a court challenge to the initial, compromise, non-Title II approach to net neutrality rules that the FCC struck with other Internet service providers under then FCC chairman Julius Genachowski.

But Silliman pointed out that before the court decisions, Verizon had favored Congress weighing in and codifying the net neutrality principles to "put the whole Title II debate behind us." He suggested that the end game for some activists had always been Title II, so they fought a congressional solution. He said in hindsight—that being a new Donald Trump Administration almost certain to roll back Title II—that was probably a "bad political calculation." He said net neutrality principles are still important but can be protected in a "much smarter, much more efficient way" than the FCC's effort, which he characterized as trying to put square pegs into round holes and said applies broadly to issues of FCC jurisdiction, the sort of issues congressional action could have cleared up.