Every evening on his Countdown show, Keith Olbermann designates someone as the "Worst Person in the World." With a nod to Mr. O., we hereby designate the Biggest Crybaby in the World. The initial selection: Verizon.
The biggest issue facing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the summer was setting the rules for auctioning off a prime slice of the public's airwaves -- the channels that TV stations now use. The TV stations will switch to another part of the radio spectrum in February, when they go to all-digital broadcast over the air.
Imagine a field 60 yards long, as a visualization of the 60 MHz of spectrum for which the FCC is supposed to hold an auction in January next year. Now, rope off 40 of those yards. In spectrum terms, right off the bat 66.7 percent of the auction will be on terms that Verizon wants - i.e., none. That means for most of the spectrum at auction, Verizon can bid what it wants and do with the valuable ethereal real estate what it wants. (As can AT&T, the other big cellular company.)
The fight at the FCC was over the terms and conditions for the other 20 yards, or 20 MHz. A coalition of public-interest groups (including my day-job employer Public Knowledge), along with Google, Skype, a group of wireless innovators and others, suggested to the FCC that it do something more worthwhile with this last little slice than simply let the big current cellular companies get bigger.
We wanted the Commission to use this slice of spectrum to create more competition in wireless Internet services for the benefit of consumers by allowing smaller companies which couldn't afford to bid billions for spectrum to have a shot. So we proposed that whoever wins the auction be required to sell it at wholesale to the smaller, generally innovative companies. Wholesale has been, and remains, a staple type of business in the telecom world, so this wasn't totally radical.
We also asked that when consumers be given the advantages to use any "always on" wireless service, like GPS; be able to run any application, like a music download service; and use any device on any network.
In its own inimitable way, Verizon responded by intimidation, bullying and threats of litigation. They said that Google was trying to threaten the FCC and that if the FCC caved in to Google (the whipping boy at the time), then Verizon would sue. Any time Verizon uses the term "serious legal problems," you know the lawyers are warming up in the bullpen.
Verizon got most of what it wanted from the FCC back in August. In our example, they kept 15 of the remaining 20 yards as they wanted. There would be no wholesale requirement, no open service requirement. In short, the FCC did nothing to create new competition as a threat to Verizon. The FCC did throw consumers a couple of relative scraps, saying that cell phones in that little slice of spectrum should work with any network and run any applications.
If someone asked for a $10,000 raise and came away with $9,995, most people would consider that a good day. Verizon, one of the telecom giants that want to control the Internet, isn't most people.
For being a sore winner and filing a court challenge even when it won, Verizon is hereby designated the Biggest Crybaby in the World.