Google Says: Don't Trust Verizon

Verizon, the American broadband and telecommunications company, has recently won the C block in the 700MHz spectrum auction. For those who aren't aware, the 700MHz auction was initiated by the Federal Communications Commission back in January 2008, for the rights to operate the 700MHz frequency band in the United States. Following this win, Google has warned the FCC that Verizon might be up to no good.

Contrary to Google’s official statements, Verizon has been making a lot of public noise on how it is going to open up its network to third-party devices and applications. It is a known fact that, in the past, Verizon has expressed a public desire of wanting to have control over the features and applications found on its devices. According to Google, this is one of the reasons why Verizon can’t be trusted to respect the rule applied to the C block of spectrum. All these things have been put down by Google in a petition filed last week with the FCC.

Taking into consideration Verizon's latest public position, Google claims that the latter shouldn't be allowed to have control over the legal applications and features found on any devices connected to the C block. Backing their statement, Google added that according to the FCC rule, "no licensee may disable features on handsets it provides to customers," unless the applications are found to be illegal and can cause security threats to the licensee's network.

The petition filed by Google has prompted no public comment from Verizon officials so far. Still, according to IP Democracy blog, a Verizon Wireless spokesperson has said that Google's petition "has no legal standing". If we’re to make anything from this dispute between the two American companies, that must be that Google is taking a keen interest in the way the C block rules are respected. Google was among the companies to have participated in the FCC January 700MHz auction.

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