Wheeler: Verizon Recognizes Title II No Big Bugaboo

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Thursday that he agrees with Verizon's CFO Fran Shammo that reclassification of Internet access under Title II would not affect the company's investment in its network.

That came in a press conference after the FCC's December public meeting. In that press conference, Wheeler seemed to suggest that Title II was a workable approach both from an industry and a Wall Street perspective.

Wheeler said he was not surprised by the comment. As evidence he cited the AWS-3 auction, which has already doubled the take of the FCC's next largest spectrum auction, despite the fact in September he signaled to a CTIA convention crowd that he was contemplating extending open Internet rules to wireless broadband and despite the fact that he has been talking about the possibility of Title II "all along" and that the President has weighed in on Title II.

For the full story go to Multichannel.com.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.