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Verizon CEO Says "We Will Hunt Heavy Users Down"
Zerocool3001 writes "In an interview with WSJ editor Alan Murray,Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg talks about how the FCC's broadband access studies are wrong (and the US is definitely 'number one, not even close'), how he had someone else stand in line for him Saturday to pick up his iPad, and how Verizon will soon hunt down, throttle and/or charge high-bandwidth users on its network."
I use Verizon DSL.
The rate is reasonable ($15), and I've never been throttled, or received notice that I used too many gigabytes. (In theory I could download 233 gigabytes each month, if I bittorrented 24/7, which I usually do.)
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Summary and title are misleading; article refers to the smartphone data service explicitly, not DSL/FiOS internet users.
First Murdock displays his love for it, now the CEO of Verizon not only says he wanted one, but send one of his minions to pick it up for him. If someone were trying to paint the iPad in a bad light, couldn't get it better than this.
Now what, someone using the iPad to kick puppies and stomp kittens?
> And you use it for what, exactly?
Downloading stuff?
I moved two months ago, from an apartment with 100/100Mb to this one, where I can only get 30/30Mb. Now it takes minutes to download the latest 24/Caprica/In Plain Sight/Criminal Minds etc. Sure, not really a problem and I'm much better off than people in the 3rd world etc etc, but the point is that you always "need" the best available once you've gotten used to it.
He is saying that we have more capacity and usage then even Japan, which wouldn't surprise me as we have about 100X the number of people.
Japan has about 127 million people. Has the US increased to 12.7 billion some time recently?
.....which is why I never felt the need to go for faster speeds. Why pay Comcast ~$60 a month for 25 Mbit/s service if the actual throughput (250 GB) is no different than the $15 1.0 Mbps option.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
I expect to be able to transfer that much, because I purchased a 15mbps connection, not a 200gb/month connection. If they advertised them by total transfer, or priced it based on total transfer, I'd be content with paying the difference. But my whole point is that they don't. They advertise 15mbps. Period. End of story. http://www22.verizon.com/Residential/FiOSInternet/Plans/Plans.htm Actually, now that I look at it, even in the fine print do they not disclose any kind of cap on transfer. They just say that they don't guarantee the rate. Nothing about "You are allowed to transfer x GB / month" or "Subject to usage caps" or even "Heavy users will be castrated and fed to the pigs"... Only:
It's repeated a few times on that page, but there's nothing that I can see that even remotely implies that you can't expect to use whatever bandwidth you can get to the fullest it provides you. Now sure, they could implement selective filtering based on that (the higher transfer people get rate limited)...
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
That's just Verizon Math at work. As long as you're within a factor of 100 then that's close enough for Verizon.
Actually, now that I look at it, even in the fine print do they not disclose any kind of cap on transfer.
RTFA. He is talking about their wireless data plans, not their wireline data plans.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
From the interview transcript:
SEIDENBERG: -- they want, when they do it. (Laughter.)
But, on balance, they're good for the industry. They create -- if you don't mind, I'll just -- let me extend to the iPad --
MURRAY: Yeah, sure --
SEIDENBERG: -- just to give you a -- (inaudible) -- everybody's familiar with this. So, like everybody else, you know, we're interested in it. So we had our -- some of our technology people go out and buy a couple of devices --
MURRAY: You didn't stand in line on Saturday?
SEIDENBERG: No, I had somebody else stand in line. (Laughter.) But we had people standing in line.
The summary and the page the summary links to are VERY misleading and most of the rants posted above are all based on incorrect assumptions. If you want the real picture, read the actual interview. I'll try to clarify some of these issues as objectively as possible. Not arguing one way or another here, but some of the ranters need to chill out.
1. Verizon is "hunting down" heavy users of it's 3G broadband (i.e. Verizon Wireless) NOT it's FIOS or DSL. It is also important to note that Verizon Wireless does NOT offer unlimited data usage in its data plans (I'm a subscriber). The unlimited Verizon plans refer specifically to voice and text. So anyone screaming bloody murder about punishing users for using what they paid for can STFU. You aren't paying for unlimited, so you won't get unlimited.
2. The iPad. The summary and the linked article really spin this one into something it's not. According to the actual interview, Verizon (as a company) had several people stand in line for iPads because Verizon is interested in the device (as they should be) and want some to play/experiment/develop/whatever with. The CEO did not dispatch a personal assistant to stand in line so he could have his own iPad without the need to stand in line with those filthy "commoners". The summary and linked article puts its own spin in order to imply the latter, but nothing in the actual interview suggests this at all.
3. US #1 in broadband? This guy defines being #1 in broadband a little differently than the FCC and most people. While the FCC is looking at broadband speed, he looks more at broadband penetration and utilization. Now I don't know the exact numbers, and no sources were really cited in the actual interview, so this is still pretty debatable. However, I think he brings up a good point in how we rank broadband. If a country has the highest speeds available in the world, but only a select few can actually get access to it, then are they really #1 in broadband? I would argue that being the best would be a combination of speed, availability, reliability, and even cost. Again, though, some fact-checking needs to be done on this one.
In summary, Slashdot has once again gone for sensationalism, and the linked article is probably worse. I wouldn't mind it so much if it didn't spark all of these threads making arguments about things that were never said or even implied by the person in question. This is supposed to be a site for intellectuals, yet we can't seem to have an intellectual debate over the issues, because the real issues have been so clouded. I urge everyone to read the actual interview, even though it is quite lengthy. There is a lot of good stuff in there and it gives some good insights into how one of the largest companies in the country feels about issues from net neutrality to health-care. The real answers are not quite as evil as you might think.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
So, if Christine Varney - who is making some noise that she MIGHT just stick her boot up Verizon's behind - actually starts filing stuff and pushing Congress to back her - you would support that? You would support an Obama administration pushing for that?
Source: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124689740762401297.html
So, in effect it seems like he was actually saying that they prefer to avoid maximally efficient pricing (i.e. per minute/megabit charges) and instead sell you more than you will actually use (bundles), but the peak capacity is so much higher than the median that they feel they will need at least two tiers to pull that off (or else the price will obviously seem like a bad deal to everyone but a peak user). I would be all for per megabit pricing if it was the primary model. Right now with phones that kind of pricing is generally the surprise overage charge that people don't really consider when signing the contracts, so it is nowhere near competitive.
> Ah, fuck it. Go mangle the English language. I'll be curled up in bed, sucking on my language-nazi thumb.
Under the flourescent lights, no doubt. Some might say that your a looser! Their wrong, in a worser way than normal. You're comment inspires they're ire but you can likely find the compliment to it in any forum these days. It's pandemic.
Phew,I'm glad to have that out of my system. :-)
For the wannabe language-nazis:
It's fluor, not flour. A fluorescent lamp is coated with a fluor.
"Your" is possessive. "You're" is contraction of "you are", i.e. Your belt might be loose or looser. But you're probably going to be a loser if you gamble in Lost Wages.
Worser is not a word. Never has and I hope it never is. Things go from bad to worse to worst.
Their/they're/there: "Their" is possesive, i.e. Their car is green. "They're" is a contraction of "they are", i.e. They're there already.
A compliment is a nice thing said about you: "You look marvelous" is a compliment. A complement is a match or counterpart (in the literal sense) for something. A Philips screwdriver and screw complement each other. Or it refers to a roster: The platoon is at full complement.
"It's" is contraction of "it is". Its wrong to use it's in any other way.
Well, those are my pet peeves anyway. :-)