Google Battles Verizon Over Wireless Spectrum Rules

Is Verizon Wireless trying to wriggle out of the "open-access" rules attached to the highly coveted wireless spectrum the company recently won in a federal airwaves auction?

Google thinks so. It has filed a petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to block Verizon's winning $4.7 billion bid unless Verizon explicitly agrees to follow the agency's "open access" provisions.

Those provisions require the winning bidder to permit consumers to use any wireless device and application on the new spectrum.

Verizon has publicly said that it plans to adopt a so-called "two-door" policy regarding the spectrum, in which the company would offer "open access" service but also reserve the right to market its own "closed" devices, which would only support Verizon's proprietary applications.

"We call it the two-door concept," Verizon executive vice president Tom Tauke said in an interview with InformationWeek late last year, before Verizon won the spectrum.

"Door No. 1, in the rules as written, you can bring your own device and it's open and you can get on the network," Tauke said. "Door No. 2 is for the customer who wants the kind of contract they have with Verizon today, where we provide the device and we guarantee the service quality and so on."

Under Verizon's formulation, the company would still be able to market "closed" devices which run its own proprietary applications on the network, posing a direct threat to Google's forthcoming Android open-source mobile operating system, which was the basis for Google's campaign to lobby regulators to implement the open-access rules in the first place.

Because Verizon has not changed its position since winning the auction, Google has called foul, charging that Verizon intends to offer prioritized service for its own "closed" devices, effectively gutting the open-access rules the web giant lobbied the F.C.C. so aggressively to implement.

In a "petition to condition grant" filed Friday, Google asked the F.C.C. to reject Verizon Wireless's "two-door" policy.

Verizon has taken the public position that it may exclude its handsets from the open access condition. Verizon said it believes that it may require customers who want to use non-Verizon devices to use "Door No. 1," while letting customers who obtain their devices from Verizon enter through "Door No. 2."

Google says that Verizon's position is not in the spirit of the rule because open access would apply to none of Verizon's customers.

"In short, the rule requires openness for 'Any Applications, Any Devices' — not 'Any Applications, Except on Verizon Devices,' as Verizon would interpret it," Richard Whitt, Google chief telecom lawyer, wrote in the filing. "If the correct direction is not set now ... the Commission's policy goals will be thwarted, and public participation in development of the C Block stands to be muted."

"Verizon cannot be allowed to become a C Block licensee while it simultaneously seeks to undermine a core public interest obligation of C Block licensees," Whitt added.

Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson dismissed Google's petition and said that the company would file a response later this week.

"Surprise, Google submitted yet another F.C.C. regulatory filing," Nelson said. "Google's regulatory filing has no legal standing. We expect to comment in the F.C.C.'s proceeding later this week."

by Sam Gustin