Given Verizon’s recurred statements that Title II will just crush purchases and investments, it was a little funny to hear Verizon CFO Fran Shammo this week obviously tell attendees of the UBS Annual Global Media and Communications Conference that Title II won’t cripple the company’s network expenses in the slightest. Shammo was asked about whether Title II would sour Verizon’s interest in buying in United States broadband. Shammo’s reply:
“I mean to be real clear, I expect this does not influence the way we spend. I mean we’re going to proceed to invest in our systems and our platforms, both in Wireless and Wireline FiOS and where we need to. So nothing will change that. I mean if you think about it, look, I mean we moved born out of a highly regulated corporation, so we know how this operates.”
Companies especially CFOs tend to ignore that the people has ears when achieving at these sort of events, but apparently, Shammo quickly finished what he had just revealed so he then tries to backtrack:
“And I also believe that if you look at other nations who have done this, it kind of leads you down to the path of total failure because of it really, really slows down advance and slows down innovation.”
Right. Clear as mud. Title II won’t change network investment whatsoever, but Title II will like completely impact network investment. Verizon pretty clearly needs to have its cake and eat it too, even if it makes certainly no logical, coherent sense. Of course, that’s because the mega-ISPs aren’t really that concerned about Title II they’re concerned that the FCC will create enforceable rules that will stop them from abusing the industry’s stranglehold on uncompetitive broadband businesses with all manner of “creative” pricing and content/service perception.
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