Online giants are hypocrites in claiming to fight for new innovators in the net neutrality debate, a Verizon executive said Thurs. Companies like Google pose as protectors of the interests of fledgling and future technologies, David Young, Verizon抯 technology policy dir., said at the VON Conference in San Jose. However upstarts can抰 get their pages to users as fast, or keep their sites up as well under an onslaught of traffic, as Google, which has invested huge sums in its networks, he said. 揟he little guys can抰 afford to replicate what Google has done, and that抯 the only way?a new innovator could compete, Young said. Preceding Young on a panel, Dave Baker, EarthLink vp-law & public policy, made the case that net neutrality was about protecting competition in applications such as VoIP, to keep them from meeting the duopoly fate of broadband provision under the Brand X case and the FCC抯 follow-through deregulation policy. nnHarmful discrimination by powerful operators isn抰 hypothetical and the Madison River VoIP blocking case wasn抰 unique, Baker said. He cited Shaw Cable charging subscribers $10 monthly for higher quality of service, port-blocking in the United Arab Emirates and VoIP blocking by Telmex that prompted U.S. Trade Representative intervention. The general danger is incumbents discriminating in favor of their own content and applications or at least imposing a 搕oll?on others, Baker said. Customers voting with their feet by switching providers isn抰 an adequate check on discrimination because the market isn抰 truly competitive, he said.
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