AT&T has already made nice with the "open access" coalition and the FCC by announcing it's ability to live with FCC chairman Kevin Martin's proposed auction rules, but until now, Verizon Wireless has remained against any proposed changes to the spectrum auction. The carrier's president and CEO Lowell McAdam met with Martin this week and agreed to the call for "any device" to connect to its network. "This is an experiment the FCC wants to do," McAdam said. "We'll do it, but we won't be able to guarantee those customers much other than that the network will operate properly." According to a report in the WSJ, McAdam said that if Martin's draft rules aren't revised, "there is a real possibility this will be a failed auction," because demand for spectrum will be reduced.
McAdam also pointed out that the carrier would not be able to police lewd content or offensive content on third party phones, like it does for its own handsets. Verizon Wireless would only guarantee that voice service would work for such phones. Of course, "any device" does not include any application or service and Verizon said it would continue to block any services it wants.
For more on the reported concession:
- read this article from the WSJ (sub. req.)