PolicyBlog

Michael Porter in a Harvard Business Review article last January wrote about how companies create value.  His focus was on whether companies had an outdated view of value creation that was too narrowly focused on short-term financial performance.    His article explained that key consumer needs are connected to broader societal issues in most cases.  For example, there are a wide array of consumer needs in the health care space and broadband technology provides a platform for addressing many... Read More

Verizon’s own Tom Tauke spoke to the New Democrat Network this week.  Below is the text of his speech. Video of the event can be seen here.  Prepared Remarks of Verizon EVP Tom TaukeNew Democrat Network Internet Governance EventApril 19, 2012  The success of the Internet ecosystem is truly amazing.  Wireline and wireless networks, new devices, software, applications, the Cloud – together they are connecting the world, empowering people, facilitating innovation, giving consumers many new choices... Read More

                WASHINGTON, CTIA, the Wireless Association, the Federal Communications Commission, and law enforcement officials, on Tuesday (April 10) announced plans to provide resources to consumers to address mobile-device theft. Those resources include implementation of a data base to prevent reactivation of stolen smartphones, and additional customer education about avoiding and reducing the impact of device theft. The following statement should be attributed to Kathleen Grillo, Verizon... Read More

You don’t always hear companies express support when federal agencies call on Congress to pass legislation.  But when both the Federal Trade Commission and the White House issued complementary reports focusing on consumer privacy and asking Congress to create new baseline privacy laws, we here at Verizon largely agreed.   Verizon has a longstanding commitment to privacy because it is an important consumer trust issue.  We know that consumers will only fully use our products and services if they... Read More

I am posting some observations from Marissa Mitrovich - Director, Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility.  She was at this year’s SXSW Interactive, and blogged about some of the things she saw:   In the technology industry we have been using the word “convergence” in our everyday conversations for many years, but this term has recently crossed over into the mainstream.  Well, maybe not the word itself, but the act of cross-platform technology consumption.  Last week I attended the 3 Screen... Read More

I am posting some observations from Marissa Mitrovich - Director, Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility.  She was at this year’s SXSW Interactive, and blogged about some of the things she saw:   Earlier this month I attended the SXSW Interactive conference in Austin, TX.  This section of the SXSW Festival has exploded over recent years, now accommodating approximately 25,000 attendees on numerous campuses around Austin, TX.  I joined web designers, developers, venture capitalists,... Read More

Recently on Forbes blog, James Crowe, the CEO of Level 3, put forth a novel proposal:  despite what the FCC determined in its National Broadband Plan, what the President and NTIA have said and what motivated Congress to pass the recent spectrum legislation, James Crowe suggests that instead of bringing more spectrum to market, the solution to the wireless spectrum shortage is more wires.Now I am not saying that cell splitting and adding more antennas and backhaul aren’t important tools for... Read More

It is political “silly season” as they say and since I’m based in Washington (and worked for a number of years in political campaigns), I thought I would start out with a quote I often hear in politics these days - “We have lots of candidates but no choices!”  As strident and often times silly as the debates can seem, this is never really true.   Some simply decide to describe the “political market place” in that way for a variety of reasons.  It can be easy to be dismissive of politicians and... Read More

Our general counsel Randy Milch testified yesterday before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Anti-Trust Subcommittee about Verizon Wireless’ purchase of unused spectrum from four cable companies. Also, he discussed the separate cross marketing agreements with those same cable companies. Randy made the case that it was important to get this spectrum into the hands of consumers to use on our 4G LTE network, and made these three points about the license transfers and agreements.  Meeting... Read More