I arrived late to this talk because I was finishing out an interview, but as I walked in Mr. Lynch is noting (correctly) that Verizon's mission is to be "at the forefront of customer demand." This, he says, is the reason behind Verizon's Open Access initiative.
He says that customers want the devices they are going to want, and that the focus is going to be on building the best network possible for those devices, and simply certifying that the device will be compatible on a minimal level.
Lynch said that the requirements are not so different from the model they use to certify devices sold in stores, but without subsidies. The subsidies will not go away, and the consumer will be able to choose. On the other hand, Verizon and their subsidized phones will continue to provide another level of user experience.
When asked by interviewer Steven Wildstrom if this was genuine, or just getting in front of the FCC, he said that while people are cynical and those minds can't be changed, Verizon's ODI initiative has been on the drawing board for over a year, in response to customer demand.
When asked about P2P and Comcast, he said that they recognized that P2P providers and customers can either fight with ISPs, or live together in a productive way. He announced that a large problem is how large a resource simply finding the files is. Lynch said that if he can work with P2P providers to develop search algorithms that work better with networks, both can improve effectiveness and speed...in trials, this concept has increased performance by 60% and it's in the works.
In response to a question, Lynch noted that bring-your-own-phone users would not need contracts.
Moving over to FiOS, Wildstrom asked how it was ging and when it would go rural. Lynch noted that it would be reaching 60% of Verizon households, and that they can project getting it out to more than 60%, but want to hit that customer base over time in order to provide quality service.
He noted that FiOS is "future-proof" because it's a passive fiber service and that they can increase the capacity by improving the electronics, and they'd be able to keep ramping it up as technology improves. Also, he pointed out that FiOS is symmetrical, and that the bottleneck is in terms of their inter-office connectivity, not to the home.
Also, he announced that Verizon would be moving to IPTV for FiOS-TV distribution.
In response to a question about the role of ISPs in combatting botnets, he replied that it's a matter of network control and management. They aren't doing alot and letting the end links to protect themselves.
He also noted that the only thing that Verizon blocks at the network level is Child Pornography. No complaints here.
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