Verizon response to FCC's throttling concerns: everyone's doing it
Verizon Wireless has officially responded to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and his data throttling concerns. The Verge has obtained a copy of the carrier's response, which was written by Kathleen Grillo, the company's SVP of Federal Regulatory Affairs.
Context & Ripple Effects
Verizon's reply, signed by SVP of Federal Regulatory Affairs Kathleen Grillo, answers Chairman Tom Wheeler's July 30 letter calling its throttling plan a 'disturbing' loophole — the plan would slow some unlimited-data customers during congestion. It lands mid-net-neutrality rulemaking, weeks after the FCC's comment site crashed on the July 15 filing deadline, so the carrier's defense is aimed at a regulator already under public pressure.
The 'everyone does it' framing echoes Verizon's earlier playbook: in June it blamed Netflix for its own slow streams, much as Comcast did, and back in 2009 the FCC already found a Verizon regulatory response 'unsatisfying.' The company has also been here before on throttling specifically — in 2011 it told DSLreports its new throttling wasn't yet implemented and triggers were undecided. The story drew unusually broad syndication, picked up by Re/code, ABC News, CNET, MacRumors and others within a day.
First-order effects
- Unlimited-data customers on Verizon's network are the immediate subjects: the carrier is defending its legal room to degrade their speeds during congestion rather than withdraw the plan.
- Grillo's letter forces Wheeler to either accept industry-wide network management as legitimate or single out Verizon — putting his authority, freshly asserted in the municipal-broadband fight, on the line.
Second-order effects
- If the FCC accepts the industry-wide defense, rival carriers' own throttling policies become implicitly sanctioned; if it rejects it, every major carrier faces the same scrutiny Verizon now faces.
- The dispute feeds directly into the open net-neutrality comment record, giving both sides ammunition for how the new rules should classify paid prioritization versus congestion management.
Third-order effects
- The fight tests whether grandfathered unlimited plans — legacy contracts from the pre-cap era — can be managed down by carriers, a question that will shape how wireless operators retire old pricing tiers.
- It also previews the enforcement posture of the Wheeler FCC: informal chairman's letters and public shaming as the tool of choice while formal Title II authority remains contested.
The trend: Wireless carriers are reframing throttling of legacy unlimited plans as routine network management, testing the FCC's appetite to regulate the practice amid the 2014 net neutrality rulemaking.