Critic slams Verizon mobile TV plans

Verizon Chief Executive Lowell C. McAdam is making a lot of nonsensical promises about the company's planned wireless video service. McAdam is engaging in a PR campaign to drum up support for Verizon's big spectrum buy, part of its deal with cable to offer integrated services.

Last week, Verizon Chief Executive Lowell C. McAdam told The Wall Street Journal that the company, "could have a wireless video service by year-end that lets pay-TV subscribers see some content on their mobile devices if regulators approve a proposed cable partnership."

But Stacey Higginbotham, GigaOm news editor and an 11-year veteran of tech reporting, found the whole plan largely fanciful, to say nothing of expensive. "...the idea that consumers are so desperate to stream their VoD (video on demand) content on their phones and via the pricey cellular network seems like a reach to me. It's like asking the FCC to approve the merger for the 1 percent."

The Wall Street Journal interviewer failed to challenge McAdam's comments, which led Higginbotham to observe, "It looks like Verizon may have found someone happy enough to listen to its CEO spout fluffy future plans that don't seem to add up in the hopes of making its planned spectrum buy sound good."

Wireless video is supposed to make this more appealing to consumers, but as Higginbotham says, "Verizon's offering a shiny flourish around integrated video to hide the truth: that this proposed spectrum buy isn't good for consumers and won't make their TV experience better at all."

Speed Matters, CWA, labor, community groups, and elected officials have raised concerns about the anti-competitive Verizon Wireless/cable deal which raise prices, reduce consumer choice, and cut job-creating investment in high-speed broadband.

Verizon Pitches Mobile Video (Wall Street Journal, Mar. 30, 2012)

Verizon's mobile TV plans don't make sense (like its proposed spectrum buy) (Gigaom.com, Mar. 30, 2012)
 
Backlash hits Verizon Wireless cable deal (Speed Matters, Mar. 20, 2012)