April 21st, 2005
Congressman to SBC IP head: why are you only targeting the well-off?
Broadcasting & Cable magazine’s John Eggerton sat in on a fairly contentious House of Representatives Telecommunications Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday.
When the subject of the hearing turned to VoIP, there was a frank exchange of views between Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and SBC’s Lee Ann Champion, senior executive veep for IP operations and services.
Rep. Markey accused SBC of targeting high-income customers for rollout of its advanced IP services. He told Champion that policy was not consistent with SBC’s franchise agreements requiring it and competitors to work with all "constituencies" in their service areas.
Champion defended SBC’s business-building strategy for enhanced services, but did add that the company was examining alternate ways to reach and appeal to a broader swath of customers.
To which Markey replied: "You’re offering light speed for the well off and snail speed for the others."
Who’s right? Markey or Champion? Be a champ and post a TalkBack.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
