Verizon warns cable rules 'could be fatal' for online television

Verizon wants the Federal Communication Commission to make room for TV packages that come over the Internet, but it is worried that federal rules could prevent the services from getting off the ground. Top Verizon executives met with FCC officials to discuss the possibility of new rules that would allow companies to offer cable TV packages through the Web. There are “potential benefits” to that move, Verizon said, but also major potential concerns. Verizon has a ”strong view that the legacy regulatory regime” for cable companies “should not apply to [Web-based] video services or providers and could be fatal to such services,” Leora Hochstein, wrote Verizon’s executive director of federal regulatory affairs.