As CEO of Verizon's consumer division, Sowmyanarayan Sampath oversees the biggest part of the company, which does business with roughly a third of the entire country. He's a longtime Verge reader, so we talked very directly about whether the huge 5G investment had actually paid off, and whether – whether the “race” we were supposedly in with China was actually worth it, and what kinds of new apps and services actually come to light.

And while Verizon fought tooth and nail against regulations like net neutrality, the current Trump administration isn’t nearly as hands-off when it comes to things like holding up deals because of DEI policies — something that’s happening to Verizon right now. So I had to ask Sampath if he was going to push back on that kind of government overreach as hard as Verizon has in the past.

Links:

The US government makes a $42 million bet on OpenRAN | The Verge
FCC scrutinizes Verizon’s $9.6 billion Frontier deal over DEI | USA Today
Verizon offers a three-year price lock — but there’s a catch | The Verge
T-Mobile updates its DEI policy to get Lumos deal approved | Fierce Network
We don’t need net neutrality; we need competition (2014) | Ars Technica
Wireless and cable industries sue to kill net neutrality (2015) | The Verge
Everything Verizon says in this terrible video against net neutrality (2017) | The Verge
Report: Most Americans have no real choice in internet providers | ILSR
T-Mobile’s merger promises couldn’t make a carrier out of Dish | The Verge

Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/652470

Credits:

Decoder is a production of The Verge and part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.

Our producers are Kate Cox and Nick Statt. Our editor is Ursa Wright.

The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.

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