Look. I was just being snarky. I'm not calling Verizon, Google or Phil liars, but it's likely Verizon and Google are not entirely open or truthful about their dirty laundry either. Much of this discussion is based on conjecture and perception. The additional clarifications made by Verizon today tend to point more towards operational incompetence rather than malice in regards to Nexus 7 tablet activation issue but I wouldn't totally rule malice out either. It's easy to see why the perception of a contentious relationship is there. Afterall, it was Google that pushed for the open access rules on the 700Mhz spectrum auction and pledged a lot of money in the auction to ensure that it would come to fruition. Verizon fought the 700Mhz open access rules throughout the entire process. Open access runs contrary to their corporate culture and history.
There has been sufficient evidence over the years that Verizon's corporate culture favors a tightly controlled experience from the network to the end user device and has demonstrated downright contempt for outside devices and openness. This history goes back many years at least to when they were selling their Qualcomm BREW based phones and probably even further. Some of the motivation for this is delivering an extensive reliable network experience to a customer base that's willing to pay a premium for that service. Another motivation is pure greed that unfortunately comes at the expense of the customer experience. Why else would they strong arm their manufacturers to include VZTones and VZNavigator on all the devices they sell and not allow the owners of the devices to uninstall that redundant inferior garbage?
Unfortunately the greed doesn't stop there. They also have a history of accepting payment to force non-Verizon software onto the devices they sell in order to gain additional revenue. Again, this comes at the expense of the customer, who ends up paying a premium($200-$300 and a 2 year contract) for a device with embedded non-removable advertising. More recently, Verizon has been forcing manufacturers to alter their core Android OS experience on their flagship phones. This has included abominations such as the on-going WiFi notifications recently imposed on the Samsung Galaxy S3 and S4. I sincerely doubt that manufacturers are happy to oblige, especially since they are working towards creating their own branded experience and Verizon continually puts additional requirements in the way of getting that device on Verizon's network.
The Verizon 4G LTE network certification for the Nexus 7 LTE tablet is yet another unnecessary roadblock that Verizon has put in the way of another device getting access to their network. It's a roadblock that violates the rules they agreed to in the 700Mhz auction. The whole debacle is consistent with the theory that Verizon and Google have at least a somewhat contentious relationship. It's also consistent with Verizon's contempt for device manufacturers and consumers in general.
. If anyone's interested I'll start a thread for international users.
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