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Vint Cerf has blasted telephone and cable companies for harming national interests by holding investments in their networks to ransom. A long-time advocate of keeping the internet free from control by service providers, Cerf, a current senior vice-president for search giant Google Inc., told the Silicon Valley Watcher blog that the companies are being childish by threatening to withhold upgrading networks unless they get breaks from regulators.

"Basically, it's like little kids in a tantrum: 'I'm not going to build this system unless you give me three scoops of ice cream and a pony,'" he said in the video interview on Tuesday. "My reaction to this is quite negative. It's harmful to the national interest to behave in this way because it is serious infrastructure — it's very much like the road ways."

Read full story: CBC News

Related topics: Access Providers, Broadband, Net Neutrality, Policy & Regulation, Telecom