AT& T, Verizon Plan Wireless Future

McAdam reiterated the company's position that legally requiring openness was unnecessary. Both Verizon Wireless and AT&T declared victory this week after FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin announced that he would try to dismiss a petition by Skype asking the commission to codify wireless openness principles in the law.

"The phone companies are probably sorting through right now how far they are willing to go and what their limits are," said Rebecca Arbogast, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus. On the one hand, carriers want to appear consumer-friendly and encourage the use of more devices on their networks. On the other hand, they are trying to avoid committing to strict definitions of openness so that they can maintain control over their systems, she said.

Earlier this week, AT&T Mobility chief executive Ralph de la Vega offered a case-in-point example of the balance carriers are trying to strike in the openness debate.

De la Vega said at the CTIA Wireless convention in Las Vegas that his company is moving closer to joining Google's alliance in trying to develop an open-source mobile system called Android. But he said in an interview that AT&T will still decide which approved devices can be used over its network.

Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition that is pushing for net neutrality rules, said De la Vega's remarks fall short if AT&T maintains approval over which devices and applications can be used.

"That is still a walled garden, and the garden can be big and get bigger, but it is still a walled garden," Erickson said.

De la Vega said in a conference call Thursday night that AT&T avoided bidding on the swath of spectrum won by Verizon Wireless because the open network rules were not clear. Instead, AT&T and other companies bid higher on regional slices of airwaves that weren't subject to such rules, he said.

"People put a premium on the spectrum because it was not encumbered by excessive regulation," he said.