His defensive body language and aggressive pauses were amusing but confusing for such an accomplished corporate panjandrum as was his reaction to Rose’s observation about Japan, India and China being ramped up on wireless while IS is backing away from his $20billion bet on FIOS.

“We happen to agree with the whole ideas that the network should be open. The Internet should be available. So that anything you want to order from any place and download you can do it. We are for the whole idea of open standards for pulling down information.”

Then, when Rose pressed him on the type of business Verizon wants to move into next, he said:

“The things that we would like to do is add value to the network by getting into more applications. So I think if we could find a way to take those communications-based business, software-based business and add a layer… What we would like to be able do is own the rights to distribute any piece of content … that we would pay for the rights to package and bundle it and distribute it. That would give us a new dimension to our business.”

Had Rose been more savvy he might have pressed Seidenberg about possible conflicts of Interest that would arise when a network provider (and one that pledges to keep the network open) is also offering applications over that network. Will Verizon’s temptation to block competing applications be too strong to resist?

As Verizon Wireless rolls out the next breed of compatible “smart” phones, we’ll likely see more blocking of competitive applications.