Yes, I know the tech world is excited about the iPhone coming to Verizon. Many have proclaimed that Verizon is the best network in the U.S. In general, Verizon defenders claim better coverage and fewer dropped calls as what makes the network the best. This obviously is dependent on where you are (as Jason Snell points out in his very reasonable Verizon iPhone 4 review). For me, one of the reasons I was happy to switch from Verizon to AT&T a couple years ago was because I had so many dropped calls on Verizon. AT&T has been much more reliable for me. And AT&T and T-Mobile both best Verizon in data speeds throughout much of their 3G coverage area due to their 3G technology choice.

But I wouldn't tell you to avoid Verizon because of any of this. These are minor issues that will vary from one area to the next. You should avoid Verizon because of how they're going to "optimize" your wireless Internet connection. You may have missed this today, as many news outlets focused on the other half of the Verizon document, which regarded throttling. It seems people were surprised that Verizon's unlimited data plans were actually going to be limited. While that may be annoying, I take bigger issue with their optimizations of network traffic.

As BGR reported, Verizon is both throttling users and optimizing content. What does optimizing content mean? It means that when your web browser asks a website for an image or a video, Verizon is not going to give you what you asked for. Instead, Verizon will convert it to something that uses less bandwidth and send that to you. Transforming images and video in this way is lossy, which means that it will be lower quality than the original.

This is unacceptable. First of all, I don't want to spend a bunch of money on an iPhone 4 with a beautiful Retina Display only to have Verizon make images and videos look worse. Apple and other smartphone vendors have made a big deal of how a modern smartphone gives you the Internet in your pocket. Not the mobile web, but the real web. Verizon's move is a step backwards in mobile devices. Verizon is trying to take them back to being second-class Internet citizens.

Even worse, Verizon is going to do this at the network level. That means that even non-mobile devices will suffer from this optimization. If I tether my laptop to my phone to get online (which is one of the headline features of the iPhone 4 on Verizon), I get to access the Verizon-optimized Internet. So, if I then go to Flickr to download an original image to print it, I'm likely not going to get it. I'm going to get a lower quality image.

There are plenty of reasons to choose a wireless provider other than Verizon (slow speeds, no simultaneous voice and data, monthly cost, throttling, history of overcharging), but the biggest reason to avoid them is their decision to filter the Internet. My Internet provider is responsible for delivering things from the Internet to me. They should not change things en route. They are a delivery service. I want them to change data coming to me just as much as I want the postal service to open my mail and just send me a summary of what was coming instead of the original letter.