Cerf explained that the reason the two companies did not define rules for mobile access was that they could not agree on what rules should be in place for wireless.

"The fact is we couldn't come to an agreement about what to do with wireless, and since we couldn't come to an agreement, we didn't say anything," he said. He noted that the subject of wireless Internet access is a highly contentious one, "so therefore one has to be more thoughtful about its management."

"I hope that access to broadband in all of its forms, wired and wireless, will be equally accessible to everyone," he said. "We simply don't want access to the broadband channels to be used in an anti-competitive way."

Cerf also offered an update on the , an Internet Engineering Task Force working group for extending Internet capabilities to spacecraft.

"We've implemented the protocols. They are on board the Space Station," he said. The development team, managed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, is working with the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) to get it widely adopted by space agencies.