Edward Wyatt of the New York Times has sounded the alert to a possible deal on Net Neutrality between Google and Verizon and many in the blogosphere including GigaOm is decrying this as a betrayal of Net Neutrality.  Aside from the fact that this story is based on many vague and undisclosed sources, the story is wrong on the facts, self contradictory, and incoherent.

Wyatt starts off by claiming:

“The charges could be paid by companies, like YouTube, owned by Google, for example, to Verizon, one of the nation’s leading Internet service providers, to ensure that its content received priority as it made its way to consumers. The agreement could eventually lead to higher charges for Internet users.”

This is wrong on many levels.  First, it is a fact that paid priority services offer superior delivery performance to content providers at a lower price.  Second, Google already pays for superior delivery by building and/or leasing vast amounts of Internet infrastructure at the network and server level.  Google is so big that they’re one of the largest private network operators in the world but they still lease premium delivery capacity from Content Delivery Networks (CDN) which is functionally no different from paying broadband providers for better access.  Lastly, the costs that Google have incurred in the past were not passed onto consumers (not directly anyways since it’s passed on via the cost of advertising) and there’s no reason this would change if Google used an alternative premium delivery method.

If we are to believe this story that a Google-Verizon deal is imminent, Google would only lease paid priority connections from Verizon if it offered better delivery characteristics at a price worth paying.  The key point is that these are *voluntary* business transactions (which Net Neutrality seeks to ban) designed to optimize traffic between Google and Verizon which improves YouTube performance.  These optimizations also reduce cost for Google and Verizon because it cuts out the middlemen i.e., the Internet transit network providers and CDN operators.  The bottom line is that YouTube performance will improve for consumers while remaining free.  If it wasn’t a better deal for Google, why in the world would Google voluntarily agree to be ripped off by Verizon and forgo FCC protection?

So the question is why Google opposed these paid priority services up until now.  Well the reality is that they never did oppose most forms of paid priority since they’ve been paying to build their own priority networks and they’ve paid CDNs for premium delivery.  Google back in 2008 was even accused of betraying Net Neutrality when they signed deals with network providers on edge caching, but the Net Neutrality crowd curiously defended Google vigorously but curiously not now.  Google just wanted the threat of government broadband regulation as leverage against the broadband providers to negotiate a sweeter peering deal but the seemingly changing political tide may be forcing them to settle while they still have some political leverage.

Wyatt goes on to claim:

“Such an agreement could overthrow a once-sacred tenet of Internet policy known as net neutrality, in which no form of content is favored over another.”

Oh really?  Like the comical “tenet” that all websites are supposed to load at the same speed?  I’m sorry Mr. Wyatt, but there never has been such a tenet and the Internet has never been a place where no form of content is favored over another.  Neutral opportunity yes, but never neutral outcome.

This next blurb from Wyatt completely contradicts his earlier claim that no form of content should be favored over another.

“Many content providers — like Amazon, eBay and Skype — prefer no favoritism on the Internet or they want to be sure that if a pay system exists, all content providers have the opportunity to pay for faster service.”

Wait a minute, giving content providers the *opportunity* to pay for faster service ensures that some content is favored over other content.  So which is it?  Is there a no favoritism “tenet” or isn’t there?  Wyatt then claims that:

“The F.C.C., meanwhile, favors a level playing field, but it cannot impose one as long as its authority over broadband is in legal doubt.”

This is not true.  The FCC majority lead by Chairman Genochowski and Commissioner Copps and Commissioner Clyburn seems to favor a level outcome and not a level playing field based on their proposed regulations on Net Neutrality.  Level playing fields have never meant level players and it shouldn’t mean an equal outcome.  But the FCC majority’s proposed Net Neutrality rules would ban any playing field by outlawing enhanced or prioritized services from broadband providers to content and application providers.  Here’s an excerpt from the proposal:

FCC NPRM Paragraph 106 – We understand the term “nondiscriminatory” to mean that a broadband Internet access service provider may not charge a content, application, or service provider for enhanced or prioritized access to the subscribers of the broadband Internet access service provider, as illustrated in the diagram below.

Lastly, Wyatt repeats the myth that consumer groups have been left out of the “secret” FCC meetings.  Wyatt writes:

“Consumer groups have objected to the private meetings, saying that too many stakeholders are being left out of discussions over the future of the Internet.

But the reality is that these “secret” meetings are actually very public and transparent.  Furthermore, the “consumer interest” groups like Free Press that are complaining about being left out of the secret meetings are actually apart of these meetings.

These incoherent positions on Net Neutrality are really baffling to me.  Then again the whole Net Neutrality movement has never had a tangible logical definition and the Open Internet Coalition showed similar incoherency on Title II reclassification.