This slide, produced to sell "network management" equipment, is the best argument for Net Neutrality around.

Want to visit Facebook?  That will be two cents per megabyte, please.  Skype?  You can get a real bargain this month — your ISP is only charging you $5 for an unlimited monthly permission pass.  YouTube?  All customers with a deluxe bundled broadband plan get a special discount — just 50 cents for up to 60 videos, this month only!

All of these charges, levied by your Internet Service Provider, are real world scenarios being sold by two equipment vendors — Allot Communications and Openet, for immediate use on Net Neutrality-free wireless broadband networks.  Thanks to Stop the Cap! readers Lance and Damian for sending us the story.

Both companies are excited by the potential harvest of bountiful revenue — for themselves in selling the equipment that will carefully monitor what you do with your Internet connection and then control what kind of experience you get, and for providers who can finally bend the usage curve down while “finally” getting average revenue per customer shooting sky high once again.

In the webinar, run last Tuesday and moderated by Fierce Wireless, the two companies carefully divided their one hour presentation between the technological and financial benefits of “network management” technology.  For every statement about how their bandwidth management system would improve the predictable responsiveness of the provider’s network, another comment followed, touting the enormous new revenue potential this technology will bring providers, all without costly network upgrades.

Poor provider. His stuffed pockets of profit are leaking your money paid to access websites you want to visit. But with Allot and Openet's products, the pot 'o gold is just a few steps away.

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission will vote on a watered-down Net Neutrality proposal that would do nothing to prevent this nightmare scenario from becoming reality.  The webinar and its accompanying slides couldn’t illustrate Net Neutrality-proponents’ arguments better:

1. Such technology requires providers to carefully track and monitor everything you do with your web connection, obliterating privacy and creating a potential data trail that could be exploited for just about anything.  Indeed, Allot and Openet treat the data tracking feature as a benefit, opening the door to marketing campaigns to upsell your broadband connection or target upgrade offers based on your web history;

2. It’s all about the money.  Allot and Openet see their products as a cost-saver for providers to control expenses by cutting speeds/access for heavy users to provide a more consistent service for others, reducing the urgency to upgrade networks.  The companies also heavily focus on the revenue opportunities available from Internet Overcharging schemes;

3. The webinar includes a slide showing that providers can charge individual fees just to visit and utilize third party websites and applications, while letting providers deliver their own content, services and applications for free.  Got a bothersome competitor?  Just make a quick change with Allot’s product and your customers will face a withering admission fee in the amount you choose before they can even use the application;

4. The technology allows providers to wreak special havoc on peer-to-peer traffic, always the bane of traffic-conscious ISPs;

5. Want to extract more cash from an individual subscriber?  Providers can custom-design packages based on web site habits, usage, speed, and even the time of day the person is most likely to use the web.  Providers can then develop so many different usage packages, comparison shopping becomes meaningless.  The price you pay may be different than what others on your street pay, and you may never know by how much or why.

These Big Telecom workmen are not hard at work upgrading networks to meet demand. They are wrangling an Internet Overcharging scheme to reduce your usage while charging you more. (All of these slides were produced by the vendors themselves.)

Public Knowledge legal director Harold Feld saw right through the slide show: “If you want the slide deck to show why we need the same rules for wireless and wireline, this is it.”

Listen to the audio portion of “Managing the Unmanageable: Monetizing and Controlling OTT Applications,” which does not include the slide show. (60 minutes)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

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Broadband advocates have been warning providers have been dreaming of this kind of pricing for a few years now.

“I have been saying that this is where they want to go for a while,” Barbara van Schewick wrote to Wired. “The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), a technology that is being deployed in many wireline and wireless networks throughout the country, explicitly envisages this sort of pricing as one of the pricing schemes supported by IMS.”

Although the system described by the webinar is currently being sold for use on wireless networks, nothing prevents providers from adopting similar schemes on their wired networks, arguing their use is about “intelligent network management,” not content or pricing discrimination.

It’s a scenario likely to be tested soon, especially with FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski’s watered down Net Neutrality proposals.  More than one observer believes the chairman has made a deal with the Big Telecom Devil: observe our watered down rules, don’t sue to have them thrown out, and the Commission will not invoke Title II and reinstate regulatory authority over broadband.

But as anyone who watches the broadband industry must realize by now, providers always break these deals.  They will sue the moment a controversy erupts that is not in their favor, and they are very likely to win.

Wendy

Pro-broadband reform groups continue to hit the telecommunications industry’s last nerve.  While the fight for more expansive broadband and Net Neutrality continues, some providers and their water-carrying friends are pulling out all the stops to keep broadband under the firm grasp of a phone and cable duopoly.  Both will say or do just about anything along the way to stop consumer-friendly reform.

Say hello to Mike Wendy.  He’s made it his personal mission to “expose” groups promoting broadband reform as “radicals” and “hardcore entrenched lobbyists.”  Using rhetoric that will resonate with angry talk radio listeners, Wendy is convinced broadband policies that enforce the public interest and Net Neutrality are akin to a Marxist takeover.  While Wendy calls on good Americans like himself to man the barricades protecting AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable, he just doesn’t have time to mention he happens to work for a special interest group funded by Big Telecom.  Maybe it slipped his mind?

Wendy’s ironically named “Media Freedom” blog is chock full of attacks on “Free Press and the radical media reformistas [sic].”  Special guest stars include Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Marxism, collectivism, and a whole slew of rhetoric that ultimately tells readers efforts to enact broadband reform are little more than a grand socialist conspiracy.

A real grassroots campaign is run for and by consumers. An astroturf campaign is bought and paid for by corporate interests to push their own agenda.

His visitors’ enthusiasm for such accusations might be diminished a tad had Wendy prominently disclosed his day job: Vice President of Press & External Affairs at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a “think tank” that ingests money from Big Telecom and then spews forth their talking points.  Among the backers: AT&T, Comcast, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, Time Warner Cable and Verizon.

That takes the wind out of the proclamation that Media Freedom is a bulwark against those who “threaten to quash speech and economic freedoms.”  Wendy isn’t working for Big Government.  He’s working for the interests of AT&T and Comcast.

Many of the companies supporting the Progress & Freedom Foundation have a vested interest in maintaining today’s barely-competitive broadband marketplace, avoid oversight, and stop reform regulation and legislation dead in its tracks.  They want Progress only on their terms and the Freedom to do whatever they please.

The real chutzpah moment came when Wendy claimed pro-consumer groups like Free Press and Public Knowledge were the ones running high-powered lobbying campaigns.  That’s a pot to kettle moment to behold, especially considering who paid to print Wendy’s business cards.  From a recent blog post:

The “public interest” lobby makes itself out to be the tireless, country-poor underdog for the downtrodden consumer.  But don’t be fooled.  In the technology space, three such groups – Public Knowledge, Media Access Project and Free Press – have few rivals.  Their humble appearance belies their take-no-prisoners, oftentimes shameless, below-the-belt approach to public policy formation and gamesmanship.  How do they do it?  They use all the tools, and then some, to make them every bit as sophisticated as the largest companies they’re trying to undermine.

Shameless and “below-the-belt” might better define Wendy’s last job: “Director of Grassroots” for the United States Telecom Association, a job title that literally defines astroturf-in-action. Who is on the board of USTA?  Among others, corporate executives and lobbyists for AT&T, Verizon, Qwest, and two members who shouldn’t be able to afford the annual dues considering their employers went bankrupt — Hawaiian Telcom and FairPoint Communications.

Wendy’s line of thinking is evident soon enough from his blog’s tag cloud, a regular cocktail of conspiracy:

The ironically named "Media Freedom" blog isn't media and its freedom is limited to carrying water for the nation's largest telecom companies.

• Al Franken (the broadband industry’s ‘Boogie Man’)
• Cyber-Collectivist (the secret link between broadband and Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
• Fairness Doctrine (guaranteed to perk up the ears of any conservative talk radio fan wandering through)
• First Amendment (for corporations)
• Freedom (for said corporations to abuse your wallet)
• Free Speech (for corporations)
• Hugo Chavez (the go-to-guy for lazy smear-by-association rhetoric)
• Marxist (chalkboard time)
• New Deal (broadband users sure want one)
• … and redistributionism (something overheard at the last session of the “Communications Comintern?”)

The rhetoric is two parts AT&T to one part 1970s Radio Tirana, Albania.  A Glenn Beck swizzle stick labeled “Marxism” is included to stir the overheated rhetoric into a hot mess for Verizon and the cable lobby.

All of the “isms” aside, we’ve created a convenient, handy-dandy chart you can use to see which team Wendy and his group really supports:

Distinctions With a Difference – A Telecommunications Issue Checklist

Reardon is fine with this vision of your online future.

Marguerite Reardon confesses she’s confused.  She doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about regarding Google and Verizon teaming up to deliver a blueprint for a corporate compromise on Net Neutrality.  In a column published today, Reardon is convinced she’s on a debunking mission — to deliver the message that rumors of the Internet apocalypse are premature.

As I read the criticism of Google and Verizon’s supposed evil plan to demolish the Internet, and as I hear about “protests” of several dozen people at Google’s headquarters, I scratch my head and wonder: am I missing something?

The Google-Verizon Net neutrality proposal I read last week doesn’t sound nearly as apocalyptic as Free Press, a media advocacy group, and some of the most vocal critics out there have made it sound.

In fact, most of proposal sounded a lot like a plan FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski offered nearly a year ago, which many Net neutrality proponents seemed to support.

In short, Google and Verizon say they agree to a set of rules for the Internet that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or degrading lawful content on the Internet. Broadband providers would also not be allowed to take action to impede competition.

This is pretty much what Genachowski has proposed.

OK, terrific. There is agreement.

But wait, Net neutrality zealots are still unhappy.

Hmmm… “zealots?”  Reardon probably just angered the majority of CNET’s readers, who now find themselves labeled as crazed Internet online freedom fighters — net fundamentalists who want absolute protection against big Internet Service Providers tampering with their Internet Experience.

Where can I get my membership card?

Reardon’s “debunk” consists of her narrow, inaccurate definition of Net Neutrality pounded into a pre-conceived notion of what is and is not possible in a competitive broadband marketplace.  In short, she’s satisfied we can all move along… there is nothing to see here:

What Free Press and Public Knowledge don’t seem to realize is that AT&T and Verizon already offer differentiated services today with enhanced quality of service to business customers. Verizon’s Fios TV and AT&T’s U-verse TV services are also examples of managed Internet services that are delivered to consumers. And the last time I checked, no one, other than their cable competitors, has complained about AT&T and Verizon offering competition in the TV market.

The truth is that if Verizon and AT&T wanted to cannibalize their broadband business with premium broadband services, they’d already be doing it. But they aren’t, because there hasn’t been a market for it.

The reality is that consumers are in control of what type of services are offered. If the public Internet can adequately deliver a service for free, then there’s no need to pay for it. But if someone can provide a better service over a dedicated network and there are consumers willing to pay for it, then why shouldn’t it be offered? Isn’t that why some people subscribe to a 768Kbps broadband service for $15 a month, and others pay $100 for a 50Mbps service?

So let’s debunk the debunk.

First, Net Neutrality is not about stopping broadband providers from offering speed-based tiers of service.  In fact, that’s the Internet pricing model we’ve all come to know and love (although those prices are just a tad high, aren’t they?)  Free Press and Public Knowledge do not object to ISPs selling different levels of broadband speed tiers to consumers and businesses to access online content.

Net Neutrality isn’t about stopping ISPs from selling some customers “lite” service and others “mega-super-zippy Turbo” service — it’s about stopping plans from some ISPs to establish their own toll booths on the Internet to charge content producers twice — once to upload and distribute their content and then a second time to ensure that content reaches a particular ISPs customers on a timely, non-speed-throttled basis.  Consider this: you already pay good money for your own broadband account.  How would you feel if you sent an e-mail to a friend who uses another ISP and that provider wanted to charge you 20 cents to deliver that e-mail?  Don’t want to pay?  That’s fine, but your e-mail might be delayed, as paying customers enjoy priority over your freebie e-mail.

A lot of broadband customers may never understand the implications of giant telecom companies building their own toll lanes for “preferred content partners” on the Internet because they’ll just assume that stuck online video or constantly rebuffering stream is the fault of the website delivering it, not their provider intentionally pushing it aside to make room for content from companies who paid protection money to make sure their videos played splendidly.

Second, Reardon need only look to our neighbors in the north to see a non Net Neutral Internet experience in Canada.  There, ISPs intentionally throttle broadband applications they don’t want users running on their networks.  They also spank customers who dare to try what Reardon insists Verizon would never stop — using their broadband service to watch someone else’s content.  With the application of Internet Overcharging like usage limits and consumption billing schemes, cable companies like Rogers don’t need to directly block competitors like Netflix.  They need only spike customers’ broadband bills to teach them a lesson they’ll not soon forget.

Within days of Netflix announcing their imminent arrival in Canada, Rogers actually reduced the usage allowances of some of their broadband customers.  If you still want to watch Netflix instead of visiting Rogers pay-per-view cable menu or video rental stores, it will cost you plenty — up to $5 per gigabyte of viewing.

Reardon seems to think giant providers like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast care about what their customers want and wouldn’t jeopardize the customer relationship.  Really?  She herself admits she hates paying for hundreds of channels she never watches, yet providers are deaf to complaints from customers demanding an end to this practice.  What about the relentless price hikes?  Wouldn’t that drive off customers?  Perhaps… if customers had real alternatives.  Instead, with an effective duopoly market in place, subscribers pay “the man,” pay an almost identical price from the “other guy,” or go without.

Providers understand their power and leverage in the marketplace.  Until serious competition arrives, it would be a disservice to stockholders not to monetize every possible aspect of broadband service in the United States.

The check against this naked aggression on consumers’ wallets is from consumer groups who are fighting against these big telecom interests.

Before dismissing Net Neutrality “zealotry,” Reardon should experience the Internet in Canada and then get back to us, and more importantly those consumer groups she flicks away with disdain, and join the fight.

Phillip Dampier to Chairman Genachowski - Don't Be Verizon's Sucker

Julius Genachowski was played.

The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission hopefully just learned a valuable lesson about the corporations he’s dealing with.  Big telecom companies will be your friend and working partner until they get close enough to stick you with their knives.

Genachowski got it right in the back, betrayed by the companies he shepherded into secret backroom talks, ostensibly to find a non-regulatory solution to Net Neutrality.  While talks were underway, a few major players were quietly stalling for time to construct their own “private agreement” on Net Neutrality, threatening to up end the FCC’s Net Neutrality agenda into the toilet.  The rest were never really interested in anything less than total capitulation on the concept of Net Neutrality (I’m talking to you, AT&T).

And the merry-go-round goes round and round….

The FCC chairman was outmaneuvered from day one, even as he was willing to ignore his biggest supporters who believed he was honest about an open, pro-consumer FCC.

Stop the Cap! reader Dave noted the secret backroom talks between the bully boys and the FCC chairman’s chief of staff Ed Lazarus had collapsed late last week.  Extraordinary pressure from ordinary Americans helped torpedo those talks, as did the realization some of the participants were dealing behind the backs of their hosts.

Now that Verizon and Google have accomplished their Judas moment, the chairman of the FCC is just a tad angry in the papers:

“Any deal that doesn’t preserve the freedom and openness of the internet for consumers and entrepreneurs will be unacceptable,” Genachowski said at a recent press conference.

Some of Genachowski’s allies at the FCC hinted they were hardly surprised at the developments.

Commissioner Michael J. Copps has been around long enough to know better.  He was skeptical negotiations would deliver more than lip service and he was right.  With today’s announcement of a partnership on policy between Google and Verizon, Copps remained unimpressed, and issued a terse reaction:

“Some will claim this announcement moves the discussion forward. That’s one of its many problems. It is time to move a decision forward—a decision to reassert FCC authority over broadband telecommunications, to guarantee an open Internet now and forever, and to put the interests of consumers in front of the interests of giant corporations.”

Maybe it’s time for Chairman Genachowski to listen more to fellow commissioners like Mr. Copps and less time trying to negotiate with Verizon and AT&T.

It’s near impossible to find a consumer group not on big telecom’s payroll that likes any of these recent developments.  Their consistent message — stop trusting big corporations with America’s Internet future.  Do your job, stand up for Net Neutrality, and don’t cave in.

Public Knowledge: Google Sold You Out

Since late last year, we’ve been pushing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to place its authority to protect broadband consumers on firm legal ground. But faced with pressure from the largest cable and telephone companies, the agency has failed to act. Who is filling the void left by the FCC? Some of the world’s largest corporations.

Late last week, news broke that a traffic management agreement had been reached between Google and Verizon. This agreement would, among other things, allow Verizon to prioritize applications and content at whim over its mobile broadband network. In the absence of clear FCC authority, we can expect to see more deals like this in the near term. The largest telephone and cable companies and the largest web companies will carve up the Internet as they see fit, deciding who gets access to the Internet’s fast lane while the rest of us are stuck in the slow lane.

We’ve reached a critical crossroads—the time for FCC action is NOW. Private negotiations with industry players have failed. Public concern has reached a fever pitch. And some of the largest corporations on the web are lining up to put an end to the open Internet as we know it. The course of action couldn’t be more clear: the FCC needs to do the right thing and protect broadband users.

Free Press: Google – Don’t Be Evil

“Google and Verizon can try all they want to disguise this deal as a reasonable path forward, but the simple fact is this framework, if embraced by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, would transform the free and open Internet into a closed platform like cable television. This is much worse than a business arrangement between two companies. It’s a signed-sealed-and-delivered policy framework with giant loopholes that blesses the carving up of the Internet for a few deep-pocketed Internet companies and carriers.

“If codified, this arrangement will lead to toll booths on the information superhighway. It will lead to outright blocking of applications and content on increasingly popular wireless platforms. It would give companies like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T the right to decide which content will move fast and which should be slowed down. And it will destroy the open Internet as a platform for small business innovation and job creation, cementing companies’, like Google’s, dominant market power online.

“Still worse, this deal proposes to keep the FCC from making rules at all. Instead of an even playing field for everyone, it proposes taking up complaints on a case-by-case basis, or even leaving it up to third-party industry groups to decide what the rules should be. The only good news is that neither of these companies is actually in charge of writing the rules that govern the future of the Internet. That is supposed to be the job of our leaders in Washington.

“Congress and the FCC should reject Verizon and Google’s plans to carve up the Internet for the private benefit of deep-pocketed special interests, and move forward with policies that preserve the open Internet for all. This begins with the FCC reasserting its authority over broadband to ensure it can protect the open Internet and promote universal access to affordable, world-class quality broadband.

“The Internet is one of our nation’s most important resources, and policymakers everywhere should recognize that the future of our innovation economy is far too important to be decided by a backroom deal between industry giants.” — Free Press Political Adviser Joel Kelsey (See more here.)

Newspapers  Say ‘Enough is Enough’

The San Francisco Chronicle

[…]Public interest and consumer groups didn’t feel like they had much of a say in the commission’s discussions, and they surely won’t feel like they had much of a say in whatever proposal Google and Verizon bring to the table. This is a huge problem – the future of the Internet belongs to the public, not just a few companies.

The ideal solution would be for Congress to step in and provide a framework for net neutrality – preferably one that keeps the public interest at heart, not the demands of dominant Internet companies and carriers.

That’s what the commission would prefer. It’s considering getting around the breakdown in negotiations by reclassifying broadband under a more heavily regulated part of telecommunications law, but the large cable and telephone companies will almost certainly sue. Congressional action would prevent this ugly scenario and its uncertain outcome.

And any proposal that Google and Verizon come up with will have to be approved by Congress. It would certainly serve the public interest better if Congress gathered input from more than just two companies and created a proposal of its own.

Unfortunately, Congress hasn’t shown much appetite for net neutrality legislation in the past, and we’re not optimistic about the near-term future. So it’s time for the commission to do the right thing and reclassify broadband.

Yes, that will mean lawsuits. It will mean that net neutrality has a precarious future. But it has a precarious future right now, and the public can’t afford to wait.

The Los Angeles Times

[…]Genachowski is right about the need for enforceable rules that prevent broadband providers from blocking or slowing access to websites and services they don’t favor. So far there have been only a few such incidents on DSL and cable-modem networks. But Internet service providers are itching to create a toll lane to deliver content and services from companies that have the resources to pay for better access to consumers. If that toll lane crowds out the free and open Internet that’s been a breeding ground for innovation and creativity, the whole economy will suffer.

[…]A major problem for the commission is that its authority to adopt such rules isn’t clear. Genachowski had hoped that the talks with Internet service providers and Web companies would yield a consensus on a bill Congress could quickly pass to grant the FCC clear but limited authority over broadband access. The breakdown of those talks complicates matters, and suggests that Genachowski may have to rethink his plan to enforce Net neutrality by bringing 21st century broadband providers under rules originally designed for 20th century telephone services. Whatever route it takes, though, the commission should move now.

[flv width=”480″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Young Turks – Google Verizon Killing Net Neutrality 8-9-10.flv[/flv]

Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks show explains the implications of Google & Verizon’s deal for both progressives and conservatives if big corporations get to take control of America’s Internet.  (6 minutes)

Verizon and Google have reached an agreement in principle to deal away Net Neutrality protections for American broadband users according to a late report in today’s Washington Post.

Cecilia King writes the agreement is days away from being revealed in public, but two sources verified Verizon and Google have agreed to a split the difference on Net Neutrality — abandoning the open Internet concept for wireless broadband, but protecting against service providers holding bidding auctions over the speed of web content delivery.

Verizon wouldn’t confirm that a deal was struck but said in an e-mail statement:

“We’ve been working with Google for 10 months to reach an agreement on broadband policy. We are currently engaged in and committed to the negotiation process led by the FCC. We are optimistic this process will reach a consensus that can maintain an open Internet and the investment and innovation required to sustain it.”

Specifically, Google and Verizon’s agreement would prevent Verizon from offering paid prioritization to the biggest bidders for capacity on its DSL and fiber networks, according to the sources. But any promises regarding open-Internet access wouldn’t apply to mobile phones, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the companies have not officially made their announcement.

And Verizon could offer managed services — better quality to some Web sites such as those offering health care services, the sources said. But some analysts speculate that managed services could also include discounted YouTube and other services to FiOS customers at better quality.

Public interest groups, some occasionally accused of being in bed with Google, were outraged at the news.

“The fate of the Internet is too large a matter to be decided by negotiations involving two companies, even companies as big as Verizon and Google, or even the six companies and groups engaged in other discussions at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on similar topics,” said Gigi Sohn, president of public interest group Public Knowledge.

The clear distancing from Google’s settlement illustrates these pro-consumer groups are not simply shilling for Google’s public policy positions.

For Stop the Cap!, the implications are extremely disturbing.  As outlined, this compromise deal would relegate wireless broadband to usage caps, speed throttles, and content blockades indefinitely.  Should “improved quality” service on the wired side be an available option, it could allow the broadband industry to mount a devastating campaign to end would-be competitors, especially to their video businesses.  Cable and phone companies could pick winners and losers (with their products being the winners, and would-be competitors the losers) by prioritizing high quality video services, exempting their partners from Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps, and subjecting would-be, “non-preferred” content providers to usage and speed-restricted broadband lines.

Offering preferred content producers discounted rates would also completely change the business models of content distribution and discourage investment in would-be challengers that could provide consumers with other video options.

More importantly, it provides an example of an Obama Administration ruthlessly willing to cut consumers out of the debate about Net Neutrality, while forcing them to live with the results.  King notes the priorities of Google and Verizon don’t exactly include consumers:

According to the sources, Verizon and Google have met separately to reach an agreement they will tout as an example of successful self-regulation. Once bitter opponents in the so-called net neutrality debate, the firms have grown closer on the issue as their business ties have also strengthened. Verizon partners with Google on their Android wireless phones.

Their actions could set a course for the FCC meetings and what ultimately the parties could present to lawmakers, analysts said.

Voluntary self-regulation worked so well with Wall Street banks and the housing market that a disconnected crowd inside the beltway is willing to give it another try with a broadband industry that is already a duopoly for most consumers.  Psychic abilities are not required to guess at the eventual outcome.

Update 12:30pm — The denials are flying over a NY Times piece that claims Google has agreed to pay Verizon’s asking price for prioritized traffic:

Google: “The New York Times is quite simply wrong. We have not had any conversations with Verizon about paying for carriage of Google traffic. We remain as committed as we always have been to an open internet.”

Verizon: “The NYT article regarding conversations between Google and Verizon is mistaken. It fundamentally misunderstands our purpose. As we said in our earlier FCC filing, our goal is an internet policy framework that ensures openness and accountability, and incorporates specific FCC authority, while maintaining investment and innovation. To suggest this is a business arrangement between our companies is entirely incorrect.”