[bbatsell]

I don't think we can use Bloomberg to rule NYT inaccurate. Who's to say that Bloomberg's isn't sourced from major PR spin generated after NYT called for comment? The Bloomberg article very carefully states that the contract "restricts selective slowing", not that it requires total neutrality (i.e., "selective speeding" would not be restricted). Neither Google nor Verizon have responded to the NYT article, which makes me question just how inaccurate it is.

Politico has sources claiming that the agreement explicitly allows for Verizon to prioritize traffic: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40668.html

[roc]

I don't even see a major difference in facts between the articles.

Facts: Google and Verizon struck agreement on traffic shaping. Agreement prohibits prioritizing data traffic over landlines. Agreement allows prioritizing data traffic over wireless.

Everything beyond that is editorializing and infotainment. The articles don't even clarify whether the agreement covers all traffic or just Google traffic.

[bbatsell]

> Agreement prohibits prioritizing data traffic over landlines.

Except that both NYT and Politico claim that that's not true. The agreement, according to Bloomberg, restricts Verizon from intentionally slowing traffic. NYT and Politico claim the agreement explicitly allows Verizon to speed up traffic from selected sources (which Bloomberg does not refute due to careful wording). If that is true, then you can certainly not claim as "fact" that the agreement prohibits prioritization of data traffic.

[roc]

After a careful re-reading of all three articles, I'm giving up. The articles are each incompatible with the others if you grant that weasel-wording is in play.

[bbatsell]

It's possible I'm reading too much into what looks to me like careful wording on the part of Bloomberg, but there appears to be a lot of smoke here for there not to be fire. And one would think that such a high-profile article on page A1 of the New York Times would merit a strong refutation from Google if it were so off-base.

[roc]

To be clear, I thought there must be plenty of fire in the agreement regardless.

No ISP need run afoul of net neutrality to offer pay-to-play accelerated peering or CDN services. So any talk of traffic-shaping to offer premiere services to content providers sends up a giant red flag.

Further, wired consumer connections are going to be largely irrelevant in the near future. Once 4G has acceptable coverage in the US, landline consumer broadband is going to follow landline consumer phone service. So even if Verizon were actually forbidden from "managing" those, it's hardly a victory.