Google does not have every financial incentive. Their ad-driven revenue for example is backboned off general use. Whether they dip into, or from net neutrality is of little to no consequence to that (and as a matter of fact, it could be argued that by compromising net neutrality, their revenue would suffer. ie: Content delivery based on prefered services vs content preference according to consumer and equal bits on the network).
The matter is a whole lot more convoluted than most people would think. I'm in Canada currently, and the Telecomm situation here looks to be rather grim at times. The CRTC passed a law, under pressure from Bell and the other fiendish Telcos. What does it concern?
Bell: "WAH! We won't invest into our networks, backbones, infrastructure nor cores if everyone can offer bulk ISP bundles for the same price/speeds as ours, because financially it's not worth it to us. It doesn't matter that we have a 3% GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT monopoly running for about 100 years now, and several cash-cows we're running into the ground, we just won't do it. NEE NER NEE NER /raspberry."
CRTC: "Well, we like to think we're competent and we're getting a little pressure from the big guys, so hell, yeah, let the incumbents have their enormous cake that could feed a continent twice over, AND eat it. We'll let all the competition suffer so they don't whine so much."
From a purely business standpoint, this does make sense, sure. From a human being's standpoint with a half a bloody brain, this is absolutely disgusting and revolting. You're telling me, that despite their cellphone services (which is the majority of their current income)- WHICH CANNOT BE IMMEDIATELY OR ANY TIME SOON REPLACED BY COMPETITION AS THEY WOULD STILL REQUIRE TO RUN ON THE INCUMBENTS NETWORKS (Much like anything else), they're crying that they won't upgrade infrastructure because it will put a little dent into their 3% GDP? (Do you know how much money that is? Look up how much money Canada makes in a year. Multiply that by 0.03. This is one company making that, forget Telus and the rest that also have a chunk of that pie)
Yeah. Our technology is behind, our infrastructure is behind. I wonder why? Yay money-mongering! It are teh best.
Japan? 1GBPS for the price of dsl? wtfak? srsly guys? srsly? It makes me cry that we're so far behind in so manny areas, and the reasons are ridiculously trivial.
/endrant
Anyways, all this aside, Google had a reason to drive the licensing price up. The wireless spectrum may become more irrelevant as SDR (software defined radio) becomes incredibly efficient. I mean, hell, they're able to differentiate bands within incredibly thin slices nowadays. The licensing hike is not for the sake of pure profit, but to invest into infrastructure. What they propose on top of it, is not to 'shrink' or somehow inflict damage upon the internet, but to provide a frame of context for generic QoS.
I may not agree with it, as I'd rather see all bits get treated equally, but it's still a far better compromise than 'Bell: Hurr. Derp. We am smarts. Hollywood pay us money? MAI GAD. WE MUST HAXOR TEH BITTORENTZ UNDER GUISE OF NORMAL PRACTICE AS ISP. You haz cable tv online? OKAI- Free sites get shafted in teh bandwidth, lawl.'
What a damned convoluted topic.
Telecomm engineer, 3rd year, Sheridan.
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