Google's motives for abandoning Net Neutrality

Google's PR department, from people I've spoken to, seem to have been taken aback by the reactions.  Google's Vint Cerf, sometimes called the Father of the Internet, came out in support of the new limitations, disappointing many.

I've heard some speculation that Verizon (VZ) offered Google the chance to side with them on Net Neutrality in exchange for turning down the iPhone. That's highly unlikely for a lot of reasons, but it is hard to dismiss anything at this point.

Video products like GoogleTV product come to mind.  Current streaming platforms like AppleTV and RokuHD max out at 720P video . GoogleTV is advertised to work at 1080P, which would more than double per stream.  YouTube now not only supports 1080P but they go to resolutions much much higher.  These GoogleTV Android boxes are going to suck up more data than has ever been used before.  Without the packet prioritization that Google is now advocating for on wired networks or special dedicated networks to handle this traffic, other services like VoIP (which Google is also getting into) will suffer.

As with Time Warner and Optimum, Google knows it can make the fiber routers that it supplies to homeowners into wireless access points to reach even more consumers.   But their ambitions don't end there.  Google is also an investor in Sprint/Clear's WiMax service in the US.  Yep, Google owns part of the Clear/Sprint network that those EVO and EPIC 4G Android devices connect to the Internet on.