In case you don’t have time to wade through the pages and pages being written about Google and Verizon’s net neutrality announcment, I’ve tried to sum it up here.

Google and Verizon have made a public policy proposal (no business arrangements) and have asked for it to be enforced by FCC with power for fines (up to 2 million dollars). The proposal requires wired broadband like cable and DSL to be strictly neutral but it allows for additional, differentiated online services. In other words things like services to hospitals, or Verizon’s FIOS service, neither of which would go out on the open Internet. It leaves wireless broadband largely unregulated.

A key point in the wired broadband part of the agreement is that there would be no selling of priority traffic slots over the public Internet. In other words no company can pay to get their videos sent more reliably or faster than others. But dedicated capacity could be sold to customers over a dedicated network. That means you can buy a VPN or a private service of some kind. But nothing that would be available openly on the Net.