bithead, the Cable companies prioritize traffic on their wires and have as long as they're been using DOCSIS. Local law enforcement and emergency services can use priorities within the cable and FIOS networks just fine. Extending the notion to the core is simply a matter of implementing MPLS and/or DSCP. This is a well-understood problem, and none of it depends on "deep packet inspection." Companies pay Verio, Akamai and WebEx for low-latency QoS services over the Internet today and they're generally very happy with the results. Even between the US and China, WebEx delivers packets quickly and reliably. QoS is perfectly practical and economical, and that's the reason Google is upset about it.