Comcast response to Netflix

You lost me at &quot;No ISP in the country has been a stronger supporter of the Open Internet than Comcast&quot;<p>I&#x27;m sorry Comcast but if you can&#x27;t fullfil our agreement (Internet access) then you aren&#x27;t an ISP in my mind. I pay you for an Internet connection, not for the ability to send packets at someone else -- they get to respond to me as well, that&#x27;s part of our deal.

In summary:<p>NetFlix argument: Comcast is using its bully position to extra a toll from service providers and service subscribers. A Comcast-TwC merger would make it worse for Netflix and everyone else.<p>Comcast argument: Netflix is wrong. We bully all the content providers, not just Netflix. So, er, yeah, they&#x27;re wrong.

&quot;Internet interconnection has nothing to do with net neutrality; it’s all about Netflix wanting to unfairly shift its costs from its customers to all Internet customers, regardless of whether they subscribe to Netflix or not.&quot;<p>Really it&#x27;s Comcast&#x27;s customers who are using Netflix and those customers are paying them for an X Mbps connection. I don&#x27;t see what difference it makes if the data comes from Netflix or some other source. It sounds like what Comcast really wants are data caps for their users but those don&#x27;t do well with consumers. Instead they&#x27;re targeting the largest content suppliers.

I am surprised AT&amp;T left the comment section open in their Public Policy Blog that this Comcast response links to: <a href="http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-for-netflix/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.attpublicpolicy.com&#x2F;consumers-2&#x2F;who-should-pay-fo...</a><p>They get raked over the coals (and rightly so, IMHO), by people pointing out that they already pay for their bandwidth, so why should they pay twice (once through AT&amp;T and once through the costs Netflix would have to pass through to them).<p>It really seems like AT&amp;T and Comcast are complaining that people are actually starting to demand the full service that they pay for. It is really hard to take that argument seriously.

The sentence &quot;While it’s understandable for Netflix to try to make all Internet users pay for its costs of doing business&quot; should probably end with &quot;we would like to shift some of our cost of doing business back to Netflix&quot;

The quoted AT&amp;T piece is quite interesting:<p><a href="http://www.attpublicpolicy.com/consumers-2/who-should-pay-for-netflix/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.attpublicpolicy.com&#x2F;consumers-2&#x2F;who-should-pay-fo...</a><p>Particularly because the comments on the AT&amp;T page by its own customers completely demolish the argument.<p>These ISPs are seriously arguing that the cost to upgrade their own networks to deliver the content their own customers are requesting should fall on the other side of the link. They&#x27;re arguing this apparently even after Netflix&#x2F;Akamai&#x2F;etc have build CDNs to deliver the content right next to their subscribers. They&#x27;re not even having to build a backbone.

I&#x27;m not too versed in this argument, so could someone please explain why Netflix&#x27;s activities aren&#x27;t covered by the normal peering agreements that make the &quot;internet backbone&quot; work? Doesn&#x27;t Netflix pay it&#x27;s ISP appropriately which gets disseminated by the other ISPs the traffic gets routed through?

What angers me most is FCC and Comcast both are spinning this whole thing as &quot;improving&quot; net-neutrality while in reality is is plain, simple and naked &quot;net anti-neutrality&quot;. They are obviously behind this push as lobbyist. Do they think people are complete idiot to buy off statements like charging content providers actually reduces their cost?

The Comcast argument that &quot;Netflix [...] try to make all Internet users pay for its costs of doing business&quot; reads to me like, &quot;We can&#x27;t actually offer everyone the bandwidth we have sold them so we either have to raise our rates or charge the largest content providers in order to keep our profit margins.&quot;<p>There may be one, but this isn&#x27;t a very compelling argument as to why large content providers should need to pay Comcast.

Comcast gets paid IN 3 WAYS FOR THE SAME CONTENT, AT LEAST. 1. They get tax money to subsidize their infrastructure costs.<p>2. They sell the utility their infrastructure provides.<p>3. They sell the ability for content creators to create content, that they again sell to their users.<p>They get paid to build a distribution channel, and then charge people the ability to create and distribute content through their stream, then charge for the content. Also, they have no competitors.

How are we supposed to believe them when they say that &quot;there is no need for us to engage in a point-counterpoint with Netflix&quot;<p>If you won&#x27;t challenge Netflix&#x27;s argument, then it&#x27;s your word against theirs. And one of those two companies isn&#x27;t trying to become the largest ISP in the country.

So Netflix is wrong, because? I really didn&#x27;t see a single counterpoint in that response.

Here&#x27;s a suggestion on how to implement a fair interconnect market. The world&#x27;s regulators designate a few physical locations as public interchange points governed by the following rules:<p>1) If you are an ISP you need to be present in all the interchange points of the geographical areas where you are licensed to operate in.<p>2) Any ISP can connect to any other ISP at those points with no charge.<p>3) Whenever an ISPs link is above 90% peak usage for X days he has to upgrade.<p>That way everyone pays their own way. If suddenly Comcast customers sign up for Netflix in droves both Netflix and Comcast need to invest to upgrade the links on their side of the interchange, Netflix because they&#x27;re being paid for the streaming service, Comcast because they&#x27;re being paid for internet service. If you can come to some other arrangement with interchange at some other point, more power to you, but to be an ISP you are obligated to interchange freely with anyone at these points.<p>What am I missing?

What are other examples of companies that have agreements with Comcast?

Where&#x27;s the actual response, there&#x27;s more disclaimer than content there

TLDR - Netflix abused net neutrality to their benefit so therefore we get to kill net neutrality.

Disappointed there weren&#x27;t more House of Cards puns.

Another reason to do business with your local small business ISP.

&gt; Comcast has a multiplicity of other agreements just like the one Netflix approached us to negotiate, and so has every other Internet service provider for the last two decades.<p>I may just be ignorant here, but in what sense is Netflix an &quot;Internet service provider?&quot;

I don&#x27;t know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but Netflix said recently that they will be raising their prices... and amazon did the same thing, it&#x27;s odd that if this really wouldn&#x27;t be passed on to the consumer as Comcast is claiming that right after netflix signed a deal with them Netflix would suddenly feel the need to raise prices. I know, I know, correlation doesn&#x27;t mean causation, but c&#x27;mon!

<a href="http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/comcast-response-to-netflixs-opposition-to-time-warner-cable-transaction" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;corporate.comcast.com&#x2F;comcast-voices&#x2F;comcast-response...</a> This (the first link in the article) actually enumerates the points of its argument and is more informative on the position.

its funny to me that two companies that hate each other so much have to do business together

Additional discussion: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/23mdhx/netflix_officially_comes_out_against_the/" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.reddit.com&#x2F;r&#x2F;news&#x2F;comments&#x2F;23mdhx&#x2F;netflix_officia...</a>

ok lets not decide if the att link is valid, no one at comcast thought you know who we should align ourselves with att. Another ISP and telecom company that made the consumerist quarterfinals for worst company in america 2013

With Stephen Colbert changing shows next year, Comedy Central should consider hiring the writer of this to run a new show. Though something leads me to believe the writer doesn&#x27;t know it&#x27;s satire.

I wish Netflix would just deny access to every Comcast subscriber. Maybe that will knock Comcast into reality after like 20% of their subscribers instantly cancel their account.

Interesting how the legalese was longer than the response.

So I pay for 40Mbs downloads but comcast creates clogs where it &quot;can&#x27;t&quot; provide me full 40Mbs on my netflix stream?<p>Fix your shit crapcast.

I&#x27;m sorry Comcast but you aren&#x27;t a simple &quot;industry observer&quot;...you are The Industry(tm).

Fuck crapcast.

Cry me a river Comcast and you actually quoted AT&amp;T, laughable. Piss off.

Comcast&#x27;s stock is up over 250% over the last few years and has made me a lot of money... so whatever they&#x27;ve been doing has been working and IMO they should keep at it.<p>It&#x27;s a dirty game and no one is completely clean, so we should all come down from our high horse. Fluid and evolving business strategies are not the devil&#x27;s spawn that people make them out to be.