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from the so-much-for-fighting-the-good-fight dept.
c0lo writes:
"Many news outlets announced that Netflix agreed to pay Comcast for smoother network access.
The deal, which has been nearly a year in the making, would give Netflix direct access to Comcast's high-speed network, the two companies confirmed Sunday.
Under this new deal, Netflix will access Comcast's network directly or, almost directly, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news this afternoon. 'Under the deal, Netflix won't be able to place its servers inside Comcast's data centers, which Netflix had wanted,' the paper explains. 'Instead, Comcast will connect to Netflix's servers at data centers operated by other companies.'
The agreement is a surprise because Netflix could have used the issue as leverage while Comcast attempts to acquire Time Warner Cable Inc., an industry researcher said. 'I would have thought Netflix would have held out with the Time Warner Cable deal looming,' Craig Moffett, founder of research firm MoffettNathanson LLC, said in an interview. 'Netflix can ask for whatever it wants and has a reasonable shot at getting conditions put on the merger that could provide it with long-term benefit. On the other hand, that could be precisely what spurred this deal that Comcast was willing to settle with Netflix for a relatively low price to make the Netflix problem go away ahead of the regulatory review.'"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Monday February 24 2014, @09:41PM
A third alternative is that Comcast, in light of wide reporting of their slowing Netflix traffic, finally dropped the price to something Netflix could swallow.
Its hard to know who blinked here. I think we won't know for years.
Comcast not wanting Netflix servers in their data centers is probably a defensive move to keep all the other such services from demanding similar accommodations.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Angry Jesus on Tuesday February 25 2014, @01:37AM
A third alternative is that Comcast, in light of wide reporting of their slowing Netflix traffic, finally dropped the price to something Netflix could swallow.
Given that Comcast really really really wants to buy Time-Warner and wants to fool the FTC into believing that it won't be anti-competitive, I think that they were under a lot of pressure to make this issue go away.
Verizon, on the other hand, isn't facing any such scrutiny and so will continue to screw over their own customers. They don't really give a shit about them anyways - all FiOS development has been frozen for a couple of years now anyway since verizon thinks its more profitable to spend it on cell phone customers who at least have an oligopoly to choose from instead of the typical broadband monopoly.