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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: 2) by dmc on Tuesday February 25 2014, @02:29AM
Your first link was from 2005. That's about a hundred internet years ago, so I'm not going to bother reading many of the others (maybe they are useful, I just don't have that much personal time to invest in this). But I will argue a bit with your implicit spin that this has nothing to do with net neutrality. While from what you said, I'm willing to suspect you may be generally correct about a lot of it- namely the issue being Netflix's ISP just not being very good at providing good service, the fact remains that Netflix has paid a broadband provider (Comcast) for some sort of enhanced access to their broadband customers. And neither party revealing the financial and network details of the deal publicly to said customers. Ergo that seems to be a violation of the (now post-verizon-ruling seemingly defunct and unenforceable despite FCC handwaving to the contrary) Network Neutrality rule demanding transparency of network management practices. This has (AFAICT, but again, I'm not so invested I've researched exhaustively) the effect of Comcast's customers not knowing the network management practices in enough detail to register more specific complaints about the situation than vague perhaps unfounded suspicions, or in my comment above that you critiqued, vague lack of knowledge to make a conclusion. Likewise, every other edge provider providing services to Comcast's customers is left in the dark as to what kind of service path they have available to those customers. Thus they are in murkier business waters, and that hinders their availability to get investment for their business models. Or at least, that is a Network Neutrality argument I can make off the top of my head. Do feel free to tear it down, and I'll hope to come out of the debate more educated one way or the other.
I'll note at this time also that my local cable broadband provider (Wow Broadband) will not disclose even the price of their broadband service before you give them your address. I feel this is also a (rather simpler and lesser scale) Network Neutrality transparency violation. Feel free to critique that theory if you like as well.