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Netflix CEO Accuses Comcast of Not Practicing Net Neutrality
braindrainbahrain writes "Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, has a Facebook page in which he posts a short gripe about Comcast. It seems watching video through the Xfinity app on an Xbox does not counting towards your cap on your Comcast data plan. All other services, Netflix included, do. To quote Hastings: 'For example, if I watch last night's SNL episode on my Xbox through the Hulu app, it eats up about one gigabyte of my cap, but if I watch that same episode through the Xfinity Xbox app, it doesn't use up my cap at all. The same device, the same IP address, the same wifi, the same internet connection, but totally different cap treatment. In what way is this neutral?'"
The difference, of course, is that you need a Comcast cable TV subscription in order to have the Xfinity app not count toward your monthly data usage allowance. Then again, you can't exactly sign up for a similar plan through Netflix or Hulu.
Not entirely true. The bulk of the costs are the last mile (which remains the same whether it's Comcast or Netflix doing the streaming). Internet transit costs almost nothing these days, especially at the commit levels that a large carrier like Comcast has...
Seems the relevant point is that your cable TV wouldn't normally be part of your data plan, even though it's all delivered digitally now anyways.
But I'd say they're obviously working this angle to ease us into accepting their view of how isp's networks should work... Netflix pays Comcast extra, behind the scenes, for the luxury of being able to deliver video to their customers.
That way your Netflix will cost you twice what it does or you'll be more likely to use comcast's video services... a win-win for them, and all-around bad for Netflix and the customers.
It violates antitrust laws. Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming video services should just sue Comcast and get it over with it.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
The bandwidth used to get the data from comcasts servers is only transmitted across comcasts network and doesn't consume upstream bandwidth from peering connections so I would argue that the xfinity data isn't really "internet" traffic at all. It's like arguing that one apartment watching a tv show stored on a server in an apartment complex should be counted as consumed internet bandwidth to the upstream connections.
In my area, Comcast uses DNS Hijacking to favor their "search engine" any time you misspell something in the url bar. Sounds like more of the same to me. 21st century highwaymen.
The NET in Net Neutrality implies Internet. When comcast is delivering you a Netflix/Hulu/Vudu etc. stream, they're pulling it from the open Internet to deliver it to you. When you're using their app, the can deliver the same content completely over their own network. You're not using the Internet, you're using Comcast's WAN, so no Internet bandwidth is being used, so it shouldn't be charged. If I'm streaming a movie from my PC to my TV, it doesn't go against my cap either, because it's using my isolated network, not the Internet.
"why should two different apps that probably have two totally different delivery mechanisms"
Actually having used Comcasts service, it streams the Hulu feeds through their own Xfinity web app. So essentially the Xfinity web app is a wrapper for Hulu for paid cable customers. In fact if its a show that appears on both, the Hulu feed is likely to be faster as its not going through 2 different gateways to get to you. I have tested this myself with numerous network shows. I only realized this after a redirect was screwed up and it showed the stream was coming from Hulu, NOT Xfinity.
"Apples to oranges."
Nope the last mile is the last mile no matter what. 0s and 1s don't change just because you use a different service. Maybe get a better understanding of streaming media and understand that the ONLY reason they are doing this has nothing to do with the costs associated, but everything to do with making people THINK there are different costs associated when in reality there are not.
Its lying to the government/customers enough to completely obliterate the fact that they are in reality a utility and should be regulated and beaten into submission as such. Hell Comcasts whole plan to produce "original content is all a elaborate scheme to convince people they are more than what they are, a utility. But making a company not screw customers and not scheme and violate basic civil and federal laws "would be communist."
Our forfathers are rolling in their graves at just how much the rich control this country now.
Way back when I had ADSL in australia as my internet traffic within the ISPs network didn't count to my quota. The ISP had a bunch of ftp mirrors, a bunch of game servers, and the subscribers ran a bunch of not legitimate at all P2P servers/clients that restricted to within the ISP IPs.
It had nothing to do with the ISP trying to leverage itself into having an edge over content providing competitors. That external traffic was a big part of their costs and so encouraging their users to use their mirrors and so on was good for them.
When I was at uni, AARNet traffic was cheaper than other national traffic which was cheaper than international traffic - in terms of what the university charged the department for their usage. I can't find any docs now of course, but a different university still has a slightly simpler but similar setup: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/its/quotas/internet/definition.html
Again that wasn't the university trying to get content providers to pay them or trying to give an edge to themselves. It was just a reflection of the costs.
Now the US has far lower costs to start with and maybe they are low enough that it really doesn't matter and comcast are just trying to benefit their other business arms. But without knowing some of the vague details I don't think you can just ignore the non-jerk potential reasons.
This is one element of a much larger campaign. Who better to hit up (than your installed base) than the mobs at FB?
One man with a command of social media can indeed make a difference. The problem is that Netflix shot itself in the foot before, whizzing off their customer base, and they have part of that image to overcome.
My hopes? Somebody listens and makes Comcast become the neutral transport that they're supposed to be. Comcast will fight this tooth and nail; they will NOT roll over easily as they have the same "we own the wires" mentality that the rest of the once public utilities have.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Assuming that to be true (it isn't) then half is still not zero. If you're going to calculate cost as "sum of all fractions of pipe consumed end-to-end", that would be fair and neutral -- if it was done for everyone by the same metric, even it ended up biasing one source over another. (Neutral simply means that everyone has the same rule applied equally - ie: it is equitable - it does NOT mean all providers are equal. Just as in science or in news, equitability and equal standards are FAR more important than equal share.)
Comcast isn't being equal OR equitable. It's making sources you buy from it essentially zero network cost and all other sources much more expensive. It's leveraging the (rather obvious) monopoly it has over its network to create a second, independent monopoly in the completely different field of content delivery. That's not ok. That's actually blatantly illegal. It also knows that in an election year where markets are jittery and unemployment is high, nobody is going to do a damn thing about it.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I have netflix and comcast as well. I went nearly a month unable to use netflix on my ps3, then I switched to use the google DNS ( 8.8.8.8 ) and it suddenly worked flawlessly again.
Comcast has had other flaky reliability issues with their DNS service, but that specific problem of netflix never being able to connect is highly suspect.