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Netflix Gets What It Pays For: Comcast Streaming Speeds Skyrocket

Posted by timothy on from the everyone-should-get-the-same-amount-of-water-and-electricty dept.

jfruh (300774) writes "Back in February, after a lengthy dispute, Netflix agreed to pay Comcast for network access after being dogged by complaints of slow speeds from Comcast subscribers. Two months later, it appears that Comcast has delivered on its promises, jumping up six places in Netflix's ISP speed rankings. The question of whether this is good news for anyone but Comcast is still open."

5 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. "The question of whether this is good news..." by Red_Chaos1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    "...for anyone but Comcast is still open."

    It was never a question, nor open. The answer is no. It is painfully obvious this benefits Comcast and hurts everyone else.

  2. Re:I Pay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I've set up a VPS to access netflix through my comcast connection, but it doesn't allow comcast's throttling. My video quality has much improved. This anecdotally proves to me comcast is manipulating netflix's traffic.

  3. Re:I Pay by cheesybagel · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is worse than net neutrality. IMO it violates the Sherman antitrust act.

  4. Re:I Pay by Warbothong · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. You pay Comcast for Internet access at X speed.
    2. Netflix pays Amazon and others for Internet access at Y speed ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... )
    3. You pay Netflix to send you movies via those lines that you both pay for.
    4. Comcast holds your content hostage, wanting an extortion payment from NetFlix.

    The point about NetFlix paying for bandwidth is important, since Comcast keep claiming things like "they shouldn't get a free ride" and "somebody needs to pay for the infrastructure", but they *were* paying for infrastructure; just not Comcast's (directly, anyway).

  5. Re:I Pay by Alternate+Interior · · Score: 5, Informative

    Have a local ISP who pipe through Time Warner. Around the end of December, Netflix connections went to crap. Complained and ISP threw Netflix under the bus, saying they've over-saturated their bandwidth. Tried a SOCKS proxy via VPS and magic, works fine. Told ISP and they seemed genuinely amazed.

    Comcast is still the devil- but VPS is a very viable workaround.

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    Implicit Evaluation with PHP