Netflix CEO On Net Neutrality: Large ISPs Are the Problem

KindMind writes: At Wired, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has posted his take on net neutrality. He lays the problem at the feet of the large ISPs. Hastings says, "Consider this: A single fiber-optic strand the diameter of a human hair can carry 101.7 terabits of data per second, enough to support nearly every Netflix subscriber watching content in HD at the same time. And while technology has improved and capacity has increased, costs have continued to decline. A few more shelves of equipment might be needed in the buildings that house interconnection points, but broadband itself is as limitless as its uses. We'll never realize broadband's potential if large ISPs erect a pay-to-play system that charges both the sender and receiver for the same content. ... It's worth noting that Netflix connects directly with hundreds of ISPs globally, and 99 percent of those agreements don't involve access fees. It is only a handful of the largest U.S. ISPs, which control the majority of consumer connections, demanding this toll. Why would more profitable, larger companies charge for connections and capacity that smaller companies provide for free? Because they can."

Comments

Re:Big Data

[JWSmythe]

So?

I used to run a big adult site. We wanted servers closer to the customers for speed. We made enough that we didn't really care about the connection costs. We'd put up server farms around the world where it suited our customers best.

We owned every piece of equipment in our cabinet or cage (depending on the location). The provider equipment ended at the fiber they dropped to us, and the power outlets.

Netflix was hosted with Amazon for a while. A couple years ago, they claimed to have started their own CDN.

Their own CDN site talks about putting Netflix gear out for free. So they are basically saying they want the free ride. No one gets rack space, power, and connections for free. The right thing to do would be to lease the space like everyone else does.

But hey, they're loving to cry about being treated unfairly. They are the loudest ones about it. Honestly, other than speed complaints that are usually a fault, not a conspiracy, I don't know of anyone else talking about the same thing.

It is possible that the world is ganging up on Netflix. It happened to Cogent, more than once. That was mostly they refused to pay on their contractual obligations.

Re:Big Data

[Shatrat]

No one gets rack space, power, and connections for free.

It's not for free. The ISP gets a serious reduction in network congestion as a result. I'm a network planner for a national ISP in the US and deploying these caches has seriously cut down on our network load. For the cost of space and power for this cache I regained capacity on the network which would have cost 100s of thousands of dollars to build. You've fundamentally misunderstood the benefit to the ISP of deploying these. The only ISPs that don't deploy these are the ones that also get a lot of revenue from video such as Cable and FTTH providers. They don't WANT to reduce the congestion because it boosts their IPTV revenue.