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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."
greed from level 3 and cogent
when they had the power they would charge what they wanted and disconnect free peering connections for breaking the contract. now that they don't, they whine about network neutrality when they used to charge for the same services they say the ISP's need to provide them for free
he's doing the same thing as uber, airbnb and lyft
run a business without paying the traditional costs in the field and socialize your costs. in this case he wants every internet customer to pay for his bandwidth whether they use netflix or not. just like cable TV channels make you buy every channel
all they have to do is contract with a CDN like everyone else does to host their content and like everyone has been doing for the last 15 years
that's why there are CDN's and hundreds of companies use them and netflix refuses to pay a commercial CDN
these engineering and business problems were figured out 15 some years ago and everything worked OK more or less. youtube was a disruption but that was just the amount of traffic. netflix wants free services that other video providers pay for and have paid for many years now
except netflix wants everyone to host their servers for free and pay the costs of doing so
ISP's are just going after some of the tier 1 backbone market. no reason why they can't
you've no idea what you're talking about. This is a contract dispute between the ISPs, Netflix and the peers (mainly Level3) They all get this hairy, and there's always a lot of bullying going on. The difference here, and what's new is that Netflix has gone full retard, gotten the public and the government involved. If they continue, this will not turn out well for them, the ISPs or us.
You want government enforced net neutrality? Do you think they'll be neutral about porn? "Terrorist" activity? Anti-government sentiment? Once the governments fingers are in your business, they never, ever, come back out. Poison is the cure.