
Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter - hornokplease
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101728447
======
Arjuna
Awesome response to the C&D, via spokesman Jonathan Friedland:

 _" This is about consumers not getting what they paid for from their
broadband provider. We are trying to provide more transparency, just like we
do with the ISP Speed Index, and Verizon is trying to shut down that
discussion."_

~~~
josh2600
Playing Devil's advocate here for a second:

If Netflix is 35% of global internet traffic at peak capacity (as per the
Akamai CEO's comments at a number of events), is it really fair to treat them
like every other company? That is to say, if Netflix is really the sole driver
of Network upgrades, why does Verizon have to subsidize their costs of
business?

I'm not taking the stance that this is correct, only querying as to why the
dynamics here are such that we automatically assume Netflix is in the right.
Guilt tripping Verizon into adding more routers is a major net positive to
Netflix's business.

Yes, ISP customers are paying for access but the business reality is that the
ARPU per subscriber is decreasing every year at a rate lower than additional
subscriber acquisition can sate. As Wall Street demands growth, it has to come
from somewhere, and since Carriers are not able to sell consumers additional
services (no matter how hard they try), they need to find another set of
wallets (content providers). They're not utilities and have a profit motive,
right?

Again, I'm not saying this is correct, simply trying to add another viewpoint
to the conversation.

~~~
djcapelis
If you want to play devil's advocate then let's advocate for all the devils.

If Comcast wants to offer their customers video over a traditional cable
network, they _pay_ content providers.

Why should the Internet be different? Shouldn't ISPs be paying people who
provide the content their customers are buying?

~~~
ganeumann
Remember that when the cable companies started they were competing with over-
the-air TV. To convince people to switch to cable, they had to provide
something valuable enough to justify the cost. Content was that thing.

The reason ISPs can charge both the customers and the content providers is
because we have no other choice. Where I live I have a choice of two
providers: Comcast or Verizon. My choices are: use one of these two, or have
no Internet. Not much of a choice.

~~~
vitd
Actually, it was both content and quality. They used to advertise that a cable
signal was clearer than one from an antenna and stood up to weather, etc.

------
Karunamon
This is a genius move. It's exactly what needs to happen to get consumers to
realize that it's their ISP fucking them over, not Netflix.

The average joe isn't outraged enough about net neutrality. If only they'd
start doing this to other known bad actors _coughcomcastcough_ , that might
just be what the doctor ordered.

I wonder why they ponied up the money to the protection rackets first, and
only then started pointing fingers. Maybe the agreement gave them access to
some better data? If not, this should have been done months ago!

By the way, don't bother with the comments on the article page unless you want
to lose all faith in humanity :(

~~~
67726e
From a strategic perspective, I think paying off one of the ISPs in this case
strengthens their case by showing that the problem is a shakedown for money.
If they didn't pay up and the issue was never fixed then the ISPs could
attempt to play it off as some larger-than-money issue. They've proven the
problem is greed.

~~~
Karunamon
Even better, it attacks Verizon using _their own words against them_.

Verizon: Netflix performance sucks because their traffic is congesting our
network!

Netflix: Our performance sucks because their network is congested!

Verizon: OMG WTF you can't say that!

------
mox1
It's frustrating that Verizon and friends can make grandiose statements in
their advertising about "unlimited bandwidth", "faster wifi" ,"stream 5 things
at a time", etc, etc. Or lie to customers, My mother just called Comcast to
downgrade her service and the CS Rep said "WiFi won't work with our Economy
Plus internet plan"

Yet when another entity does something as simple as showing an error message
that casts them in a negative light, they are willing and able to threaten
legal action.

They stretch the truth as far as they can, yet give not an inch when
confronted with truths they don't like.

Remove government so we can add customers! But we need government so we can
slap Nextflix when they say something we don't like!

I don't have a good answer how to fix it, it's just very plain to see, and
frustrating.

~~~
scrabble
What do they mean WiFi won't work? How is that anything other than a blatant
lie?

Reminds me of the late 90's when my ISP told me I couldn't get cable Internet
because I didn't have a 486. I lied and told them I did to have the modem sent
to me to hook up myself. It's a computer network, once it's in my house I can
expose it as I like.

~~~
dec0dedab0de
_What do they mean WiFi won 't work? How is that anything other than a blatant
lie?_

They probably mean the WiFi built into the cable modem.

~~~
jessaustin
How would _that_ be anything other than a blatant lie? Are they going to mail
the customer a different model of modem? Do any current cableco-provided
modems not have built-in wifi?

~~~
danudey
> Do any current cableco-provided modems not have built-in wifi?

No, but all of their features can be enabled/disabled by the ISP remotely.

~~~
scrabble
I know for my ISP the user names and passwords used by support are all freely
available online. I needed a tech to come in because they couldn't
troubleshoot my issue (magically fixed the next day) and he was flummoxed when
he couldn't log in because his passwords didn't work.

------
dlgeek
I feel like Verizon's treading VERY dangerous waters here. If they sue Netflix
for libel over this, then they're going to have to go through discovery. Since
the claims center around network congestion, that means it'd be fair game for
Netflix to go after every scrap of paper they have about the state of their
internal network, oversubscription strategies, data about advertised vs.
actual customer performance, any history of traffic shaping, and they'd be
able to depose employees about all of these things.

As much as I'd love to see all of that information come to light in a court
battle, somehow, I don't think Verizon would...

------
ChuckMcM
Wow, what a stupid move on Verizon's part. I have to believe the Streisand
effects will far and away outpace any remedial action they might try to
achieve here. While I get that they are irritated by their customers calling
them up knowing more about how broken their network is, than the tech
answering the phone, but this is going to be the new reality. With Google,
Netflix, and no doubt Amazon providing more information to their customers
about exactly why their product is having issues.

~~~
rosser
Until the law firm responsible for their client getting Streisanded suffers
significant and public repercussions for doing so, they'll continue to advise
this kind of action because _billable hours_.

~~~
e40
That's why I just tweeted this @Verizon:

.@Verizon if it weren't for that C&D you sent to @netflix I would never have
known how shitty you've been to your customers. THANKS!

------
addflip
Verizon fios customer here. There has been a noticeable drop in the quality of
streams in the past couple of months. The picture went from excellent > barely
functional(after the FCC ruling) > watchable(after the peering agreement)
still not great. Kudos to Netflix.

~~~
flavor8
Yeah, same here. I was watching a movie on Roku/Netflix 6 weeks or so ago.
Quality was 2* (out of 4, meaning OK, but visible encoding artifacts now and
again) and yet it still fell back to the buffering screen 8 times in 30
minutes. I got fed up and rented the same movie on Amazon (still on Roku) and
watched it in HD without a single instance of buffering. After it was done I
switched back to Netflix and tried to watch something else, and again hit
buffering every couple of minutes. It's not usually that bad, but it clearly
illustrates that somewhere in the Netflix -> Verizon connection that something
is badly wrong.

~~~
addflip
That's funny. I'm using a Roku as well and had pretty much the same experience
except I rented a movie from M-Go. Of note, I'm paying for "Quantum" speeds
75/35.

~~~
flavor8
Yeah, likewise. On speedtest.net I'm 57 down, 38 up.

------
danesparza
In the cease and desist, the Verizon's lawyers allege that Netflix can't
possibly know if the network slow-down is coming from Verizon's network or
other parts of the internet. I actually chuckled when I read this -- because
after reading Netflix Tech blog (here:
[http://techblog.netflix.com/](http://techblog.netflix.com/) ) and seeing
Netflix's open source contributions (here:
[https://github.com/Netflix](https://github.com/Netflix)) I have a feeling
Netflix probably has a LOT of data to back up these assertions.

------
ianamartin
I love what Netflix is doing with this. Not so much because I am totally
convinced that they are 100% right and the Cable companies are 100% wrong.

Mostly just because I 100% hate all the cable companies.

~~~
theandrewbailey
Do you consider Verizon a cable company? I don't.

Come to think of it, what really separates cable and telephone companies these
days? Most of them sell the same things as the others (TV, internet, phone),
and the distinction is largely historical and technology based.

------
Osiris
I believe that the solution is forcibly separate infrastructure from service.
The same company that provides the infrastructure should not be the same
company that provides the service to the customer.

There are several nations around the world where this is the case. It reduces
the barriers to entry for ISPs, creating an environment where there are dozens
of ISPs to choose from with differing levels of customer service and pricing
plans.

The primary problem with Comcast and Verizon is that they can leverage their
customer base as a negotiation tactic rather than solely on the state of the
network.

------
theandrewbailey
Netflix is angry because Verizon isn't giving Netflix the bandwidth that
Netflix paid for[0]. Netflix should ignore this C&D on free speech grounds,
and tell Verizon to get lost, because corporations are people[0] and have free
speech.

[0] I wish I was joking about that.

------
infogulch
How do we get ISPs classified as common carriers?

Sue their pants off for the copyright infringement of their customers (and all
the other illegal things customers can do). This why common carriers exist.
They trade ultimate control over the transfer of content and treat it equally
for the protections of being indemnified from the content itself. This is why
the U.S. Postal Service can't be prosecuted for transporting a death threat
letter. Make it about money and they'll jump on the common carrier bandwagon
before you can blink.

~~~
graylights
They already have immunity for users' infringements via the Safe Harbor
provisions of DMCA. The safe harbor provisions requirements are a lot less
stringent then Common Carrier.

They must register as an ISP, can't modify data, and can't directly profit
from infringement or promote it. Certain ISPs already have done things that
should get them deregistered though, such as compressing images, replacing ads
or injecting content. For example, comcast injects their copyright warnings
into html pages transfered.

------
whalesalad
Relevant.
[http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa](http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa)

------
aresant
Here is the actual Cease & Desist:

[http://recode.net/2014/06/05/verizon-threatens-netflix-
with-...](http://recode.net/2014/06/05/verizon-threatens-netflix-with-legal-
action-over-congestion-message/)

~~~
zeidrich
It's interesting how Verizon talks about the "panoply of middle-man networks"
when that is really the Internet.

Verizon is a walled city. Verizon entices people to live in it's city and pay
its rent because it says you can get deliveries from all over the world in the
blink of an eye if you live in our city. It has high speed trains, and wide
thoroughfares.

It also has a small gate that can let a few cars in at a time.

Outside the gates is another series of superhighways and supersonic trains
that connect the whole world.

Netflix says "We can't deliver our movies because the gate to Verizon is too
crowded."

Verizon says "You can't claim that, that's unfair. We offered to let you
operate inside our walls if you wanted to pay our rent, but you didn't want
to."

The problem is that when Verizon got all of its citizens, it promised that it
would give them fast INTERNET access. It didn't promise them that it would
give them fast access to things on the Verizon network, or things with special
arrangements that bypass the internet and use a special toll entrance to the
city.

There's no reason they can't widen the gate. The highways outside are
absolutely fast enough to send as much traffic as they need into Verizon. But
Verizon doesn't want to widen that gate, because they know if they don't,
Netflix will have to pay them in order to deliver to their residents at a
reasonable rate.

But they absolutely don't want their residents to think that they aren't
getting their advertised fast access to the super-highways outside.

~~~
hga
WRT that " _panoply of middle-man networks_ " ... it pretty much never works
that way. Certainly not with a big player like Netflix, they're going to be
buying from providers that peer with Verizon, vs. ones that have to pay
transit fees to providers that then have peering with Verizon. The latter
would make absolutely no sense in any way, technical or financial.

They're also doing this in concert with AWS, right? Another huge player.

------
jusben1369
It doesn't state it anywhere but I assume Netflix can be pretty sure of where
the bottleneck is happening before transmitting that message correct? Given
all the other factors that can contribute to a slow down.

~~~
notdonspaulding
> ...I assume Netflix can be pretty sure of where the bottleneck is happening
> ...

It depends on how fancy they get with their detection routines. They can
certainly see which networks the traffic is flowing over, but then there are
multiple devices (and networks) in play to deliver that traffic to them.

For instance, just a one-way trip showing the devices that could slow down a
packet of data can give you an idea of the number of potential bottlenecks:

    
    
        -> Chromecast CPU
        
         -> Chromecast WiFi chipset
        
          -> User's home network router (usually, but not always, provided by ISP)
        
           -> Cable/DSL/FiOS modem
        
            -> [[ ISP devices they directly control ]] 
        
             -> Transit provider's network
        
              -> Netflix's network.
    

Netflix could certainly jump through hoops to isolate the bottleneck to the
ISP network, but are they? Who knows?

I'm not sure they really need to anyway. The hockey stick graph they have
showing throughput before and after payment looks like a classic mafia
shakedown.

~~~
fastest963
If a large majority of customers that use a particular ISP but are having
streaming problems across different devices and if Netflix has no load on
their network, then you can assume its a problem with the middle-man.

~~~
notdonspaulding
The point Verizon is making here is that Netflix has not done due diligence to
verify that the specific customer they are showing the "Verizon Sucks!"
message to is having connection issues that are provably Verizon's fault.

It seems to me that they're stopping one foot shy of calling Netflix out for
libel. It's not libel if it's true, so it might be better for Netflix to only
show the message when they can prove that the specific connection is being
slowed because of the interconnect (or lack thereof).

~~~
hga
I think it would be better put as "claim", vs. point.

At the bottom of this item you can see in a lot of detail how Netflix is
making this judgement: [http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/06/netflixs-
network-cong...](http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/06/netflixs-network-
congestion-message-rolling-networks-just-verizon.html)

Sounds sufficient to me.

------
noonespecial
Two ugly chickens are coming home to roost here.

1) ISP's insisted on selling home bandwidth as functionally unlimited. They
did this primarily so they would only have to offer expensive plans. Grandma
can't get the 300meg email plan for $8, only the $80 plan. And then everybody
tried to use it like it really was unlimited.

2) DRM. Drm makes it so that the net can't cache. 90% of netfilx bandwidth is
likely the same 10% of videos. They all have to make the full trip through the
wires. A local cache at the ISP to improve efficiency is impossible.

~~~
snorrah
Regarding 2): Don't Netflix provide content servers / boxes / network devices
that ISP's can put in the ISP's own data centres to help with exactly this
issue?

[https://www.netflix.com/openconnect](https://www.netflix.com/openconnect)

------
lbcadden3
Netflix is paying someone for their traffic. Verizon customers are paying for
broadband which includes streaming movies.

The ISP need to quit whining. They need to quit trying to get laws passed in
every state that keep competition out.

Verizon 2014 1st quarter. $30.8 billion revenue $7.2 billion operating income
[http://www.verizon.com/investor/news_verizon_reports_fifth_c...](http://www.verizon.com/investor/news_verizon_reports_fifth_consecutive_quarter_of_doubledigit_operating_income_and_earnings_growth_042420.htm)

no sympathy

~~~
hga
And I'll bet landline CAPEX, even adjusted for getting rid of various
territories, is flat or declining. It certainly is for AT&T.

------
martin_bech
Error message should include links to better ISPs in your area.

~~~
bhartzer
Or an affiliate link to sign up for another ISP in their area. Or Netflix
should start their own ISP (as a reseller or white label).

~~~
jc4p
In most cases, you don't have a choice of ISP.

------
nsxwolf
Maybe Verizon would prefer the more accurate "Verizon is deliberately slowing
down your Netflix experience."

------
click170
1) Why are ISPs not classified as Common Carriers? This needs to happen like
_now_.

2) This makes me want to get a Netflix subscription just to support them,
knowing I would never watch a single video from them. I'm signing up right
now. Go Netflix!

------
sologoub
Anyone have a screenshot of what the error message actually says?

~~~
bstar77
"The Verizon Network is Crowded Right Now."

[http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2014/06/netfli...](http://arstechnica.com/information-
technology/2014/06/netflix-tells-customer-the-verizon-network-is-crowded-
right-now/)

~~~
higherpurpose
That seems like a very fair and accurate claim. They should've done it to
Comcast, too, before they paid up, and when they did this to them:

[http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-
hilarious...](http://knowmore.washingtonpost.com/2014/04/25/this-hilarious-
graph-of-netflix-speeds-shows-the-importance-of-net-neutrality/)

~~~
kunjanshah
They did for ATT atleast:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7854446](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7854446)

------
hugolm84
Im sure most of the internet providers cap their bandwidth to services like
this. I am confident that the main Swedish ISP provider Telia is capping as we
speak.

I can see that ping times increases and it's always reoccurring around 9-10pm
Fridays. Around 9:30 buffering speeds up, meaning most of the people giving up
and switching to regular TV. One could argue that this is the time that
Netflix/Youtube/Hbo/ViaPlay or any other service is used the most, but my
suspicion is that capping occurs at those times, to validate the
Fastlane/slowlane argument when the it arrives here in Sweden too.

I am currently collecting statistics to validate this. However, its insane
that a ISP can cap and provide lesser service's on certain ports and argue
that the fault is at the entertainment provider. Its also insane that when
going from a "torrent way of life" to becoming a paying stream customer, I
cant even watch my favourite show, when i want, on 100/100Mbit line.

ISP's are in the business of providing fast connections and high bandwidth,
and that's what I'm paying for, however I want to use it. It shouldn't matter
if I'm streaming from YouTube or downloaded illegal porn. Though it seems it
looks like they want to sell me bad gasoline that doesn't take me anywhere,
and say my engine is at fault.

------
anoncow
Someone please clarify my doubts. When I run a server, I have to pay for
bandwidth costs. For eg. My website hosted on linode gets me 20TB of data
transfer limit. I expect end users to be able to view content worth 20 tb of
up/down data transfer. Netflix runs its own servers but the ISP providing
connectivity must be already charging Netflix for a certain bandwidth and data
transfer limit. If the ISP is charging for data transfer already, I expect the
ISP to provide the entire service. For eg. Let us assume that Verizon charges
netflix 1 usd per tb of data transfer. And Netflix uses 20000tb of data in a
month. Then Netflix owes Verizon 20000 usd a month. And Verizon has to serve
the data according to the bandwidth agreed to.

Is Netflix not paying Verizon for the bandwidth and data transfer?

If Netflix is not paying Verizon then why does my hosting provider charge me
for bandwidth and data transfer?

~~~
sliverstorm
Netflix has their own ISP.

Netflix's ISP and Verizon pay eachother nothing to exchange traffic (called
peering).

Verizon wakes up one day and says, "Shit out of all the ISPs we peer with,
Netflix and their ISP is responsible for 35% of our traffic, we have to do
huge upgrades on the link to them, and they aren't paying us a dime"

That's my understanding of what is going on.

~~~
fekberg
The traffic exchange would only occur once a customer routing data over a
Verizon network uses Netflix, no? Meaning that the 35% of the Verizon network
usage that Netflix uses, is due to customers actually using the connection
they pay for, no?

As an ISP, I think if you are offering 100Mbps unlimited in/out, you should
Expect full thrust from every connection, or at least be capable of delivering
that. I know it's not really realistic, they need to assume that some people,
sometimes are disconnected but if I am paying for a connection and a certain
level of throughput, I expect to get that.

Just my point of view, correct me if my assumptions are incorrect!

~~~
sliverstorm
Do you have any idea what internet service would cost if they built every node
to handle 100% of the Internet's traffic?

~~~
fekberg
Hence why I said "I know it's not really realistic". To answer your question
though, I have no idea. Do you? I'd love to know what an ISP builds to expect
in the terms of constant traffic..

------
jeremycole
There is an easy and practical solution to this whole problem: If Verizon
doesn't like the amount of bandwidth their customers use watching Netflix,
they can always choose to block Netflix completely on their network, and
inform their customers that they've done so. It would be honest, clean, fair,
etc. Customers would be paying for exactly what they are getting, everyone
could be happy with the arrangement.

Of course there would be a massive revolt of their customers if they did so.
Because their customers WANT Netflix. So instead, Verizon will try very hard
to make it "sorta" work and blame Netflix while trying to get money from them.

~~~
rodgerd
Perhaps I've misunderstood the situation in the US, but isn't the problem that
Verizon are a de-facto monopoly in many markets? If customers can't say "screw
you" then all Verizon need to do is avoid getting hammered by the DOJ anti-
trust department.

~~~
hga
Many customers, but perhaps not many markets.

I'm in the same position with AT&T, in a residence that's at the edge of two
cities, but is unincorporated (not part of any city, just the county, state,
and the USA itself). No cable service is available, the deals they cut with
the two cities don't cover me. Those deals make them local monopolies, long
ago the original AT&T (which got split up, and then recombined into AT&T,
Verizon and Century) arranged a Federal and state level monopoly, except of
course for many rural and otherwise expensive to serve markets, which are
served by smaller telcos.

I have at least one option for a WISP, but it's awful; at least AT&T's ADSL
here is reliable. For now, AT&T _really_ doesn't want it's landline business,
wants to drop it for more profitable wireless. Ditto Verizon.

------
Zhenya
Context - error message:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/files/2014/06...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
switch/files/2014/06/netflix-verizon-640x294.png)

------
otterley
Text of the letter in question: [http://www.scribd.com/doc/228334970/Letter-
to-David-Hyman](http://www.scribd.com/doc/228334970/Letter-to-David-Hyman)

------
beedogs
It's funny that Verizon thinks Netflix is damaging the Verizon brand. As if
there's anything more they could do to lower people's opinions of Verizon.

------
knodi
I love it. Fuck you Verizon/Comcast/AT&T.

------
bambax
What is the point of Verizon sending such a letter?

Do they think Netflix will comply? "Oh Jeez we hadn't thought this through but
now with this letter and all, we understand! We'll just start blaming our own
servers instead. Thanks."

Or is it simply a necessary step before they sue? But if they sue, isn't it
likely they'll lose? (Sue over what anyway?)

~~~
dudus
Clearly they are just preparing ground for possible future legal actions
against Netflix. I don't think on their sane minds that Netflix would ever
comply to that.

------
kunjanshah
I wonder why ATT didn't C & D Netflix as well? Netflix had that notice for ATT
too, just like Verizon. AT & T screenshot from a few days ago:
[https://twitter.com/kunjanshah/status/473152026147557376](https://twitter.com/kunjanshah/status/473152026147557376)

------
jostmey
Whatever happened to the right to free speech? There are of course
restrictions to free speech, such as you cannot yell fire in a crowded
building unless there really is a fire, but this is not one of those
scenarios. The behavior of Verizon and the other ISPs are grossly offensive!

~~~
Nacraile
Don't forget about defamation. Sure, you can spread lies in order to do me
harm. But I can sue you for the damage done by those lies. Why would you think
that lies that damage a reputation are substantially different from vandalism
that damages a building?

Not that I think Verizon actually has a strong case for defamation. Netflix
should have little difficulty arguing that they had good reason to believe
that their claims are true. I don't think this is going to end well for
Verizon.

------
dkhenry
This seems very naive on VZW's part its extremely easy to show that there is
congestion at the ingress of one of your peers. Even if VZW is not a direct
peer its pretty easy for them to get metrics off their clients deployed at the
last hop.

------
sadris
Netflix should also be including the phone numbers of city council members in
the zip code of the account owner, and a link to example legislation for use
of eminent domain seizure on last-mile cables.

------
logn
> "So Netflix is throwing up a 'The AT&T network is crowded right now'
> message. Meanwhile, Youtube is playing 1080p no problem."

Netflix should try to explain that in the error messages too.

~~~
DonPellegrino
AT&T can choose to throttle specific services.

------
tikumo
Netflix could also make their buffering settings more advanced. i want a
bigger buffer if my internet is unstable, and it should be transparant how
netflix buffers..

~~~
Nacraile
If it takes 2 hours to send you 1 hour of content, no amount of buffering is
going to give you the instant gratification you want.

------
rohunati
Thank you Netflix for telling Verizon to go fuck themselves.

------
NoPiece
I support this in principle, but I would bet a good portion of the buffering
that happens for Verizon customers is due to issues with their own wifi
network.

------
bhartzer
I'm on CenturyLink DSL and they don't show that message for me when there are
speed issues... they apparently only show it to Verizon customers?

~~~
mhitza
If you expend the list (include smaller ISPs) provided
here([http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa](http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa)),
yours is still above Verizon

------
8ig8
Hopefully YouTube will follow the lead.

------
thepumpkin1979
I thought they were paying fees to Verizon.

------
Alupis
Wow, Verizon... dumb move.

------
ctdonath
Streisand Effect.

------
leccine
Well I think we should introduce a tax on commuters because as it turns out
they are the 90% of the highway traffic.If they want to get to work on time
they can use the fast lane for a little extra and if they don't pay we just
make them drive 10 miles per hour. I think this is fair. Ohh btw. if they
complain about it, it is just them trying to influence policy that was set by
good corporations so I don't understand why we should change it. :)

(please look up irony on wikipedia before downvote, thanks)

------
chris_mahan
Awww, poor Verizon...

------
spacefight
The heat is on!

------
Aloisius
Is Verizon actively slowing the connection to Netflix.com itself or is the
connection between Verizon and Netflix's provider (Cogent?) simply limited? In
other words, are all Cogent customers suffering poor performance with Verizon
customers?

Because the former is wrong and demanding more money from a single company
hosted on a service provider you have specific peering agreements with is
extortion.

The latter however, well, no one said there were unlimited pipes between every
transit provider on the planet and if you're someone large like Netflix,
sometimes you need to pay for transit on more than one provider to get the
performance you need when your own provider can't or won't do so themselves.
It has been like that for decades.

------
wmf
Netflix may be reaping what they have sown here. They agreed to buy paid
peering from Verizon, so if they don't have enough capacity into Verizon the
onus is on them to buy more. OTOH if there is some kind of problem inside
Verizon then the error message is justified.

~~~
brk
But peering really only links the network at the "top level". Verizon could
still have lots of congestion within their network which would cause lack of
end-to-end available bandwidth.

------
massysett
This is exactly why I dropped Netflix. I want a high-def movie, not their
whining about someone else's network. I have no problems streaming from
Amazon. I have a choice of streamers. Other streamers work better. I have less
choice of wired ISPs and they're harder to switch. Netflix would rather whine
and preserve its profit margins than pay up. OK, fine, but since their whining
does not get me the movie I want, I cut it off.

Netflix will find that most other people also do not care to hear their
whining. I can understand why Netflix does it though...it's $8 a month.
Between production costs, licensing costs, marketing, and profits, all $8 a
month leaves room for is crappy movies, poor investment, and a continuous
drive to shift costs to ISPs and whine about it.

~~~
mwfunk
You are paying your ISP to move bytes to and from your home. It doesn't matter
where those bytes come from or go to; you are paying for that bandwidth. It's
already paid for. You either get that bandwidth per your agreement with them
or you don't.

It's not like Netflix is causing you to magically download more bytes. You
chose to do this, and that's fine, because that's what you're paying your ISP
for. Comcast, et al want to double-dip on this transaction and you should be
extremely not OK with that. Why wouldn't the ISPs do the exact same thing to
Amazon that they did to Netflix as soon as they become a big enough target and
the legal precedent has been established? This is something that needs to be
nipped in the bud, like NOW, before this becomes an established way for ISPs
to do business.

Also, it's not like all of your favorite services that will someday be paying
Comcast protection money not to throttle them are just going to swallow those
costs. Those costs will get passed on to you one way or another. No good can
possibly come out of any of this.

