# Netflix reaches streaming agreement with Comcast



## AMike (Nov 21, 2005)

Netflix reaches deal with Comcast regarding slowdowns. I guess more deals with be forthcoming as well as a likely price increase for Netflix.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57619353-93/netflix-reaches-streaming-traffic-agreement-with-comcast/


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## matty8199 (Dec 4, 2005)

thank you, netflix and comcast, for making the argument FOR net neutrality for us.


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## peds48 (Jan 11, 2008)

Bad day for Net Neutrality. Looks like things are about to get worse...


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

peds48 said:


> Bad day for Net Neutrality. Looks like things are about to get worse...


What scares me even more is that the idea of not hindering IPTV services was an expressed condition of the NBC Universal merger. A ruling on net neutrality shouldn't give Comcast the right to blow off the conditions of the merger. Next thing you know, Comcast is going to decide that some other court decision is going to allow them to ignore the condition about making CSN Philly and CSN Houston available.


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## Athlon646464 (Feb 23, 2007)

*Update: **Verizon and AT&T expect to reach their own internet traffic deals with Netflix *

Many suspect that Netflix's bandwidth deal with Comcast won't be an isolated event, and it turns out that those suspicions are well-founded. Verizon chief Lowell McAdam tells CNBC that he expects a Comcast-like internet peering agreement at some stage, and that the telecom has been talking to Netflix for roughly a year about just such a thing. You have to spend a lot of money to keep the internet "vibrant," the CEO claims.

Full Story Here


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## grunes (Nov 13, 2013)

I'm not one of Comcast's greatest fans by a long shot.

But I don't see how this has anything to do with net neutrality.

As best I understand it, net neutrality means that a company like Comcast can't transport one type or source of data packet content through its network faster than another.

If I understand correctly Comcast isn't transferring packets from Netflix faster through its network than other people's packets - it has simply provided, for a fee, a faster way into that network at Netflix's end, which isn't limited by other companies' bottlenecks. In other words, Comcast was never the source of the problem; they have, for a fee, provided a solution to a problem created by the other company or companies that provided Netflix with Internet service.

Likewise with Verizon and AT & T.

Am I wrong?


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## sigma1914 (Sep 5, 2006)

grunes said:


> I'm not one of Comcast's greatest fans by a long shot.
> 
> But I don't see how this has anything to do with net neutrality.
> 
> ...


Give this a read... it helped me. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/23/comcasts-deal-with-netflix-makes-network-neutrality-obsolete/


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

Does it matter whether the toll is charged IN the network or to get TO the network?

Imagine if the old AT&T, Ma Bell, was allowed to let companies pay to have better access to your phone line - higher quality calls - while your Aunt Mabel still sounded like she was calling from the Moon.


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## grunes (Nov 13, 2013)

sigma1914 said:


> Give this a read... it helped me. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/02/23/comcasts-deal-with-netflix-makes-network-neutrality-obsolete/


It confirms what I said - that Comcast et al are not violating network neutrality as such.

Yes, it is, de facto, a way for Comcast et al to charge extra for better service, just as we need to pay more for high capacity broadband connections. It might even mean that to get good service from Netflix, you have to use Comcast, Verizon or AT & T as your ISP - or that your ISP needs a "big pipe" from one of those three. But "net neutrality", per se, is a separate issue.

It's a lot like getting your own line from the phone company instead of sharing a party line. Of course that has advantages over using shared lines. Of course it costs more.

I personally think that there are two sides to these kinds of debate in any case. It is important that people pay for the costs of transporting the bits that they send or use.

If we paid for Internet use on a per bit basis, people would be more motivated to use it efficiently. E.g., you would be more inclined to keep track of the bit budget used by your operating system and applications, and to find ways of switching off usage when not needed. You might use a computer operating system that was secure-by-design and didn't need to be updated.

Cost drives efficiency.

So you should pay for data passage through a network at both ends, and not expect others to pay for it.

----

That said, I confess that I once decided not to use Verizon as my ISP, because I was told that at the time that Verizon was blocking services that competed with it, like Skype and Hulu. (I don't think that's true now. I'm not sure it was then.) I don't want a completely unregulated system. Especially because only a limited number of companies in an area can bury cable or fiber, or use radio bandwidth. I might change my mind even there if we get commercially viable quantum lock transceiver systems that don't need cable or fiber or radio bandwidth.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

The biggest impact on the neutrality argument is that it shows that a content provider is willing to invest money to make sure their customers get the best service possible on each provider. It is NOT the threatened "paying for a priority connection over the same data pipe" that the people who are pushing neutrality are warning us about. But it is a way for a company that pays a provider to get to that provider's customers faster than another company that doesn't pay.

The net result is the same. To the end user programs from Netflix will stream faster than programs from any non-paying competitor's service. Competing sites who do not want to invest to improve their service to customers of specific internet service providers may see that as unfair.

I don't. As long as the data traffic is treated equally (no priority for on net streaming over off net streaming) then any advantage Netflix has is from locating their servers closer to the customer. Not a violation of net neutrality.


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