Posted on 11/30/2010 9:03:24 AM PST by re_tail20
Level 3 Communications, a central partner in the Netflix online movie service, accused Comcast on Monday of charging a new fee that puts Internet video companies at a competitive disadvantage.
Level 3, which helps to deliver Netflix’s streaming movies, said Comcast had effectively erected a tollbooth that “threatens the open Internet,” and indicated that it would seek government intervention. Comcast quickly denied that the clash had anything to do with network neutrality, instead calling it “a simple commercial dispute.”
The dispute highlighted the growing importance of Internet video delivery — an area that some people say needs to be monitored more closely by regulators. Net neutrality, which posits that Internet traffic should be free of any interference from network operators like Comcast, is thought to be on the December agenda of the Federal Communications Commission.
“With this action, Comcast demonstrates the risk of a ‘closed’ Internet, where a retail broadband Internet access provider decides whether and how their subscribers interact with content,” Thomas C. Stortz, the chief legal officer for Level 3, said in a statement Monday.
Those issues cut to the heart of Comcast’s imminent acquisition of NBC Universal, which is in the final stages of review by the F.C.C. and the Justice Department. The F.C.C. is considering attaching a condition to the merger that would aim to keep Comcast’s Internet network open to competitors, according to public filings this month.
(Excerpt) Read more at mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com ...
My thoughts of cable companies are about as high as lawyers and used car salesmen.
They look for any way to make money without adding benefit to the consumer.
A la carte viewing was possible a decade ago, yet we still do not see it. Why? Because most cable channels would go out of business.
I look forward to the day when the internet circumvents the cable comapnies grip on television.
Well, now...isn't that special. The NYT throws a sop to the common folk..."This is GOOD for all of you, because the EVIL Comcast will not be able to throw up toll booths..."
I can see why Comcast would seek to punish/squeeze the companies that are providing options to cable's tv grip
It already has for me.
Antenna gives me twelve local digital stations. SageTV with four tuners lets me record everything I want. Netflix and Hulu-free let me fill in the gaps.
I have Comcast. I got rid of their crappy digital box and now have basic cable and high speed internet because they are the best I can get where I’m at. I pay around $60 a month for the internet. I use a Samsung blueray box and an efficient trans-coder called Playon Tv to take care of my digital tv fix. I have NetFlix, CinemaNow, Hulu and many other providers streaming to my TV. Comcast if they really wanted to could simple stratify their packages for consumers charging more for bandwidth levels and usage. The reason they are going after streaming video is it is an easy target and it would allow them control providers rather than empowering the consumer consumer. This back-loading process always hurts the consumer just as it does in the federal govt. Its a way to fleece people while being able to force increased cost throughout a system without taking responsibility for it. The next place I move I’m making sure their are competitive technologies available so that I can get off Comcast once and for all or at least till they provide a better deal.
We do pay. I pay for the same 250GB package with Comcast that you do. Just because you don’t use it says more about you being duped than that I should pay more. I personally believe they should go to a tiered usage model if it is such a problem. People like you shouldn’t have to pay for what you don’t use. The problem with backend toll booths is that Comcast is already charging us for the connection and the provider is already paying hefty fees to connect to the internet. Netflix and others already pay exorbitant fees to connect and provide content. What Comcast is trying to do is stick it to Netflix and companies like them rather than develop similar services to provide consumers exactly what they want. Comcast isn’t suffering and is highly profitable even in the recession which is a good thing of course but should leave consumers suspect to charges that Comcast needs to put up roadblocks on the internet. If anything the advent of services like Netflix has fueled demand for high speed internet of which Comcast is one of the largest providers.
This like most things isn’t about what you or I want it is about how they can control us and our spending. Rather than simply investing profits in better infrastructure and providing better services they instead choose to play the bully and in the end we the consumer get the shaft and the bill.
The United States ranks 28th in the world in average Internet connection speed and is not making significant progress in building a faster network, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The report by the Communications Workers of America (CWA) said the average download speed in South Korea is 20.4 megabits per second (mbps) — four times faster than the US average of 5.1 mbps
I've been slowly moving towards the solution that you have and already use the SageTV set-top box to play videos off my uShare. I haven't yet committed to a server for the DVR functionality. How do you like it?
Once I got my antenna working correctly (you can never place an antenna too high) we canceled cable. I built a new Windows 7 box with 2 dual-channel HDHomeRuns. They are network devices that simply stream data onto your network. I was hoping to connect them to a 802.11n wireless router, but couldn't get n working. 802 is not fast enough for HDTV streaming. If I could have done it wirelessly I could have put it in the attic. Since I had to hardwire it, I had to drill a hole through an outside wall for the coaxial cable to the antenna.
The SageTV license gives you a never-ending subscription to Zap2It's online TV schedule so that you just select the programs you want. If you build a MythTV, you have to buy a monthly subscription.
I'm just rambling, but bottom line is I like it.
I actually already have one of the HDHomeRun dual HDTV tuners and I know what you're saying about wireless. I could tune and watch the TV stream on my laptop as long as I had "five bars" but if I moved to another room where the wireless signal wasn't as strong, the display became chunky as the stream exceeded the available bandwidth.
My plan is to have a server with multiple network connections so the HDHomeRuns can live on their own subnet(s) and the display devices will be on the home network.
The SageTV set-top box seems to work well and I look forward to completing the setup (I miss the ability to do any DVRing) but we've had more important things to accomplish.
the average download speed in South Korea is 20.4 megabits per second (mbps) — four times faster than the US average of 5.1 mbps
Of course, there’s a little problem with bombs going off over there but at least they have good download speeds! :)
South Korea can access Free Republic faster. Wow!!!
Nonsense. This complaint has no more merit that a complaint that you are "cross-subsidizing" fatsos who show up at the same all-you-can-eat buffet you patronize.
Comcast sells Internet service. People buy Internet service and use it as much, or as little, as they like. Each of them pays for the service as per the contract (which Comcast doesn't get to unilaterally violate by arbitrarily charging extra based on which part of the Internet a customer prefers).
OTOH, Internet infrastructure still has a lot of surplus capacity. In that sense, the economics of Internet pricing are more like the economics of transit buses, airplanes, or sports stadiums. So long as there are empty seats, it makes sense to sell tickets at any amount that exceeds the marginal (almost nil) cost; even if it's far less than the average cost. That comparison would make your case.
However, if there are enough riders to fill the bus, etc. it makes no sense to charge less than the average cost for a ticket. You could never recover your full costs that way. With the sudden growth of movie and TV downloading, the metaphorical bus is filling up fast.
Everything’s fine, so long as the Internet infrastructure has surplus capacity. Once the capacity has been reached, or exceeded — something has to give. If the infrastructure company (cable, or whatever) can't recover full costs; it will not have any incentive, or wherewithal to build out new infrastructure. As a result, all services would slow down — including sites, such as Free Republic, which use very little bandwidth, compared to movie downloads.
If infrastructure owners were to charge everyone by the bandwidth used, I'd mostly agree with you — no arbitrary extra costs. The exception being, where people are willing to pay extra for premium services. For instance, it makes sense to charge extra for VOIP calls, where the data packets would have priority over most other services.
Yes!
and they are already discussing things that have happened tomorrow.
I have to get that fast connection do to my addiction to Free Republic. I want to know what has happened.
Maybe I should move there.
I have only spent one night in Seoul on a layover to a trip to China in spring 2009. It seemed nice.
If that model turns out to be flawed, it's their problem. Max needs to come up with the money to pay his investors, and Comcast needs to come up with the bandwidth to stream the films, as per their contracts.
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