FCC Pressure Helps Bring Netflix To Comcast Cable Boxes

from the pretending-to-be-open dept

We've long noted how Comcast is a bit of an anti-competitive jackass on both the TV and broadband fronts. When the nation's biggest cable provider isn't using usage caps to hinder streaming video competitors, it's busy finding new and creative ways to prevent paying customers from wandering too far outside of Comcast's well-cultivated walled garden. And while many global cable companies have joined the year 2016 by integrating Netflix functionality into their cable boxes for consumer benefit, Comcast has historically fought such a move, instead trying to drive consumers to its own Netflix knockoff.

But with the FCC considering new rules that would open up ye olde cable box to competition, Comcast is busy trying to portray itself as open to the changing competitive tides in the hopes of pre-empting new FCC regulations. The company this week is getting oodles of sudden praise for informing Recode that it will "allow" Netflix on to its X1 cable box:

"Said the pair in a statement: “Comcast and Netflix have reached an agreement to incorporate Netflix into X1, providing seamless access to the great content offered by both companies. We have much work to do before the service will be available to consumers later this year. We'll provide more details at that time." Sources said the deal to be on the cable giant’s set-top box would be akin to the arrangement that Netflix has cut with smaller cable operators in the United States and bigger ones across the globe.

It's kind of amazing what the faintest threat of a regulator actually doing its job can do. And while that's great that Comcast is joining the modern era by making its cable boxes actually useful, it's still a problem that Comcast can determine what consumers can and can't access via cable boxes they own and rent, which are looking more and more antiquated in the Roku and smart phone era. That's why the FCC is proposing rules that would require cable providers to simply provide existing programming to third party hardware vendors, in the hopes of creating better, cheaper set top boxes free of traditional walled gardens.

Comcast's sudden about face comes hand-in-hand with the cable industry's attempt to pre-empt FCC regulation on this front with an "app-based" plan of its own. Under the cable industry's "counter proposal" to cable box competition, cable providers would instead be able to keep the traditional cable box and walled gardens intact, provided that it offered its own cable TV lineup via an "app" for third party streaming devices. And while that sounds great on its face, this being the cable industry the plan has a number of ingrained caveats, such as the fact to use DVR recording you'd still need to rent a cable box. This is not a $21 billion annual monopoly the cable sector will give up easily.

So while it's all well and good that Comcast is being slowly forced to join the modern era, it should be clear that this is Comcast trying to forestall real, open cable platforms, not embrace them. The fact that Comcast still needs to "allow" its customers access to the most popular online service potentially ever conceived remains the real problem.

Filed Under: cable, fcc, set top boxes, television
Companies: comcast, netflix

Russian Culture Minister Claims Netflix A U.S. Mind Control Effort

from the glass-house-propagandists dept

Already on the shitlist of U.S. broadband companies for supporting net neutrality and opposing things like usage caps, Netflix now has a new factually-challenged enemy: Russia. Russia's Culture Ministry took over government film funding through the Cinema Fund in 2012, and more recently unveiled a list of approved subject matter should film makers in Russia wish to get funding. Approved subject matter should include tales that herald "traditional values," "the constructive actions of civil society" or "heroes fighting crime, terrorism and extremism."

With Netflix now pushing into 190 different countries and launching in Russia last January, Russia has clearly become nervous about the influence the US streaming company could have on Russian culture and homegrown production efforts. As such, streaming services like Netflix have been saddled with a significant number of restrictions, including requirements that online video services must be run through a Russia-registered subsidiary, produce 30% of its content locally, and potentially apply for a broadcast license.

Apparently believing these restrictions won't hamper Netflix fully enough, Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky last week upped the rhetoric to 11, proclaiming that Netflix was little more than a US government attempt to control the minds of Russian citizens:

"Vladimir Medinsky, Russia's minister of culture and a loyal supporter of President Vladimir Putin, claims the online streaming service is on the US government payroll. Speaking to a Russian news service, he said the White House had realised "how to enter every home, creep into every television, and through that television, into the head of every person on earth, with the help of Netflix."

"It turns out that our ideological friends [the US government] understand perfectly well which is the greatest of the arts," he said, alluding Lenin's famous comment about the propaganda of cinema. "And you thought, what? That all these gigantic start-ups appear by themselves? That some boy student thought something up and billions of dollars flutter from above?"

Scary! Nobody denies that both countries have used oceans of disinformation and media propaganda to portray the other side in a negative light, but suggesting Netflix has much of a motivation beyond money is an entertaining leap. Medinsky's complaint is particularly amusing given that Russia was just exposed for running disinformation factories twenty-four hours a day whose sole function is to fill the internet with anti-Western bile. But regardless of which side is generating the propaganda; if your social values are so fragile they can be unraveled by a half-hour sitcom or a documentary, you may want to reconsider your ethos.

That said, the real villain in this latest chapter in the information wars isn't Netflix, but Netflix-produced shows and other fare that dare to show homosexuals as something vaguely resembling actual human beings.

Filed Under: american culture, culture, mind control, movies, russia, tv, vladimir medinsky
Companies: netflix

As Netflix Locks Down Exclusive Disney Rights, The New Walled Gardens Emerge

from the meet-the-new-boss dept

Back in 2012, Netflix and Disney struck a deal wherein Netflix would be the exclusive online provider of Disney content starting in 2016. And while we knew that the deal had been struck, it was only this week that Netflix announced on its blog that the exclusive arrangement would formally begin in September. As of September 1, if you want to stream the latest Disney (and by proxy Marvel, Lucasfilm and Pixar) films -- you need to do it via Netflix.

Given the popularity of the Marvel films and the now-annual release of new "Star Wars" titles, that deal has become bigger and more important than ever, making it a pretty large coup for Netflix. Especially if you consider that Disney is co-owner of Hulu, which is planning to dramatically scale up its own subscription streaming video service later this year or early next. In fact, while Hulu for years was little more than an uninteresting ad for traditional cable, data suggests that Hulu's catalog is now much larger, thanks in large part to Netflix's tight focus on original content.

And while this is good news if you already subscribe to Netflix, this ongoing quest to lock down content in exclusive arrangements has a notable downside as the practice expands. As Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon have tried to each lock down their own exclusives, finding your favorite movie or TV series has become a frustrating game of hunting and pecking to ferret out which provider has the exclusive rights. It's also becoming increasingly confusing for consumers to understand when these deals expire; something that's not effectively communicated by most streaming companies.

And, ironically, while many streaming video customers cut the cable cord due to high prices, exclusive arrangements are now forcing those customers to pay for countless streaming services if they actually want to access all of their favorite shows and movies. There's a certain danger in replacing the cable industry's long-standing walled gardens with newer, different walled gardens, and it's pretty clear most of these companies either don't see the potential pitfalls or, in a rush for eyeballs, just don't care.

And as broadcasters increasingly realize they can cut out the middlemen and launch their own streaming services, it seems inevitable that the exclusivity wars will only get worse. For example, if you want to watch the new "Star Trek" TV series from CBS when it launches in January 2017, you'll need to subscribe to CBS's $7 a month, All Access streaming platform. There's likely going to be a lot more where that came from, especially as Comcast takes a bigger role in managing Hulu (NBC Universal merger conditions preventing it from fiddling with Hulu to prevent anti-competitive shenanigans expire next year).

So while the streaming industry and broadcasters are intent on following the exclusivity concept deep down the rabbit hole, few if any seem to notice that while these kinds of exclusive deals may be good for one company over the short term, they're not going to be great for the broader streaming industry over the long haul. There's a lot of potential here to fracture content availability, confuse paying customers, and drive frustrated customers back to piracy after all of the work done to get them on legitimate platforms in the first place.

Filed Under: tv, video, walled gardens
Companies: disney, netflix

Netflix CEO Says Annoyed VPN Users Are 'Inconsequential'

from the you-mean-nothing-to-me dept

When Netflix recently expanded into 190 different countries, we noted that the company ramped up its efforts to block customers that use VPNs to watch geo-restricted content. More accurately, Netflix stepped up its efforts to give the illusion it seriously cracks down on VPN users, since the company has basically admitted that trying to block such users is largely impossible since they can just rotate IP addresses and use other tricks to avoid blacklists. And indeed, that's just what most VPN providers did, updating their services so they still work despite the Netflix crackdown.

Netflix's frankly over-stated "crackdown" is an effort to soothe international broadcasters, justly worried about licensing content to a company that is demolishing decades-old broadcasting power centers. But even superficial as it may be, Netflix's crackdown on VPNs still managed to erode user privacy and security, since obviously there are countless people using VPNs for reasons other than engaging in global Netflix tourism.

With that in mind, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings probably didn't win any new friends this week when stated on the company's latest earnings call that VPN users are loud but, ultimately, "inconsequential":

There was uproar from customers, some of which simply use VPNs to protect their privacy, with a petition calling for the ban to be lifted attracting over 40,000 signatures. But it seems Netflix, which generally cherishes its user experience, doesn’t seem fussed by this uprising.

“It’s a very small but quite vocal minority,” CEO Reed Hastings said during this week’s earnings call. “So it’s really inconsequential to us, as you could see in the Q1 results.”

And, if looking solely at growth, he's not wrong; the company reported that it now serves 81.5 million members, 42% of whom are now outside of the United States. That's 44,740,000 TV subscribers in the States alone, double Comcast's latest tally of 22,347,000 TV customers. While investors are worried about growing competition from Amazon and grandfathered customers' reaction to next-month's price hike (actually announced two years ago), most customers, VPN or otherwise, aren't leaving.

And while Netflix may be annoying some VPN users now, the company has repeatedly stated that its ultimate goal is to eliminate geographic broadcast restrictions entirely. That not only makes it so Netflix tourism is unnecessary, but it should reduce piracy -- something Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt reiterated earlier this year at CES:

“Our ambition is to do global licensing and global originals, so that over maybe the next five, 10, 20 years, it’ll become more and more similar until it’s not different”... “We don’t buy only for Canada; we’re looking… for all territories; buying a singular territory is not very interesting any more.... When we have global rights, there’s a significant reduction in piracy pressure on that content. If a major title goes out in the U.S. but not in Europe, it’s definitely pirated in Europe, much more than it is if it’s released simultaneously,” Mr. Hunt says.

In other words Netflix's long-term vision may be to eliminate fractured broadcast licensing so users don't need to use VPNs. But in the short term Netflix should probably try a little harder to avoid alienating its more technically savvy customers. They may be "inconsequential" now during Netflix's heyday, but may prove important once Netflix's streaming battle against Amazon, Hulu, Apple, and countless other companies starts to heat up.

Filed Under: customers, geo blocking, geo restrictions, reed hastings, security, vpn, vpns
Companies: netflix

FCC Commissioner: Gov't Should Never Interfere In Private Markets...Unless ISPs Have A Chance To Mock Netflix

from the hypocrisy-is-the-new-black dept

As we just got done noting, Netflix recently admitted that it has been throttling the streams it sends to AT&T and Verizon wireless customers in order to lessen the impact of usage caps. While most everybody agrees that Netflix should have been transparent about the practice, most also agree that Netflix -- an outspoken opponent of usage caps and supporter of net neutrality -- was actually trying to improve the customer experience with the move. As such, no real harm was done, and nobody even noticed that Netflix had been doing it -- for five years. Really not much of a story in and of itself.

But the telecom industry and its allies, outraged by Netflix's support of net neutrality, opposition to usage caps, and the threat it poses to legacy TV, have been desperately and hysterically trying to paint Netflix's reveal as some kind of immense gotcha.

AT&T (fresh off of an FTC lawsuit and FCC fine for lying about throttling for years) insisted it was "outraged" by Netflix's behavior. The American Cable Association (fresh off of 10 years of claiming net neutrality was an unnecessary solution to a hallucinated problem) insisted that Netflix should be investigated for its awful behavior, and the FCC should actually expand net neutrality rules to cover so-called "edge" providers. Now FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly has joined the fun, insisting that the FTC, FCC, and Congress should investigate Netflix immediately....for something:

"Netflix has attempted to paint a picture of altruism whereby it virtuously sought to save these consumers from bumping up against or exceeding their data caps," O'Rielly said. "There is no way to sugarcoat it: the news is deeply disturbing and justly generates calls for government—and maybe even Congressional—investigation."

It's true what Netflix did wasn't entirely altruistic. Reducing the streams of capped customers means they'll be less likely to erode their usage caps quickly, and happier with Netflix's service. But when it comes to looking out for consumers on the issue of net neutrality and usage caps, Netflix has been nothing but a genuine consumer ally -- while bigger companies professing to love net neutrality (**cough** Google) -- ran and hid when the going got politically tough during the most recent fight over net neutrality rule verbiage.

If you're unfamiliar with O'Rielly, he and FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai (a former Verizon lawyer) vote down absolutely every pro-consumer action item that comes to the FCC, and certainly if it attempts to hold a large telecom company accountable for clear, obvious fraud. From holding AT&T accountable for ripping off the poor or the hearing impaired, to thwarting prison phone companies from ripping off inmate families, O'Rielly votes it all down, consistently lamenting government waste and overreach, while praising the natural ability of the free market to overcome all evil using something akin to magic.

In a recent blog post, O'Rielly argues at great lengths that government should simply stay out of the affairs of the private sector:

"In communications, government is exceedingly busy and involved. It tries to dictate performance of the private sector, enter the marketplace itself, prop-up failing firms, chase flawed policy goals, subsidize favored classes or companies, stifle the offerings of goods and services by disliked firms, tilt the playing field in certain directions and much worse. While some level of activity occurs because of legacy policies, the constant tinkering inevitably interferes with the workings of capitalism and promotes bad outcomes.

And here's an editorial O'Rielly recently co-wrote for Forbes in which the FCC Commissioner rails against government interference in industry as an assault on innovation, citing Netflix itself as a prime success story thanks to a hands-off government approach:

"Given the unparalleled record of U.S. success in developing and bringing new, innovative technology products to market with a relatively hands-off regulatory approach, you would think there would be extreme hesitancy to alter that formula. The environment that brought us services like Amazon and Netflix is no accident, but instead can be attributed to a conscious decision to let the tech sector develop with minimal government intervention."

And while channeling Milton Friedman is certainly fine, here the Commissioner is, pushing for a multi-agency investigation into a non-starter. And when O'Rielly can't seem to find any rules that Netflix might have broken, he just starts hunting and pecking around in the dirt to try and find some:

"A company cannot knowingly make misrepresentations and inaccurate statements before the Commission," O'Rielly said. "In fact, doing so violates Commission rules intended to protect the integrity of the Commission and our decisions. We need to closely examine filings that were made for potential violations in light of this new information. It appears that Netflix made accusations of wrongdoing by ISPs, all the while knowing that its own practices were one of the causes of consumer video downgrading."

But when pressed to cite precisely what "misrepresentations and inaccurate statements" Netflix made before the FCC, O'Rielly can't actually cite any. So again, O'Rielly has whined incessantly about how net neutrality and the lack of broadband competition aren't real or deserving of government attention whatsoever, yet he's pushing for a multi-pronged government investigation into Netflix -- for trying to help customers on expensive wireless plans? It's another example of how Washington is painfully beholden to companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, while simultaneously lecturing the public on the miracle of free markets.

Filed Under: fcc, free market, hypocrisy, mike o'rielly, throttling
Companies: at&t, netflix

The Cable Industry Wants Netflix Investigated... For Throttling Itself

from the blowhards-and-fisticuffs dept

Netflix's criticism of usage caps and vocal support of net neutrality (not to mention its threat as a pay TV competitor) has helped it replace Google as public enemy number one for the telecom industry. As such, every PR, lobbying, and political asset at the telecom industry's disposal has taken aim at the streaming giant over the last few years, accusing the company of being a dirty freeloader and horrible hypocrite that's unfairly lobbying the government to attack poor, honest, hardworking companies like AT&T and Comcast.

So when Netflix announced last week it was throttling the connections of AT&T and Verizon customers, the telecom industry's various policy tendrils quivered in collective orgasm at the fresh opportunity for attack.

As noted last week, offhand comments by T-Mobile CEO John Legere appear to have forced Netflix to admit that it has been throttling AT&T and Verizon wireless customers back to 600 kbps. This was, the company insists in a blog post, an attempt to help out users stuck on metered plans with low usage caps and high overage fees. More curiously perhaps, Netflix also admitted that it hasn't been throttling connections for users on Sprint and T-Mobile, because "historically those two companies have had more consumer-friendly policies" (read: they offer unlimited data plans).

Netflix's revelation quickly resulted in AT&T, a company that has throttled customers and lied about it for years, insisting it was "outraged" by the revelation (since obviously Netflix's decision would have cost it user overage fee penalties). The American Cable Association, a coalition of hundreds of smaller cable companies (but with Comcast NBC Universal also as a member) took things one step further, issuing a statement demanding an FCC investigation into Netflix's behavior:

"ACA has said all along that this Federal Communications Commission's approach to Net Neutrality is horribly one-sided and unfair because it leaves consumers unprotected from the actions of edge providers that block and throttle lawful traffic. The FCC's disclosure rules also fall short by covering ISPs but allowing edge providers to affect consumers' Internet experience in the same ways that ISPs' actions can. And now we see further evidence of these shortcomings in Netflix's confession that it has been engaging in covert video throttling to select groups of consumers."

"ACA is disappointed, but not surprised, that Netflix used its immunity from the FCC's Net Neutrality rules to engage in this practice. Netflix has the ability and incentive to engage in this anti-consumer behavior notwithstanding its impact on the virtual cycle that promotes the broadband deployment sustaining Netflix's business model. In light of this revelation, ACA calls on the FCC to initiate a Notice of Inquiry into the practices of edge providers and how these companies can threaten the openness of the Internet. Under Section 706, the FCC has the authority to conduct such an inquiry and issue regulations, should it be deemed necessary."

There's obviously a few things wrong with that statement. One, it's not a net neutrality violation if you're throttling yourself, that's just vanilla stupid. Two, net neutrality rules were applied to the broadband industry because of limited competition. If there was competition, users could punish bad behavior by switching ISPs, making the rules unnecessary. Net neutrality rules weren't applied to edge content companies because users actually have a choice of options there. The same can't be said for the broadband industry, where most are lucky to have the choice of one ISP that can provide anything resembling next-gen connectivity.

If there's one thing that Netflix can be dinged for, it's for lecturing ISPs on transparency, then failing to reveal that this was even happening. And thanks to competition, anybody bothered by that (and that's not many, since nobody noticed what Netflix was doing for five years) has the choice of switching streaming video providers. But an investigation into a company for effectively throttling itself? The cable industry either doesn't actually understand how net neutrality works, or it's feeding the public a line of bullshit, trying to saddle Netflix with regulations it just spent the last decade trying to argue weren't necessary in the first place.

Filed Under: competition, net neutrality, throttling, transparency, video streaming
Companies: american cable association, at&t, comcast, netflix, t-mobile

House Of Cards Sued Over Trademark Regarding Themed Slot Machines

from the slots-of-fun dept

Another day, another trademark dispute with one side weaponizing a trademark for a commonly used phrase and stretching the definition of common marketplaces. The latest foray into making my head hurt with this sort of thing is between MRC, producers of the Netflix drama House of Cards, and D2 Holdings, which claims to have trademarked the phrase and licenses for a radio program that covers gambling. At issue is a soon-to-be-released series of House of Cards themed slot machines in casinos across the nation.

In the suit, D2 Holdings claims that it owns the trademark for “House of Cards” in word form, and licenses the phrase for a gaming-centric radio show of the same name. D2 is taking issue with the slot games “House of Cards Power and Money” and “House of Cards Welcome to Washington,” which it says “are slated for placement in casinos in the first quarter of 2016.”

Where to begin? First, any mark on a commonly used phrase, such as "house of cards", is already problematic and ought to have a very specific focus on a narrow application of the mark if it's going to be approved. Add to that that licensing the phrase to a gambling radio show isn't competing in the same marketplace as a series of slot machines in casinos and I'm struggling to see how this lawsuit doesn't get immediately laughed out of court. Radio programming isn't gambling, no matter the subject of the show. If this line of thought were to be validated, I imagine all kinds of sports radio programming would be in deep trouble, as radio shows covering sports use all kinds of sports-related phrases that are likely trademarked by all kinds of entities. If those sports radio shows are suddenly seen to be in the marketplace of "sports" rather than "radio", there could be all kinds of infringement suits brought against them. That, of course, won't happen, because radio does not equal sports. It also doesn't equal slot machines.

But even putting that aside, the claim from D2 Holdings that there is real customer confusion to worry about is laughable.

“Defendants’ unauthorized use of the House of Cards mark makes it highly likely, if not inevitable, that members of the trade and general public will be confused and assume, incorrectly, that the House of Cards mark is owned by MRC, or that there is an affiliation with D2, or that Plaintiff has sponsored, endorsed or approved these products,” the suit reads.

Yeah, that isn't going to happen. These machines will be filled with the iconography of the show. Anyone who has seen a themed slot machine knows what they look like and how they are decorated. There will be zero customer confusion between the Netflix show and a gambling radio broadcast. Suggesting otherwise is silly.

Unless D2 Holdings has some ace up its sleeve that I don't know about, I would expect a quick tossing of this lawsuit.

Filed Under: house of cards, radio, slot machines, trademark
Companies: d2 holdings, mrc, netflix

Netflix Reveals It Throttles AT&T, Verizon Customers To Save Them From Usage Caps, Overage Fees

from the neutrality-soap-opera dept

Netflix this week admitted that the company has been throttling the video streams of most wireless customers around the world to 600 kbps, a practice the company claims is necessary to protect users from usage caps and wireless overage fees. It was the first time Netflix acknowledged the practice, which the company said it's been engaged in for five years. The more interesting part? The company admitted to the Wall Street Journal that it's apparently not throttling the video streams of companies whose consumer policies Netflix agrees with:

"Netflix said it doesn’t limit its video quality at two carriers: T-Mobile and Sprint Corp., because “historically those two companies have had more consumer-friendly policies.” When customers exceed their data plans on Sprint or T-Mobile, the carriers usually slow their network connections, rather than charge overage fees."

The Netflix reveal came after T-Mobile CEO John Legere spent last week defending T-Mobile's controversial Binge On service, which throttles partner video streams to 1.5 Mbps or 480p. Legere spent much of the week poking various news outlets with claims that AT&T and Verizon throttle video streams even further than Binge On, something both companies spent much of last week denying. It didn't apparently take long for the Journal to dig deeper and get an admission out of Netflix that it was the one doing the throttling.

Despite the clear admission from Netflix that it's the one throttling, Legere continues to take to Twitter to blame AT&T and Verizon, meaning he either didn't understand the story he'd read, or he's intentionally being misleading in an attempt to redirect people from recent Binge On criticisms:

2/ I called out @verizon and @att just last week about this – they denied, tried to make it about throttling and called me ‘dopey’!

— John Legere (@JohnLegere) March 24, 2016

AT&T, meanwhile, hoping to cash in on the story and paint Netflix as a hypocrite, had its top lobbyist pretend to be "outraged":

"We’re outraged to learn that Netflix is apparently throttling video for their AT&T customers without their knowledge or consent,” said Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs."

AT&T's "outrage" likely stems from the fact that the throttling kept AT&T users from hitting their usage caps and incurring overage fees sooner, costing AT&T money.

After revealing its throttling to the Journal, Netflix posted a new blog post in which it pretended it was revealing its throttling practices by choice, "announcing" it was working on tools that would help customers better manage their data consumption:

"We believe restrictive data caps are bad for consumers and the Internet in general, creating a dilemma for those who increasingly rely on their mobile devices for entertainment, work and more. So in an effort to protect our members from overage charges when they exceed mobile data caps, our default bitrate for viewing over mobile networks has been capped globally at 600 kilobits per second. It’s about striking a balance that ensures a good streaming experience while avoiding unplanned fines from mobile providers.

This hasn’t been an issue for our members. Our research and testing indicates that many members worry about exceeding their mobile data cap, and don’t need the same resolution on their mobile phone as on a large screen TV to enjoy shows and movies. However, we recognize some members may be less sensitive to data caps or subscribe to mobile data plans from carriers that don’t levy penalties for exceeding caps. As we develop new technologies, we want to give all our members the choice to adjust their data consumption settings based on their video preferences and sensitivity to their ISPs data overage charges. We’ll provide more details as we get closer to launch.

So to be clear: Netflix should have been more transparent about what it was doing and provide users with better controls (desktop users can adjust streaming quality rather easily), especially if it's going to lecture ISPs on transparency. That said, given Netflix's positions on net neutrality and usage caps, you're sure to see the story blown up into more than it is by ISPs and their various mouthpieces, who'll likely either call this a net neutrality violation itself (it's not; throttling yourself isn't like throttling a competitor, and users have a choice of streaming services) or continue the industry claim that Netflix is a shady villain that treats giant, lumbering telecom duopolies unfairly.

But the crux of the problem here remains usage caps, not Netflix. Sure, Netflix isn't being entirely altruistic. Annoyed customers banging their heads against usage caps watch less streaming video, which for many fixed-line ISPs like Comcast is the entire point. For wireless carriers it's obviously different, with the goal being to drive consumption however possible. But the fact that a company was forced to offer a lower quality service -- instead of competing to provide the best stream possible -- shows how arbitrary usage caps by their very nature distort and damage markets. And that's before you even get to the anti-competitive implications of zero rating.

Filed Under: mobile service, net neutrality, throttling, videos
Companies: at&t, netflix, sprint, t-mobile, verizon