Will John Sununu And Harold Ford Jr. Agree To Pay Netflix's Broadband Bill Next Month?

from the simple-request dept

Not this again. I thought that we were well past lobbyists publishing op-ed pieces in which they flat out lied about how broadband pricing works. Almost exactly five years ago, we called out (then) telecom lobbyist Mike McCurry (a former Clinton press secretary) for his bizarre and ridiculous claim that Google got its bandwidth for free. We asked, if that was the case, if McCurry would agree to pay Google's bandwidth bill. McCurry never responded, though the astroturf group he ran at the time was clearly reading, since they took other comments of mine totally out of context at a later date.

It looks like we're in for a repeat with some other ex-DC folks-turned-sell-out lobbyists. This time, it's former Senator John Sununu and former Rep. Harold Ford Jr., shilling for "Broadband for America," claiming that Netflix gets its bandwidth for free. There are so many things wrong with this particular op-ed piece, which is so dishonest that the Mercury News should publish a full retraction and apology. But, for now I'll just make the same deal that I offered to McCurry five years ago:

If John Sununu and Harold Ford Jr. really believe that Netflix is getting a "free ride" with its bandwidth and this is somehow socially irresponsible and unfair, will they agree to pay Netflix's broadband bills for the rest of this year?

Perhaps they can trade bandwidth bills with Netflix. I'm sure if they're willing to pay Netflix's bandwidth bill, Netflix would have no problem paying for their home DSL lines. Hell, maybe Netflix will even cover their mobile broadband accounts as well.

As for the rest of the op-ed, it's pretty funny. While they play up how Netflix "saves" $0.40 in postage by not having to use the mail, they ignore the fact that in order to stream movies, Netflix has to pay ridiculously high licenses. With disc rentals, it could buy one disc and rent it out many times. Not so with streaming licenses. It needs to pay a ton for those.

Then there's this bit of economic cluelessness:

Netflix argues that the marginal cost to the network providers of streaming a half-hour TV show to a residential customer is "one penny." This ignores the hundreds of billions of dollars in sunken network investments needed to create that one-penny marginal cost efficiency at the customer's end.

Um, yes, it does. And as most any economics professor will tell you, you're supposed to ignore the sunk costs in understanding how a market prices things competitively. Telling the market to do the opposite is the very definition of an anti-market, anti-efficient solution.

Consumers tend to pay more when they consume more goods and services, and pay less when they consume less.

And, contrary to the claims in the article, Netflix pays more when its users consume more. Again, will Sununu and Ford pay Netflix's bandwidth bill?

The reality is that Netflix and similar services want a free ride on the networks built with more than $250 billion in design, engineering, manufacturing, construction and maintenance -- a system that now provides broadband services to 95 percent of American households.

Hey, you know what? I spent a lot of money building Techdirt. All of you now owe me money. Apparently that's how Sununu and Ford view market functions. If one party spends a lot of money on something, everyone else is just required to pay. Of course, back here in the real world, that's not how things work. Various broadband companies (with massive taxpayer subsidies, by the way) built out broadband networks because they knew it would be profitable to do so. They made their bet and made their deal. Now they're trying to change the deal by pretending that someone's not paying. They're lying. What they really want is for service providers to pay twice for the same bandwidth. Netflix is already paying for its bandwidth. Consumers already pay for their bandwidth. Sununu and Ford (and really, the telcos they represent) are really trying to get Netflix to pay again, pretending that they should pay for the bandwidth that consumers already paid for, even though Netflix is already paying for that bandwidth. This is about trying to double charge.

If broadband providers are so hard up for cash, then just let them raise rates. Nothing is stopping them from doing that. But that's not what this is really about. This is about trying to force Netflix to double-pay for consumers' bandwidth as well.

So, once again, John Sununu and Harold Ford Jr.: since you insist that Netflix is getting a free ride, will you pay Netflix's bills for the rest of the year? Or will you pull a Mike McCurry and simply ignore this simple challenge and go on pretending that Netflix doesn't pay?

Filed Under: bandwidth, broadband, economics, free ride, harold ford jr., john sununu, net neutrality
Companies: netflix