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Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

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Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#21
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.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#22

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?

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

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#23
post #12

Here is the actual Cease & Desist: http://recode.net/2014/06/05/verizon-threatens-netflix-with-...

Interesting observation re: FiOS's performance with other video services. I'm not a huge fan of the incumbent ISPs in this country, but they do have something of a point there.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#25

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

At most I've only had two choices for ISP - Comcast and Time Warner. Currently I have one "option" - Charter.

I guess you could add mobile providers to the list if you count mobile hotspots as broadband. That would be an additional 1-4 providers in most areas.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#26
post #17

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.

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.

Re: Netflix replies to Verizon cease and desist letter

#28

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…

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.
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