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IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

Why should Netflix undercut cable

Comcast owns the lines and infrastructure. They charge a modest price for TV service and that pays the salaries of hard working individuals maintaining the infrastructure that carries TV, phone, and Internet. I don't think Netflix should get a free ride on Comcast's lines as I call that unfair competition. If it was not for Comcast offering TV service, we'd be paying three times as much for Internet. Competition is good, but when you severely undercut a competitor and get a free ride on their infrastructure, I call that unethical competition. I think the FCC should seriously look at IPTV services and make them adhere to the same regulations that cable/satellite/broadcasters must adhere to. I pay a good chunk of money to Comcast each month for my triple play and cord cutters are going to cause that cost to go up as they still have the cost of maintaining infrastructure but are losing the money to pay for it and broadband prices will go up and quality will decline.

I think Comcast should waive caps if a subscriber gets expanded basic or above or Netflix should have to pay Comcast and other pay TV providers for use of their networks.

MovieLover76
join:2009-09-11
Cherry Hill, NJ

MovieLover76

Member

do you understand how the internet works at all? and what the heck makes you think cable cut the cost of internet. If anything they pioneered more expensive internet access.
rradina
join:2000-08-08
Chesterfield, MO

rradina to IowaCowboy

Member

to IowaCowboy
But what about the providers who don't have triple play revenue, like AT&T and Verizon? (Sure, there's limited FIOS and U-Verse where both are in the TV business but compared to their core wired business of delivering bits, it doesn't compare to cable's success at getting most folks to spend more with them to offset plant costs.) Are AT&T and Verizon subsidizing their wired infrastructure costs with wired revenue? Of course that would be like shooting your own foot since their wired business is still regulated and they are allowed to charge a price that guarantees a set profit margin. In fact, there are actually claims that Verizon is illegally pushing wireless costs into its wired expense column since that's still a regulated monopoly. What about cable companies undercutting POTS service with $19.95 unlimited local/long distance VOIP? What about wireless cannibalizing POTS service?

LightS
Premium Member
join:2005-12-17
Greenville, TX

LightS to IowaCowboy

Premium Member

to IowaCowboy
LOL.
You sound like the European ISPs that want companies such as Google to pay for their network upgrades..

The user chooses what they use their data for. Here in the US of A, that's almost breaching net neutrality...

Netflix already has to pay for their own bandwidth costs. The only way Comcast, etc. would get $$ from Netflix is if they had direct peering in a datacenter and it went straight onto Comcasts network. Do they already do this? Hell if I know. Either way, it's not up to Netflix to pay for Comcasts stuff.

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

While I think the concept of Netflix is a good idea, I just think they should play fair competition with cable and not be the reason for the hundreds of thousands of cord cutters every quarter. What I am also saying is they should have to adhere to the same regulations as cable such as the public access requirements and community programming. What I don't think is fair that cable has a lot of regulations and Netflix has none. And cable employs people who live in your community, Netflix probably has their servers overseas.

I subscribe to cable, and always will.

Final thought: either deregulate cable or make IP video services adhere to the same regulations as broadcasters and cable providers. What I don't like is Netflix's ability to seriously undercut traditional TV providers that own infrastructure.

Comcast charges more if you have Internet only to make up for the lost TV revenue. Comcast still has the same labor and cable plant costs if you are an HSI only subscriber or subscribe to their Xfinity Triple Play Complete (their highest level of service) although the programming costs vary based on the number of subscribers of that channel.

LightS
Premium Member
join:2005-12-17
Greenville, TX

LightS

Premium Member

I think our opinion regarding Netflix differs though - I personally like Netflix (even though I'm not a subscriber anymore) because it's different. I could care less how much it costs - I like that there are options, that you can stream movies on demand, and no ads.

As far as that goes - Netflix is not a cable ISP. They entered this business to provide IPTV & frankly, they're doing a good job.

Also - It's pure greed IMO by the ISP. They made contracts with content providers - if everybody cuts cable, who's fault is that if they lose revenue? Not the consumer, that's the ISP. They then need to figure out a way to recover their subscribers. If they can't, they deserve to not be a provider any longer.
silbaco
Premium Member
join:2009-08-03
USA

silbaco to IowaCowboy

Premium Member

to IowaCowboy
It is similar to the Internet radio vs. broadcast radio battle. One has few regulations, the other has considerable regulations. It won't change anytime soon, probably never. The older technologies were supposed to serve the community. The newer ones have no such obligations.
silbaco

silbaco to LightS

Premium Member

to LightS
It is the content owner's fault more than the cable operator/ISP's. The content owners make the rules. Operators can't do anything about it. Cable operators would like for their rates not to go up as much as their consumers, but that's not an option when content owners want double and sometimes as much as 5 times what their previous contract required.

K00laid
@bahnhof.se

K00laid to IowaCowboy

Anon

to IowaCowboy
said by IowaCowboy:

Comcast owns their lines and infrastructure. They charge a modest price for TV service and that pays the salaries of hard working individuals maintaining the infrastructure that carries TV, phone, and Internet. I don't think Netflix should get a free ride on Comcast's lines as I call that unfair competition. If it was not for Comcast offering TV service, we'd be paying three times as much for Internet. Competition is good, but when you severely undercut a competitor and get a free ride on their infrastructure, I call that unethical competition. I think the FCC should seriously look at IPTV services and make them adhere to the same regulations that cable/satellite/broadcasters must adhere to. I pay a good chunk of money to Comcast each month for my triple play and cord cutters are going to cause that cost to go up as they still have the cost of maintaining infrastructure but are losing the money to pay for it and broadband prices will go up and quality will decline.

I think Comcast should waive caps if a subscriber gets expanded basic or above or Netflix should have to pay Comcast and other pay TV providers for use of their networks.

Comcast owns the lines and infrastructure. Comcast's subscribers pay inflated flat rate pricing for residential and commercial services that cover costs associated with bandwidth, maintenance of infrastructure, and capex, while still generating additional revenue for operations/labor and shareholder's dividends.

Comcast subscribers ALREADY paid for their bandwidth. If a Comcast internet subscriber chooses to pay for Netflix out of their own pocket, Comcast has no right to impede or otherwise interfere with a competitor's traffic or services requested by and routed to a Comcast internet subscriber. Comcast has no right to demand anything more.

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad to IowaCowboy

Premium Member

to IowaCowboy
Netflix isn't getting "a free ride" on Comcast's infrastructure. Netflix pays their ISP for bandwidth. That ISP pays an upstream ISP for bandwidth and so on to the top level. That top level has peering agreements with other top level ISPs to "pay" for data passing back and forth.

Going up the other end, the customer pays Comcast (or Verizon or Time Warner) for bandwidth. If Comcast (or Verizon or Time Warner) isn't the "top level ISP", they pay the ISP above them and so on until you get to the top where you have those peering agreements again.

Netflix isn't "getting a free ride" any more than a local pizza shop who pays Verizon for a phone line is "getting a free ride" by Sprint letting their customers call to order pizza. (After all, they're not paying Sprint any money. Why should Sprint let their number be called?!!)

IowaCowboy
Lost in the Supermarket
Premium Member
join:2010-10-16
Springfield, MA

IowaCowboy

Premium Member

said by TechyDad:

Netflix isn't "getting a free ride" any more than a local pizza shop who pays Verizon for a phone line is "getting a free ride" by Sprint letting their customers call to order pizza. (After all, they're not paying Sprint any money. Why should Sprint let their number be called?!!)

Speaking of pizza shops, there is a local Domino's franchise here that will not accept orders from cell phones for security reasons. He will only accept delivery orders from landlines. He can probably tell by the caller ID as the most common landline prefixes here are 781, 782, 783, 787, 543 (Verizon in the Indian Orchard subdivision, east Springfield, and parts of Wilbraham) are the most common landline prefixes in his delivery area.

The reason he won't take calls from a cell phone is he had one of his pizza delivery guys murdered in a robbery while making a delivery so he has taken steps to protect his employees.

TechyDad
Premium Member
join:2001-07-13
USA

TechyDad

Premium Member

Completely the store owner's call. Just like if Netflix decided, for some reason, "we're not allowing Comcast customers to access Netflix." The point is, though, that he *can* accept orders from people using other phone companies even though he isn't paying those other companies anything. He pays his phone company and the customers pay their phone company. The two phone companies work out among themselves how they handle calls passing between them.

Netflix does the same thing. They pay their ISP, their customers pay their ISPs and the ISPs work out how traffic passes between them. If you needed to pay every ISP for your website to be viewable on their network, running a simple web page would be too expensive for your average person.

grief
@norlight.net

grief to IowaCowboy

Anon

to IowaCowboy
said by IowaCowboy:

I think Comcast should waive caps if a subscriber gets expanded basic or above or Netflix should have to pay Comcast and other pay TV providers for use of their networks.

Netflix is not using Comcast or other providers network. The customer of those networks is using it and those customers are paying for that use. Using your logic every web site would have to pay every internet provider because they use those networks. To put it simply nobody is get network access for free

RadioDoc

join:2000-05-11
La Grange, IL

RadioDoc to K00laid

to K00laid
said by K00laid :

Comcast has no right to impede or otherwise interfere with a competitor's traffic or services requested by and routed to a Comcast internet subscriber. Comcast has no right to demand anything more.

* ding *

Winner.

This is now and always has been about impeding access to competing services by cable subscribers. Period.
NOVA_UAV_Guy
Premium Member
join:2012-12-14
Purcellville, VA

NOVA_UAV_Guy to silbaco

Premium Member

to silbaco
said by silbaco:

Cable operators would like for their rates not to go up as much as their consumers, but that's not an option when content owners want double and sometimes as much as 5 times what their previous contract required.

Cable operators certainly have an option in that case: stop carrying the content.

The only reason they don't opt for this is because they know they can push their increased costs onto the backs of their subscribers. It's less risky for them to pass on a cost plus make a little more profit under the guise of "Sorry, but we're held captive; what can we do?" than it is to take a stand and tell the content producers to go take a hike.