5 ms·

Netflix refuses to pay extra tax demanded by European internet service providers

43 points by docdeek 4y ago

bell-cot 4y ago
's/tax/extortion payments/' If I drive a rental car to a restaurant, the rental car firm shouldn't demand a cut of my dinner tab, either.
- Kukumber 4y ago
  but the city can ask you to pay a tax to support its infrastructure the people who own the infrastructure can ask what ever they want including to pay to help support the infrastructure your business is using for free
  - dave4420 4y ago
    I don’t think the analogy works. I am paying my ISP for internet access. Netflix is paying AWS(?) for internet access. Why should Netflix have to pay my ISP? I already paid them!
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    "the city" means "a legal goverment". An ISP is not a government, however much they might wish to get away with pretending to be...if and only if & when that bit of pretend happens to be convenient to them. If the ISP's customer has paid for "Down_Mbps/Up_Mbps internet service", then either the ISP needs to deliver the bits, or deliver a refund. If the ISP's management can't figure out how to calculate their costs, and charge enough to turn a profit, then either the shareholders or the government need to replace them with management who can.
  - from 4y ago
    But all the customers of Netflix are already paying for this traffic? The reason consumers are even willing to pay what they do for Internet is because of services like Netflix. Being an ISP is already a high margin business, there is no shortage of funds for investment. EU countries have had the fastest connections in the world for a while now. If you want wealth transfer from American companies that innovate to stagnating European companies you can just say so, no need to rationalize.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    So ISPs should be nationalized?
    - bell-cot 4y ago
      Sounds reasonable, since they don't seem to be viable as businesses. And compensation to the current shareholders, for their evidently worthless companies, should be token at most.
    - 6510 4y ago
      Shouldn't a business have the right to fail? It seems like a reasonable technical requirement. I should be allowed to screw up, go bankrupt and close shop? Or should it be that I get to keep the profits but when I make a mess tax payers should help me? It seems sensible to nationalize all critical infrastructure?
  - qeternity 4y ago
    This is the wrong analogy. If I rent a car, and drive it to a restaurant, I might pay road tax...which is fine because I want to use the road. This is more akin to taxing the restaurant. The customer already paid, and the only reason they paid is because they wanted to go to the restaurant. Without the restaurant (or more broadly, places to go), people would have no use for the roads.
    - Kukumber 4y ago
      you don't go to netflix to watch a movie at their place netflix delivers data to you are you saying the delivery man should only buy his car (AWS) and never help maintain the road (infrastructure)? why should the customer who order food has to pay for the road the delivery person will use? the customer already paid for the service! why, to you, this analogy only works when it doesn't benefit the customer? billions $ are circulating in the market, and our core infrastructures always has to suffer look at what happened in Ohio
      - JohnFen 4y ago
        > netflix delivers data to you But Netflix, like everyone else, already pays for their use of the networks. This looks like double-dipping.
      - gameman144 4y ago
        Netflix already invests a huge amount into backbone infrastructure. Asking them to pay for the infrastructure which users are purportedly already paying for is plain old double-dipping. Consider a gravel road that connects your cabin to the main city road. The HOA might charge periodic maintenance fees to keep that road operable, depending on how many miles get driven on it, essentially charging you for usage. If you then order delivery from a restaurant, then yes, it's very unreasonable for the restaurant to pay for that road's upkeep: they only need to travel that road because you ordered the food. The restaurant should still pay taxes which go towards maintaining the city roads, but your privately operated HOA doesn't get to toll them to get to your house.
      - baseballdork 4y ago
eshack94 4y ago
This is one of those situations where I completely agree with Netflix. Why should they have to pay a tax just because their website is popular and serves a lot of traffic. This seems like extortion more than a tax.
- olivierduval 4y ago
  Actually, it's not only that Netflix is popular, but also that Netflix content is heavy... so fewer user are generating more IP traffic comparing to another website as popular as Netflix Anyway, in the end, the ISP may just "limit Netflix bandwidth". Then he will lose some customers (changing ISP)... but Netflix will lose some customers too (leaving Netflix because of bad quality compared to another content provider). This would be a lose/lose game Or both may agree to share a part of the burden of "heavy contents", most for ISP et a bit for Netflix
  - RealStickman_ 4y ago
    > user are generating more IP traffic The users are already paying their ISP for the traffic they're generating. Whether they're using it to access Netflix or any other website.
  - remir 4y ago
    I bet a lot of ISPs are also selling TV services and cord cutting is hurting their business. So they got creative and figured out they can ask for a Netflix tax to make it seems like it's fair compensation for the "huge" bandwidth the service is consuming.
  - imtringued 4y ago
    >Actually, it's not only that Netflix is popular, but also that Netflix content is heavy... so fewer user are generating more IP traffic comparing to another website as popular as Netflix If that is your argument, then the entire subscription contract with the ISP is inherently fraudulent as they are advertising a service that they are incapable of providing. Instead of throttling netflix, customers should be suing their ISP for defrauding them.
singron 4y ago
Wait that's the whole article? What is this proposed "tax"? Are ISPs lobbying the government to levy a new tax? Is this just a colloquial term for a fee between private businesses? What do the ISPs say about this? Did the Netflix CEO make up this story to sound cool in their keynote?
- pgorczak 4y ago
  Yes ISPs are lobbying hard for a tax like this in Europe (not for fees between businesses, they want the government to collect it for them): https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/commission-to-make-online-platforms-contribute-to-digital-infrastructure/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/commission-to-...
galkk 4y ago
Same old song… We aren’t dumb pipe, we want a share of added value. How this is not racket? Your customers are paying you for the service, that they are using whatever they like. If you cannot provide it, someone will. Requesting content providers to subsidize your business is anticompetitive in some single provider case and cartel in industry wide
Scaevolus 4y ago
This is somewhat related to a ~3% Digital Services Tax that some European countries imposed on large-scale businesses. It's part of an ongoing attempt to get companies to pay more taxes in countries they receive income from. https://taxfoundation.org/digital-tax-europe-2020/ https://taxfoundation.org/digital-tax-europe-2020/ Telcos are lobbying for some of this money to go to them because it's "unfair" that they have to transit so much traffic from big tech companies on behalf of their customers (???): https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-consult-big-tech-contribution-telco-networks-by-end-q1-2023-2022-09-09/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-consult-big-tech-contr...
- bell-cot 4y ago
  The lead sentence of the story sounds quite different from that: > Netflix does not want to pay European internet service providers (ISP) for rising traffic costs due to the popularity of streaming video content. Edit: Yes, your "somewhat related to" is a pretty reasonable disclaimer. When I'm not trying to read too fast.
  - hulitu 4y ago
    > for rising traffic costs due to the popularity of streaming video content. I haven't seen an increase in quality /s
- falcolas 4y ago
  > Telcos are lobbying for some of this money to go to them because it's "unfair" This always makes me giggle. A company who is already getting paid for transmitting data wants to get paid twice for transmitting some data, essentially charging their customers twice for some of those bits. Greedy toads.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    Yeah but telcos have big political influence in some EU countries, especially given that some of them were former national companies sold off to investors with ties to politicians. So they can just lobby for whatever laws they want. This demand form telcos is basically a mob shakedown. "Say Netflix, we heard you're making big money selling your stuff to customers ON OUR TURF. Here's the deal, you give us a cut of your sales, or else, who knows, bad things can happen in this neighborhood, and we can protect you."
xn 4y ago
This should be addressed through the negotiation of peering agreements between Netflix and ISPs.
- jeffgus 4y ago
  That is my reaction. Am I missing something here? Are Net Neutrality rules getting in the way? I know when the NN topic was really hot, many were conflating treating the packets the same with peering agreements. Peering has nothing to do with NN. Years ago people were complaining about Netflix performance issues and thinking that the ISP was throttling Netflix when it was an issue with peering capacity. If the rules in the EU mess with peering negotiations, then the rules need to be fixed.
idiotsecant 4y ago
The correct solution for this is to ask ISP customers to pay for resource usage if, in fact, their usage is so onerous. This is transparently an effort to keep prices apparently low for the end consumer to make the internet service more attractive to consumers and try to reach into the deep pockets of netflix and other content providers to subsidize that cost. Ultimately that looks to consumers like expensive netflix and cheap ISP, which benefits the ISPs but doesn't really help anyone else.
julienfr112 4y ago
Government are pressuring ISP to install fiber to home, with target for each year as the percentage of covered population. This ain't cheap. Government could tax content provider to subsidized ISP, and in turn, having more population covered by fiber is a good thing for Netflix !
the_wolo 4y ago
Siding with Netflix, though it's somewhat weird that they call this a tax when it is a fee. States tax. Corporations extract fees. Taxes are for public welfare and balancing out the amount of money in the economy. Fees are for generating profits. That's a major difference.
- jiveturkey 4y ago
  It's not weird. It's PR on Netflix' part. From the US minded POV, fees are costs borne for service provided. Tax is theft. It is weird that he said this in Barcelona, discussing EU, where it wouldn't have landed the same way.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    > From the US minded POV [...] tax is theft. Not really. That sort of thinking applies to a specific subgroup in the US, but isn't representative of majority thought.
    - jiveturkey 4y ago
      I wasn't being literal, just making a point. Like Greg Peters of Netflix was.
Mystery-Machine 4y ago
ISPs already offer limited data packages. You don't have to buy flat rate. You can pay for x GB. So why does anyone need to pay again for the same data transfer the end user already paid for? How about Germany pays Netflix because German citizens are watching Netflix too much and are using Netflix infrastructure? Ridiculous.
- remir 4y ago
  Because most ISPs are also offering TV services and Netflix is eating their lunch, so they figured that asking for a "Cord cutter" tax was bad PR, but asking for a "Bandwidth tax" was somehow fair.
bogomipz 4y ago
This sounds similar to the Netflix and Comcast/Verizon spat from 2014 in the US where Comcast wanted paid peering from Netflix.[1] The customers already pay their ISP for this content to be delivered and Netflix already pays for transit to deliver these bits. It's interesting Netflix is framing this this as hurting content creators. I suppose this is probably more true today than it was in 2014 given that original content is now the key drivers for streaming services. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5530898/netflix-blasts-comcast-and-verizon-on-net-neutrality-some-big-isps https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5530898/netflix-blasts-co...
- jeffgus 4y ago
  But Netflix was NOT paying transit. They were paying for peering. Transit costs more. To reduce costs, they peered with large networks. The problem is that the company they paid to setup peering (Cogent) didn't want to risk their settlement-free peering agreements. Cogent would have had to start paying for peering. It turned out it was much better for Netflix to setup their own peering agreements.
  - bogomipz 4y ago
    Incorrect. Netflix purchased transit from Level 3 beginning in 2010 and subsequently with Cogent.[1][2]. They then went on to purchase additional transit from Telia, NTT and Tata in order to get routes into the eyeball networks that began making a stink. They eventually agreed to do paid peering with the last mile eyeball networks - AT&T Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Comcast. It seem as though you not understanding peering and transit. Had they been paying for peering there wouldn't have been an issue in the first place. Paid peering was the very thing the last mile networks wanted.[3]. Netflix prior to the roll out of their Open Connect CDN offering used Akamai, Limelight, and Level 3 as their CDN providers. When they rolled out Open Connect they offered ISPs the ability to peer directly with them at number of different peering exchanges.[4] This was a few years after the Level 3 Comcast spat. You seem to be confusing events. [1] https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-to-pay-comcast-for-internet-traffic https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-t... [2] https://archive.is/2AC6C#selection-735.154-735.169 https://archive.is/2AC6C#selection-735.154-735.169 [3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/fcc-gets-comcast-verizon-to-reveal-netflixs-paid-peering-deals/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/fcc-gets-comcast... [4] https://techcrunch.com/2012/06/04/netflix-open-connect/ https://techcrunch.com/2012/06/04/netflix-open-connect/
mrangle 4y ago
These ISP's are suffering under the delusion that they are in business with Netflix. No solvent business would agree to what they are asking. Its a devil's pact. Though, I don't blame them for asking. It never hurts. Except perhaps on the PR front when they are turned down. Now they are facing customers that want Netflix and who know that their ISP's desire (or need) for a cut of the action is why they can't get it. Which is a business opportunity for an ISP that can better structure their offerings.
- seydor 4y ago
  Every big company that has some leverage will use it to the max extent, there are not really separate roles in the business, it's all about wrestling for power. Look at apple for an example of rent-seeking pretty much everywhere they can
de6u99er 4y ago
European here. I am opposed to such an additional fee because ISP's don't have a contract with Netflix, but with their customers. I think it's quite simple. If their customers don't get what they are paying for, they will switch to another ISP. In case all ISP's choose to demand such a fee, Netflix needs to complain about anti-competitive collusion.
orcajerk 4y ago
Telecos, large and small, have to upgrade equipment on their own dime to accommodate Big Tech traffic and growth. Currently they are free riding off the telcos. If Big Tech is causing the drive to upgrade and doesn't want to pay, their services need to be turned off in unison across the EU.
- hnaccount141 4y ago
  Both tech companies and their users already pay telcos for the bandwidth they use. Where's the free ride?
Shakahs 4y ago
Let’s say this did happen, and Netflix responded by moving all their EU traffic to 3rd party CDNs. What then? Would ISPs start going after Akamai and such for the same compensation? If the media URL is totally opaque (Akamai domain, encrypted binary file) I don’t think they would even be able to prove it’s Netflix traffic.
Euphorbium 4y ago
I am with netflix on this one.
entropicgravity 4y ago
This is like a company has a contract with the government to keep the roads in good order. The company then feels like it should also have the right to check every vehicle to see what they're carrying so the company can levy a value added tax. So it's very clearly double payment. Nice work if you can get it.

43 points by docdeek 4y ago

's/tax/extortion payments/' If I drive a rental car to a restaurant, the rental car firm shouldn't demand a cut of my dinner tab, either.

Kukumber 4y ago
but the city can ask you to pay a tax to support its infrastructure the people who own the infrastructure can ask what ever they want including to pay to help support the infrastructure your business is using for free
- dave4420 4y ago
  I don’t think the analogy works. I am paying my ISP for internet access. Netflix is paying AWS(?) for internet access. Why should Netflix have to pay my ISP? I already paid them!
- bell-cot 4y ago
  "the city" means "a legal goverment". An ISP is not a government, however much they might wish to get away with pretending to be...if and only if & when that bit of pretend happens to be convenient to them. If the ISP's customer has paid for "Down_Mbps/Up_Mbps internet service", then either the ISP needs to deliver the bits, or deliver a refund. If the ISP's management can't figure out how to calculate their costs, and charge enough to turn a profit, then either the shareholders or the government need to replace them with management who can.
- from 4y ago
  But all the customers of Netflix are already paying for this traffic? The reason consumers are even willing to pay what they do for Internet is because of services like Netflix. Being an ISP is already a high margin business, there is no shortage of funds for investment. EU countries have had the fastest connections in the world for a while now. If you want wealth transfer from American companies that innovate to stagnating European companies you can just say so, no need to rationalize.
- triceratops 4y ago
  So ISPs should be nationalized?
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Sounds reasonable, since they don't seem to be viable as businesses. And compensation to the current shareholders, for their evidently worthless companies, should be token at most.
  - 6510 4y ago
    Shouldn't a business have the right to fail? It seems like a reasonable technical requirement. I should be allowed to screw up, go bankrupt and close shop? Or should it be that I get to keep the profits but when I make a mess tax payers should help me? It seems sensible to nationalize all critical infrastructure?
- qeternity 4y ago
  This is the wrong analogy. If I rent a car, and drive it to a restaurant, I might pay road tax...which is fine because I want to use the road. This is more akin to taxing the restaurant. The customer already paid, and the only reason they paid is because they wanted to go to the restaurant. Without the restaurant (or more broadly, places to go), people would have no use for the roads.
  - Kukumber 4y ago
    you don't go to netflix to watch a movie at their place netflix delivers data to you are you saying the delivery man should only buy his car (AWS) and never help maintain the road (infrastructure)? why should the customer who order food has to pay for the road the delivery person will use? the customer already paid for the service! why, to you, this analogy only works when it doesn't benefit the customer? billions $ are circulating in the market, and our core infrastructures always has to suffer look at what happened in Ohio
    - JohnFen 4y ago
      > netflix delivers data to you But Netflix, like everyone else, already pays for their use of the networks. This looks like double-dipping.
    - gameman144 4y ago
      Netflix already invests a huge amount into backbone infrastructure. Asking them to pay for the infrastructure which users are purportedly already paying for is plain old double-dipping. Consider a gravel road that connects your cabin to the main city road. The HOA might charge periodic maintenance fees to keep that road operable, depending on how many miles get driven on it, essentially charging you for usage. If you then order delivery from a restaurant, then yes, it's very unreasonable for the restaurant to pay for that road's upkeep: they only need to travel that road because you ordered the food. The restaurant should still pay taxes which go towards maintaining the city roads, but your privately operated HOA doesn't get to toll them to get to your house.
    - baseballdork 4y ago

eshack94 4y ago

This is one of those situations where I completely agree with Netflix. Why should they have to pay a tax just because their website is popular and serves a lot of traffic. This seems like extortion more than a tax.

olivierduval 4y ago
Actually, it's not only that Netflix is popular, but also that Netflix content is heavy... so fewer user are generating more IP traffic comparing to another website as popular as Netflix Anyway, in the end, the ISP may just "limit Netflix bandwidth". Then he will lose some customers (changing ISP)... but Netflix will lose some customers too (leaving Netflix because of bad quality compared to another content provider). This would be a lose/lose game Or both may agree to share a part of the burden of "heavy contents", most for ISP et a bit for Netflix
- RealStickman_ 4y ago
  > user are generating more IP traffic The users are already paying their ISP for the traffic they're generating. Whether they're using it to access Netflix or any other website.
- remir 4y ago
  I bet a lot of ISPs are also selling TV services and cord cutting is hurting their business. So they got creative and figured out they can ask for a Netflix tax to make it seems like it's fair compensation for the "huge" bandwidth the service is consuming.
- imtringued 4y ago
  >Actually, it's not only that Netflix is popular, but also that Netflix content is heavy... so fewer user are generating more IP traffic comparing to another website as popular as Netflix If that is your argument, then the entire subscription contract with the ISP is inherently fraudulent as they are advertising a service that they are incapable of providing. Instead of throttling netflix, customers should be suing their ISP for defrauding them.

singron 4y ago

Wait that's the whole article? What is this proposed "tax"? Are ISPs lobbying the government to levy a new tax? Is this just a colloquial term for a fee between private businesses? What do the ISPs say about this? Did the Netflix CEO make up this story to sound cool in their keynote?

pgorczak 4y ago
Yes ISPs are lobbying hard for a tax like this in Europe (not for fees between businesses, they want the government to collect it for them): https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/commission-to-make-online-platforms-contribute-to-digital-infrastructure/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/commission-to-...

galkk 4y ago

Same old song… We aren’t dumb pipe, we want a share of added value. How this is not racket? Your customers are paying you for the service, that they are using whatever they like. If you cannot provide it, someone will. Requesting content providers to subsidize your business is anticompetitive in some single provider case and cartel in industry wide

Scaevolus 4y ago

This is somewhat related to a ~3% Digital Services Tax that some European countries imposed on large-scale businesses. It's part of an ongoing attempt to get companies to pay more taxes in countries they receive income from. https://taxfoundation.org/digital-tax-europe-2020/ https://taxfoundation.org/digital-tax-europe-2020/ Telcos are lobbying for some of this money to go to them because it's "unfair" that they have to transit so much traffic from big tech companies on behalf of their customers (???): https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-consult-big-tech-contribution-telco-networks-by-end-q1-2023-2022-09-09/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/eu-consult-big-tech-contr...

bell-cot 4y ago
The lead sentence of the story sounds quite different from that: > Netflix does not want to pay European internet service providers (ISP) for rising traffic costs due to the popularity of streaming video content. Edit: Yes, your "somewhat related to" is a pretty reasonable disclaimer. When I'm not trying to read too fast.
- hulitu 4y ago
  > for rising traffic costs due to the popularity of streaming video content. I haven't seen an increase in quality /s
falcolas 4y ago
> Telcos are lobbying for some of this money to go to them because it's "unfair" This always makes me giggle. A company who is already getting paid for transmitting data wants to get paid twice for transmitting some data, essentially charging their customers twice for some of those bits. Greedy toads.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  Yeah but telcos have big political influence in some EU countries, especially given that some of them were former national companies sold off to investors with ties to politicians. So they can just lobby for whatever laws they want. This demand form telcos is basically a mob shakedown. "Say Netflix, we heard you're making big money selling your stuff to customers ON OUR TURF. Here's the deal, you give us a cut of your sales, or else, who knows, bad things can happen in this neighborhood, and we can protect you."

xn 4y ago

This should be addressed through the negotiation of peering agreements between Netflix and ISPs.

jeffgus 4y ago
That is my reaction. Am I missing something here? Are Net Neutrality rules getting in the way? I know when the NN topic was really hot, many were conflating treating the packets the same with peering agreements. Peering has nothing to do with NN. Years ago people were complaining about Netflix performance issues and thinking that the ISP was throttling Netflix when it was an issue with peering capacity. If the rules in the EU mess with peering negotiations, then the rules need to be fixed.

idiotsecant 4y ago

The correct solution for this is to ask ISP customers to pay for resource usage if, in fact, their usage is so onerous. This is transparently an effort to keep prices apparently low for the end consumer to make the internet service more attractive to consumers and try to reach into the deep pockets of netflix and other content providers to subsidize that cost. Ultimately that looks to consumers like expensive netflix and cheap ISP, which benefits the ISPs but doesn't really help anyone else.

julienfr112 4y ago

Government are pressuring ISP to install fiber to home, with target for each year as the percentage of covered population. This ain't cheap. Government could tax content provider to subsidized ISP, and in turn, having more population covered by fiber is a good thing for Netflix !

the_wolo 4y ago

Siding with Netflix, though it's somewhat weird that they call this a tax when it is a fee. States tax. Corporations extract fees. Taxes are for public welfare and balancing out the amount of money in the economy. Fees are for generating profits. That's a major difference.

jiveturkey 4y ago
It's not weird. It's PR on Netflix' part. From the US minded POV, fees are costs borne for service provided. Tax is theft. It is weird that he said this in Barcelona, discussing EU, where it wouldn't have landed the same way.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > From the US minded POV [...] tax is theft. Not really. That sort of thinking applies to a specific subgroup in the US, but isn't representative of majority thought.
  - jiveturkey 4y ago
    I wasn't being literal, just making a point. Like Greg Peters of Netflix was.

Mystery-Machine 4y ago

ISPs already offer limited data packages. You don't have to buy flat rate. You can pay for x GB. So why does anyone need to pay again for the same data transfer the end user already paid for? How about Germany pays Netflix because German citizens are watching Netflix too much and are using Netflix infrastructure? Ridiculous.

remir 4y ago
Because most ISPs are also offering TV services and Netflix is eating their lunch, so they figured that asking for a "Cord cutter" tax was bad PR, but asking for a "Bandwidth tax" was somehow fair.

bogomipz 4y ago

This sounds similar to the Netflix and Comcast/Verizon spat from 2014 in the US where Comcast wanted paid peering from Netflix.[1] The customers already pay their ISP for this content to be delivered and Netflix already pays for transit to deliver these bits. It's interesting Netflix is framing this this as hurting content creators. I suppose this is probably more true today than it was in 2014 given that original content is now the key drivers for streaming services. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5530898/netflix-blasts-comcast-and-verizon-on-net-neutrality-some-big-isps https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/20/5530898/netflix-blasts-co...

jeffgus 4y ago
But Netflix was NOT paying transit. They were paying for peering. Transit costs more. To reduce costs, they peered with large networks. The problem is that the company they paid to setup peering (Cogent) didn't want to risk their settlement-free peering agreements. Cogent would have had to start paying for peering. It turned out it was much better for Netflix to setup their own peering agreements.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  Incorrect. Netflix purchased transit from Level 3 beginning in 2010 and subsequently with Cogent.[1][2]. They then went on to purchase additional transit from Telia, NTT and Tata in order to get routes into the eyeball networks that began making a stink. They eventually agreed to do paid peering with the last mile eyeball networks - AT&T Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Comcast. It seem as though you not understanding peering and transit. Had they been paying for peering there wouldn't have been an issue in the first place. Paid peering was the very thing the last mile networks wanted.[3]. Netflix prior to the roll out of their Open Connect CDN offering used Akamai, Limelight, and Level 3 as their CDN providers. When they rolled out Open Connect they offered ISPs the ability to peer directly with them at number of different peering exchanges.[4] This was a few years after the Level 3 Comcast spat. You seem to be confusing events. [1] https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-to-pay-comcast-for-internet-traffic https://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-t... [2] https://archive.is/2AC6C#selection-735.154-735.169 https://archive.is/2AC6C#selection-735.154-735.169 [3] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/fcc-gets-comcast-verizon-to-reveal-netflixs-paid-peering-deals/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/06/fcc-gets-comcast... [4] https://techcrunch.com/2012/06/04/netflix-open-connect/ https://techcrunch.com/2012/06/04/netflix-open-connect/

mrangle 4y ago

These ISP's are suffering under the delusion that they are in business with Netflix. No solvent business would agree to what they are asking. Its a devil's pact. Though, I don't blame them for asking. It never hurts. Except perhaps on the PR front when they are turned down. Now they are facing customers that want Netflix and who know that their ISP's desire (or need) for a cut of the action is why they can't get it. Which is a business opportunity for an ISP that can better structure their offerings.

seydor 4y ago
Every big company that has some leverage will use it to the max extent, there are not really separate roles in the business, it's all about wrestling for power. Look at apple for an example of rent-seeking pretty much everywhere they can

de6u99er 4y ago

European here. I am opposed to such an additional fee because ISP's don't have a contract with Netflix, but with their customers. I think it's quite simple. If their customers don't get what they are paying for, they will switch to another ISP. In case all ISP's choose to demand such a fee, Netflix needs to complain about anti-competitive collusion.

orcajerk 4y ago

Telecos, large and small, have to upgrade equipment on their own dime to accommodate Big Tech traffic and growth. Currently they are free riding off the telcos. If Big Tech is causing the drive to upgrade and doesn't want to pay, their services need to be turned off in unison across the EU.

hnaccount141 4y ago
Both tech companies and their users already pay telcos for the bandwidth they use. Where's the free ride?

Shakahs 4y ago

Let’s say this did happen, and Netflix responded by moving all their EU traffic to 3rd party CDNs. What then? Would ISPs start going after Akamai and such for the same compensation? If the media URL is totally opaque (Akamai domain, encrypted binary file) I don’t think they would even be able to prove it’s Netflix traffic.

Euphorbium 4y ago

I am with netflix on this one.

entropicgravity 4y ago

This is like a company has a contract with the government to keep the roads in good order. The company then feels like it should also have the right to check every vehicle to see what they're carrying so the company can levy a value added tax. So it's very clearly double payment. Nice work if you can get it.