Items tagged with Reed Hastings
Disputes with ISPs over the quality of streaming traffic hasn't slowed Netflix down when it comes to adding subscribers. According to the company's most recent financial report, Netflix is now home to over 50 million total members for its streaming service, three-quarters of which are located in the United States. That figure that also includes free trial memberships. A big reason's for Netflix's continued success is its lineup of original programming. Shows like "House of Cards" and Orange is the New Black" are proving highly popular, and unlike regular television shows, Netflix releases an entire season at once. This allows viewers who are hooked on a series to binge watch, though the downside...
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Proving once again that there are two sides to every story, a senior executive for AT&T fired back in contentious fashion at a blog post written by Netflix chief Reed Hastings calling for net neutrality. AT&T's Jim Cicconi called Hastings' plea "self righteous" and "arrogant," to use a couple of choice terms sprinkled throughout his rebuttal. Hastings on Thursday explained all the reasons why ISPs like Comcast and AT&T shouldn't charge third-party services like Netflix an "arbitrary" interconnection fee. His blog post was prompted in large part by a multi-year deal Netflix struck with Comcast to ensure that its streaming traffic would reach Comcast subscribers with less buffering...
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After reading through the latest rhetoric by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, you get the feeling that he views his company's recent deal with Comcast as essentially sleeping with the enemy. The multi-year agreement ensures that Comcast subscribers will enjoy higher quality Netflix streams and less buffering, but Hastings warns that if left unchecked, ISPs will be free to charge increasingly higher interconnection fees to third-party services. From the vantage point of where Hastings is sitting, these types of fees are nothing more than an "arbitrary tax" imposed by companies that are free to levy them because of their position in the market place. This puts companies like Netflix in an awkward position...
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