14 DAY TRIAL // It’s not the first time you’ve heard this, but Internet service providers in the United States aren’t really big fans of Netflix, mainly because the streaming service eats up a lot of bandwidth.
The company has been suspecting for some time now that its streaming was potentially being throttled with. This has now been backed by the statement of Dave Schaeffer, CEO of Cogent, the company that provides Netflix’s bandwidth.
“Every internet user is suffering today in their ability to access all the applications, content and other users across the Internet,” he told Ars Technica, pointing the finger to Verizon, Comcast and Time Warner for all the issues.
The problems seem to come from the fact that ISPs are demanding money from Cogent for the already existing relationship. As Cogent refuses to pay, streaming Internet has taken a hit.
Schaeffer says Verizon and other ISPs refuse to upgrade the equipment that handles traffic across the country. “Once a port hits about 85 percent throughput, you’re going to begin to start to drop packets. Clearly when a port is at 120 or 130 percent, the packet loss is material,” the CEO said.
Of course, reports that Netflix performance has been dropping have been around for months, with data indicating to the very same service providers.
“We're committed to driving down the price of Internet. If you allow people to impose monopoly taxes on Internet service, it's going to end up resulting in higher prices and lower quality,” Schaeffer said.
Many are worried that this type of actions from ISPs where Netflix performance is down because of interference could eventually lead to different data packages with different price tags.
Since the FCC cannot legally enforce net neutrality, due to a court ruling, the fear that ISPs will eventually try to get more money from users who require more bandwidth rages on.