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Netflix really wants ISPs to share the costs of delivering streaming video. CEO Reed Hastings, shown here in a file photo, plans to get tough by publishing potentially embarrassing information about ISPs. Netflix said it is "inappropriate" for Internet service providers to require it to carry all the costs of delivering streaming video to a subscriber's home, and tomorrow the company plans to do something about it.
Netflix, the Web's top video-rental service, wants ISPs to carry some of the burden of delivering the company's streaming video since it is their customers who have requested the content. CEO Reed Hastings made it clear that he hasn't received enough cooperation on this from the ISPs.
Netflix said in a letter to shareholders today that the company plans to publish statistics about which ISPs are best at delivering "the best, most-consistent high speed Internet for streaming Netflix."
If you're an executive at Charter Communications, you've got nothing to worry about. The only early tidbit Hastings revealed about the report is that Charter was the top-performing ISP. But for bandwidth providers further down on the list, the disclosure could prove embarrassing. How much do you want to bet that some of the poorer-performing ISPs are the ones giving Netflix the hardest time about streaming costs?
Hastings wrote: "We think the cost sharing between Internet video suppliers and ISPs should be that we have to haul the bits to the various regional front-doors that the ISPs operate, and that they then carry the bits the last mile to the consumer who has requested them, with each side paying its own costs."
In the letter, Hastings said he hoped to get some "voluntary agreement" on the issue. Following that, he lowered the boom and disclosed the plans to publish the performance list. Netflix's message was that either ISPs pay their fair share or they're in for a fight.
More to come
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