“Why would more profitable, larger companies charge for connections and capacity that smaller companies provide for free? Because they can.”
— Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, on the access fees, or “tolls,” that U.S. Internet service providers are charging his company. Hastings writes in a piece for Wired that “Netflix connects directly with hundreds of ISPs globally, and 99 percent of those agreements don’t involve access fees.” The power the big companies wield would be even greater, he says, if mergers such as the one proposed between Comcast and Time Warner Cable are allowed to go through.
Hastings’ latest comments reiterate the video provider’s continued verbal assault of the big U.S. ISPs, with which it was forced to strike deals in order to ensure that its customers could stream episodes of “House of Cards”, or “Hannah Montana,” or whatever, smoothly and quickly. As we’ve written, Netflix has engaged in a war of words with companies such as Verizon and Comcast over the tolls.
Photo of Netflix CEO Reed Hastings by Patrick Tehan/Mercury News archives