Netflix CEO Reed Hastings took the web to call for stronger net neutrality to guarantee excellent bandwidth service to all adding the weak protection of the average Internet user now in place will lead to a fall off in quality.
In Hastings' very long and detailed blog post he credited some ISPs with doing an excellent job in practicing strong net neutrality, but generally noted that this positive activity is an aberration with many more companies attempting to weaken net neutrality. This, in the end, will hurt the consumer.
"Some major ISPs, like Cablevision, already practice strong net neutrality and for their broadband subscribers, the quality of Netflix and other streaming services is outstanding," Hastings wrote.
On the other end of the spectrum are ISP's like Comcast.
"Comcast has been an industry leader in supporting weak net neutrality, and we hope they'll support strong net neutrality as well," Hastings said. He also added that, in cases like this, Netflix will pay extra to the ISP to guarantee a better connection for its consumer.
"A few weeks ago, we agreed to pay Comcast and our members are now getting a good experience again," he noted.
Hastings also fired back at ISPs who claim that Netflix soaks up about 30 percent of their peak residential traffic so the movie streaming service should pay more.
"But they don't also offer for Netflix or similar services to share in the ISPs revenue, so cost-sharing makes no sense. When an ISP sells a consumer a 10 or 50 megabits-per-second Internet package, the consumer should get that rate, no matter where the data is coming from," he argued.
The ISP's don't see the situation in quite the same way. Earlier this month, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said his company never thought so much data volume would be placed into the system in the manner that Netflix now does routinely.
"So what happens is you become out of balance," Shammo said.
The CFO said Netflix's broadband traffic demands have caused Verizon, as well as other major ISPs, issues - manifested in curtailed download speeds. As a result, Verizon, Comcast, and others have told Netflix that improving download speeds to its subscribers requires paying for direct access via their networks.
Shammo added that he hopes Verizon, AT&T can also cut a deal with Netflix in the same manner as Comcast.
