Netflix Hits Australia, Forgets Its Net Neutrality Principles

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Oh come on, all that net neutrality stuff Netflix complained about before doesn't apply in Australia does it? ;)

"Working with iiNet to offer quota-free Netflix content gives more people the opportunity to familiarise themselves with who we are and what our service offers,” Netflix said in an announcement. The company is working on striking similar deals with Optus and other Australian ISPs, giving the streaming operator a leg up over other services.
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Australia has different rules and regs than America, so I understand they are just playing by the rules there. But its still pretty lame of them to bow down again like they did with Comcast. Hopefully there is something missing from the story that has them showing their Australian customers what is going on.
 
Wow, shocker. Turns out Netflix doesn't give two poots about your silly principles, but they do thank you for going to war on their behalf for free.
 
I am not sure what the alternative is for Netflix since this is a new market for them. They are supposed to offer a substandard service to their customers and follow rules of net neutrality that don't exist there or they utilize the system as it is currently used to offer the most competitive service they can? If people think that this is an abuse of the net neutrality principles then they can work with the Australian government to establish a regulatory framework or the ISPs and content providers can work together to establish a set of common industry guidelines. Short of that I don't see Netflix committing suicide in the new market benefits net neutrality (and it certainly doesn't benefit Netflix) ;)
 
It's not fast lane shenanigans like you saw in the us, it's just bandwidth cap exemption for their service. This kind of crap happens all the time when you have data caps in play. The ISP in question offers cap free Steam downloads as well as they also host Steam content mirrors, I assume the deal is that Netflix is setting up mirror servers inside iinet and optus' data centres to internalise the traffic without having to cross peer boundaries.

Netflix offered to work out a similar arrangement with the large US ISP's but they flat out refused.
 
Data caps with transcon data transfer is the biggest reason. Aussie's are use to caps (sadly) and don't demand the ultimate nature of Internet we do here (at least not in large enough groups to matter).

As much of joke ISP's are in the states they are God , King and Man in Aussie land. Don't even get me started how horrible New Zealand is with its god awful Internet.
 
Godmachine said:
Data caps with transcon data transfer is the biggest reason. Aussie's are use to caps (sadly) and don't demand the ultimate nature of Internet we do here (at least not in large enough groups to matter).

As much of joke ISP's are in the states they are God , King and Man in Aussie land. Don't even get me started how horrible New Zealand is with its god awful Internet.
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It really is a totally different situation from the US, which is why Netflix is not being hypocritical here.

Unlike the US, where the creation of "fast lanes" (paid prioritization) would require turning the rest of the internet into "slow lanes" (throttled/capped), Australia currently has nothing but slow lanes, so having a few fast lanes there is actually an improvement.

Equality is good thing, except when everything is equally bad.
 
actually Title II here doesn't prevent caps IIRC
 
Our current government don't care about the future of Australia and feel we need to invest and waste money on coper. So as one guy said... we have mostly "slow lanes".

But hey "we are used to data caps" so that means its ok... doesnt it? (if i wasnt so tired from being outraged... i'd rage some more, but frankly.. i'm so over politics and The Stupid.. i just don't have it in me today).
 
FLECOM said:
actually Title II here doesn't prevent caps IIRC
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If people in US had deal to with they lose a lot people really fast or download to slow cheap that has no data cap but side there no reason for data cap any way it load of BS by them ISP and big one to even main lines
 
It's a peering agreement, they covered that in Ars as well, and then a late update turned the story on its head, kinda funny.

Anyway, I'll just post the same argument here:
Imho net neutrality is a bandaid solution for a broken market, it's necessary because the market is the way it is in the US. But in places where local loop unbundling results in consumers having many options to choose from - unlike down here - the concept of NN would be pointless as the end goal was already achieved in a more efficient manner.

I would've loved to see last mile unbundling down here but I guess the regulatory hurdles were too high for the FCC to risk it, I really wish they tried though. Gotta work with what you got I guess.
 
Wierdo said:
I would've loved to see last mile unbundling down here but I guess the regulatory hurdles were too high for the FCC to risk it, I really wish they tried though. Gotta work with what you got I guess.
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FCC makes those hurdles. The basically further cemented ISP monopolies with its Title II's nuanced rulings. Shock.
 
jpm100 said:
We went to war for ourselves. Fuck Comcast.
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You do understand that Comcast is a tier 2 multi-homed internet service provider, right? They have to pay for transport for things outside of their network.

And these regulations will apply to *all* of the ISPs - including the part where the feds now get to oversee peering agreements. I know that I for one expect bureaucrats to understand traffic management and make informed decisions as to what is or isn't "fair" in peering agreements. Decisions that certainly won't be influenced by what kind of jobs they can expect to get later on at firms that benefit from their decisions, amirite?

I mean, if Comcast goes and complains to a certain former cable lobbyist that it really should be a tier 1 ISP and shouldn't have to pay settlement fees for transport, and the government agrees and orders the other ISPs to accept Comcast traffic for free, I mean that's a win/win for everybody, isn't it?
 
jpm100 said:
FCC makes those hurdles. The basically further cemented ISP monopolies with its Title II's nuanced rulings. Shock.
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How so? You think giving them the power to decide winners and losers in the content market - that they themselves offer competing services in - is good for the consumers?
 
Oh and on a related note, check out this corporate shill:
http://arstechnica.com/business/201...et-freedom-act-would-wipe-out-net-neutrality/

“Once the federal government establishes a foothold into managing how Internet service providers run their networks they will essentially be deciding which content goes first, second, third, or not at all," Blackburn wrote. "My legislation will put the brakes on this FCC overreach and protect our innovators from these job-killing regulations.”
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I think she forgot to throw terrorism and children in that "freedom" package's selling points. Comcast should get a $5000 refund for that omission.

In the latest election cycle, Blackburn received $25,000 from an AT&T political action committee (PAC), $20,000 from a Comcast PAC, $20,000 from a cable industry association PAC, and $15,000 from a Verizon PAC
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Wierdo said:
How so? You think giving them the power to decide winners and losers in the content market - that they themselves offer competing services in - is good for the consumers?
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Unbundling would have forced them to accept competitors by promising no unbundling they promised them they wouldn't be forced to accept competitors on their base infrastucture. Voip competitor has to ride on top of the TCP/IP internet space as opposed to the space that Comcast uses which has QoS tuned to voip, etc.
 
jpm100 said:
Unbundling would have forced them to accept competitors by promising no unbundling they promised them they wouldn't be forced to accept competitors on their base infrastucture. Voip competitor has to ride on top of the TCP/IP internet space as opposed to the space that Comcast uses which has QoS tuned to voip, etc.
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In that sense I agree, I would've liked to see unbundling, that's the biggest barrier to a free market in this sector, we wouldn't be stuck with abusive monopolies if it wasn't for that imho. The problem apparently is the FCC doesn't seem to have the balls to push that hard, so I guess they chickened out and we ended up with the current bandaid on a gash.

I shrugged and thought "better than nothing but it's far from ideal" basically.

I would've liked to see unbundling with temporary net neutrality guidelines, and once new competitors started offering services across the nation, demonstrating the free market getting on its feet, then there wouldn't be a need for net neutrality anymore, a customer that can choose from a dozen solutions does not need that protection anymore, they can vote with their wallets.

This is what Australia has and we lack. Though it also sucks to be on a continent at the edge of the world and needing to connect across oceans to access the US/European based content/services, not great for latency.
 
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