Comcast and Netlix are in a dispute involving a fee that Comcast wants to impose on streaming video like Netflix. Could this be the issue that wakes up America to the issue of net neutrality?
Level 3 Communications, a central partner in the Netflix online movie service, accused Comcast on Monday of charging a new fee that puts Internet video companies at a competitive disadvantage.
Level 3, which helps to deliver Netflix’s streaming movies, said Comcast had effectively erected a tollbooth that “threatens the open Internet,” and indicated that it would seek government intervention. Comcast quickly denied that the clash had anything to do with network neutrality, instead calling it “a simple commercial dispute.”
The dispute highlighted the growing importance of Internet video delivery — an area that some people say needs to be monitored more closely by regulators. Net neutrality, which posits that Internet traffic should be free of any interference from network operators like Comcast, is thought to be on the December agenda of the Federal Communications Commission.
“With this action, Comcast demonstrates the risk of a ‘closed’ Internet, where a retail broadband Internet access provider decides whether and how their subscribers interact with content,” Thomas C. Stortz, the chief legal officer for Level 3, said in a statement Monday.
Net neutrality for some reason has become a partisan issue and I’m not sure why. I think the fact that it’s really been an abstract issue for most has a lot to do with it. The supposedly liberation-minded Tea Parties have come out against net neutrality. Perhaps when they can’ get their Netflix they’ll change their minds?