Netflix Flexes Its Muscles

Having played a pivotal role in persuading the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice to reject Comcast’s attempted merger with Time Warner Cable, Netflix has seemingly done an about face and given its blessing to Charter Communications’ bid to acquire TWC. In a letter to the FCC dated July 15, VP of global public policy Christopher D. Libertelli said, “Netflix  supports the proposed Charter – Time Warner Cable transaction if it incorporates the merger condition proposed by Charter.”

Key to the apparent change of heart was precisely that “merger condition proposed by Charter,” specifically a commitment by Charter to offer settlement-free peering with edge providers like Netflix across its entire expanded footprint.

“Charter’s new peering policy is a welcome and significant departure from the efforts of some ISPs to collect access tolls on the Internet,” Libertelli wrote. “Charter’s policy will promote efficient interconnection with on line content providers and with the transit and content delivery services that smaller online content providers rely on to reach their consumers. Charter’s endorsement of the policy as an enforceable merger condition will ensure that consumers will receive the fast connection speeds they expect.”

Charter outlined the new policy in a separate filing with the FCC, also dated July 15.

Comcast’s successful effort to impose interconnection fees on Netflix was the main reason Netflix aggressively opposed Comcast’s bid for TWC. Peering agreements were also the main focus of Netflix’s lobbying in support of net neutrality, urging the FCC to require open interconnection policies as part of its Open Internet order (in the end the FCC did not include specific rules for interconnection arrangements in its order, but set up a process for reviewing complaints against ISPs brought by consumers or edge providers).

Seeing Netflix’s success in both the Comcast-TWC review and the net neutrality proceeding, Charter apparently decided the better part of valor was to forgo interconnection fees — effectively granting Netflix de facto veto power over ISP mergers.

Read the rest of this post at Concurrent Media.