ISPs are common carriers and must be regulated as such, because as soon as Comcast makes its own netflix-like service, you can forget getting netflix to stream smoothly.
Comcast owns NBCUniversal and a 1/3 share of hulu as well as an "ondemand" service through the comcast cablebox and the internet, "soon" happened already. And in many places netflix on comcast already does not stream smoothly (almost unquestionably due to throttling of netflix traffic).
So if you can make a case that they're "almost unquestionably" throttling Netflix, you could probably find some people very interested in that... but it sounds more like they were just saturated and are now taking steps to alleviate it.
"Not available in all areas. Set-top box required to access On Demand on TV. Programming not available On Demand in all areas. Basic Service subscription required to receive other levels of service. Not all programming available in all areas. Equipment, installation, taxes and franchise fees extra. Pricing subject to change. Streampix included with the following tiers of service: Blast Plus, HD Preferred Plus XF Triple Play, HD Premier XF Triple Play and HD Complete XF Triple Play. Services and features subject to change..."
[1] http://www.comcast.com/streampix (see the legalese at bottom)
Now Comcast gets to count these bytes against their customers' quotas, and it costs them nearly nothing to deliver the traffic.
This reminds me of NNTP, but Netflix is still running their own hardware.
[1] Netflix's "Open Connect" https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect/guidelines
Strategically, Netflix was holding a far weaker hand because the ISPs had no reason to give in since their brand perception was already so bad. I mean really, is it possible to hate Comcast more than most people already do?
Yes. Right now the average person only hates Comcast because its a monthly bill, it increases frequently, and there is not much competition, they don't yet hate Comcast for the technical reasons "internet" people do.
But if Comcast starts making Netflix, YouTube, etc not work correctly and starts affecting the average American's daily life it will become a political issue. Congressmen will start seriously discussing turning the internet into a utility.
I don't think Netflix should have to engineer a solution to that problem AND pay the ISP for the privilege of saving them tons of money.
If the costs (4U of rack space, networking equipment, and network engineering around privacy/security) are more than the ISP would save, it's an easy decision.
Note that in this case, it does not appear to be the use of an appliance. If that were the case I think we'd see the Netflix content coming from a Comcast IP.
I believe they've been looking at offloading that congestion and frankly moving Netflix is a no brainer.
198.45.63.0/24 *[BGP/170] 2d 05:02:06, MED 150, localpref 100, from 68.86.80.82
AS path: 7922 2906 I
To me, this is disturbing. Surely there is some financial incentive for Comcast to do this.
It seems to me that this is exactly the kind of thing that the whole "net neutrality" issue is trying to prevent (i.e. back office deals that give one content provider better access over others)
Or... am I just missing lots of things? (wouldn't be the first time!) :)
I'm a Comcast user in San Mateo, CA.
Only after calling and complaining for a week did they change the route, and magically, the latency and 50%+ packet loss went away.
Even so, if it were in fact going via the IX, you'd see Netflix's IP from the exchange (206.223.116.133) as hop 8 in the traceroute.
Have fun blocking that address and other known Netflix cdn
