There’s nothing in Comcast and Netflix’s paid peering...

There’s nothing in Comcast and Netflix’s paid peering deal that’s anticompetitive, Technology Policy Institute President Tom Lenard told us Thursday. A day earlier, Consumers Union said it asked the FCC to see if degradation of Netflix quality for Comcast broadband subscribers violated an order’s conditions letting the ISP buy control of NBCUniversal, and asked the Justice Department to see if it violated a consent decree on the NBCU deal (CD Feb 27 p10). There’s nothing in CU’s letters to the agencies that shows the paid peering is anticompetitive or that consumers won’t benefit, said Lenard, an economist who has opposed the FCC net neutrality order. “It would be great if everything was free” as CU suggests, “but unfortunately that’s not the real world,” he said. “I don’t see any evidence that Comcast has more ‘clout’ than Netflix in these negotiations, and Netflix would not have agreed if the company did not think the deal would be beneficial.” The “reality” of the peering deal, which addresses congestion slowing delivery of Netflix to Comcast Internet subscribers, is it “reflects a common market transaction that yields an outcome more efficient and more quickly than any regulatory intervention could have,” wrote Lenard on TPI’s blog Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1eAsiVJ). “When Netflix pays Comcast for transit, the cost is passed through to Netflix subscribers. This is both efficient and fair, because the consumer of Netflix services is paying for the cost of that service."