In the on-going feud between OTT content providers and Internet service providers over who is responsible for low streaming speed, the ISPs — oft-reviled cable and telephone companies — make convenient villains. But after receiving a public shaming from Netflix, Verizon has decided to point the finger right back at the dominating streaming service. It accuses Netflix for “purposely select congested routes”, which Netflix has denied, so as to manipulate the ISPs to cover the cost of upgrading their infrastructure, while essentially blaming the humongous Internet traffic caused by Netflix on its vast popularity.
But taking a step back, it’s easy to see the bottom-line here: congestion at the interconnection point is in fact controlled by ISPs like Verizon. And if the customers are paying the their ISPs monthly to stream Netflix at a decent speed, then no other excuses would be valid for ISPs to jettison that responsibility. Maybe the ISPs are conveniently villainous for good reasons after all.
