The Netflix Case Against Comcast, in One Chart

We’ve already heard Netflix executives explain why they signed an Internet deal with Comcast, even though they say they didn’t want to: They say they had to pay Comcast for access to its broadband pipes because their video streams were suffering. But here’s a new version of the same argument: Netflix says it had to pay Comcast for access to its broadband pipes because Netflix was starting to lose customers.

“For many [Comcast] subscribers, the bitrate so poor that Netflix’s streaming video service became unusable,” Ken Florance, Netflix’s vice president of content delivery told the Federal Communications Commission. He noted that Comcast representatives eventually told subscribers to take their beef to Netflix. “Those customers complained to Netflix and some of them canceled their Netflix subscription on the spot, citing the unacceptable quality of Netflix’s video streams and Netflix’s inability to do anything to change the situation.” Florance doesn’t say how many customer his company lost. But he does include a chart that shows a huge spike in customer complaints last fall , at the same time Netflix said its streams were compromised. The subtext: Guess what happens if Comcast gets even more powerful?