Netflix Turning Up the Heat on AT&T, Comcast and TWC Over Data Caps

Netflix is turning up the heat on Comcast, Time Warner and AT&T over data caps that the cable companies place on unaffiliated streaming-video companies. In its latest attempt to end what it considers discrimination on the parts of the three cable companies, the rental and streaming giant is "shopping questions related to data caps to the Senate Commerce Committee members in anticipation of tomorrow's oversight hearing with all five [Federal Communications Commission] commissioners."

Comcast, AT&T and TWC promote their own services by exempting them from the monthly broadband usage caps they apply to Netflix and other unaffiliated companies. Companies that exceed the usage caps -- which Comcast, for example, has set at 250 gigabytes a month -- can have their services cut off, slowed down or assessed with additional charges. Netflix's efforts follow by one week a lobbying call it made to the Federal Communications Commission May 7, asking the FCC to stop cable companies from unfairly favoring their own streaming services.