A recent National Football League (NFL) playoff game streamed exclusively by Comcast's direct-to-consumer service Peacock justifies the need for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to impose tougher network neutrality rules on broadband providers, rival streaming service Netflix said in a brief filed with the agency last week.
The comment from Netflix comes several months after the FCC said it was revisiting the Obama-era regulations, which require internet service providers like Comcast to largely treat internet traffic the same, without preference toward specific websites or online services.
Comcast owns NBC Universal, whose broadcast network NBC shares the rights to regular-season NFL games, playoff games and the championship Super Bowl game with Fox Corporation, Paramount Global's CBS and the Walt Disney Company's ESPN and ABC.
Earlier this month, NBC Universal became the first broadcaster to take what has historically been a nationally-televised football game and relegate it exclusively to a streaming platform. While the match-up between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins was broadcast on over-the-air television in the home cities of the two teams, most of the country could only watch the game live if they had a subscription to Peacock, which starts at $6 per month.
The move upset many long-time football fans, who believed a football game with playoff implications should have been free to access on free broadcast television, just as it had been in the past. It also spurred an angry letter from a federal lawmaker, who said the Commissioner of the NFL should look into the matter.
Still, many football fans ultimately shelled out for Peacock, with Comcast reporting 16.3 million concurrent device streams during the playoff game. That figure and other data points caught the attention of Netflix, who used the FCC's public comment period on its revisiting of network neutrality rules to say the Peacock-exclusive game stands as further proof that ISPs need to be better regulated so they do not offer preferential treatment to their own services.
"Many ISPs have affiliated pay TV and/or streaming content services that directly compete with independent, online content companies," Netflix wrote in its public comment brief, which was filed with the FCC last Wednesday. "ISPs with affiliated services have a clear incentive to advantage their affiliated services by either (1) degrading the quality of their competitors’ content or (2) increasing their competitors’ costs."
Broadband companies don't see things the same way. Long averse to network neutrality rules, ISPs and their public interest groups claim the industry has worked well under self-regulation and warn that any regulatory shifts now could complicate their efforts to build out next-generation, fiber-based broadband networks.
"The FCC’s effort to impose a common carrier regime on broadband service providers will undermine the progress America has made to increase speeds, lower prices, and close the digital divide," Grant Spellmeyer, the CEO of ACA Connects, which represents rural and small-scale ISPs, said in a statement. "For smaller broadband providers, it will add substantial burdens and compliance costs that will make it harder to invest and compete in their communities and in new markets."
Specifically, ACA Connects opposes a potential reclassification of broadband internet providers as "Title II" utilities, which would allow the FCC to regulate things like service prices and prohibit so-called "fast lanes" by which websites and services like Netflix would be charged a fee to have faster or direct access to broadband customers.
Instead, ACA Connects and other industry stakeholders believe broadband companies should remain under Title I regulation, which governs services that make information available over telecommunication lines.
"ACA Connects is again urging the FCC to stay the course with balanced regulation and abandon its proposals," Spellmeyer said last week. "Rather than interfere with a market that is working, the FCC should be focused on getting all stakeholders to join together to improve broadband access and adoption for all Americans."