Netflix Australia regrets unmetered Optus and iiNet deals

NETFLIX signed some important deals for its launch in Australia, and now it’s regretting them big time. This is what it’s miffed about.

NETFLIX might have signed a deal to give Optus and iiNet customers unmetered streaming of its service, but it appears the company now regrets the decision.

The streaming service argued that signing unmetered agreements with internet service providers weakens their fight for ‘net neutrality’ — the principle that ISPs and governments should treat all data on the internet equally.

For a number of years, Netflix has been publicly battling American ISPs over the issue and now the company has unwillingly joined the fight in Australia.

“Data caps inhibit internet innovation and are bad for consumers,” Netflix wrote in an investor note.

“In Australia, we recently sought to protect our new members from data caps by participating in ISP programs that, while common in Australia, effectively condone discrimination among video services (some capped, some not).”

Netflix said it should not have signed deals with iiNet and Optus, and would avoid signing further deals in the future.

“Fortunately, most fixed-line ISPs are raising or eliminating data caps in line with our belief that ISPs should provide great video for all services in a market and let consumers do the choosing,” they wrote.

Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings said he believes there is no place for data caps in the current digital landscape.

“We want to make the internet unmetered. Period,” he told Gizmodo.

“The capped model is antiquated: we want to make it about speed.

“10Mbps will cost more than 1Mbps and 50Mbps will cost more than 10Mbps and that makes sense.

“Historically, there was so little content in Australia that many users went over the international links and those are pretty expensive, but now there’s more and more content and content caching in Australia.”

Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings