Advanced Television

Hastings: ‘No Netflix box’

May 30, 2014

By Colin Mann

reed_hastingsNetflix CEO Reed Hastings has dismissed the prospect of the Internet entertainment streaming service offering its own connected device as is the case with market rival Amazon Prime Video.

During a Q&A session at the Re/code technology conference in Palos Verdes, California, Hastings said that the company feels no need to have its own device for users. “We’re working over 1,000 devices now. There’s no value-add for us to do a device,” he stated.

He also took the opportunity to warn that allowing Comcast to acquire Time Warner Cable would be a blow to net neutrality, suggesting that decreased competition in the high-speed Internet market could lead to Comcast increasing its fees to operators such as Netflix.

“If [they] charge a little bit now, they’ll charge more and more and more,” he contended. “They want the whole Internet to pay them for when their subscribers use the Internet.” Hastings said that Netflix is forced to pay Comcast “because the deal was better than the prior state; we felt we had to”.

Categories: Articles, In Home, IPTV, OTT, Policy, Regulation, STB