Netflix cut a deal with AT&T, just like the ones with Verizon and Comcast
Almost as soon as news broke in February that Netflix had agreed to pay Comcast for a direct connection to its network, Verizon and AT&T were in line with their hands out as well. Verizon reached a deal months ago -- that so far has done little to resolve streaming issues -- and now Netflix and AT&T have confirmed that they reached an agreement in May, as first reported by Mashable. In a statement, they said the process of turning up the connections should take place "over the coming days." Netflix CEO Reed Hastings already laid out his disapproval of the ISPs and their policies, and more recently suggested that if the Comcast / Time Warner Cable merger goes through, the combined behemoth should be barred from charging for interconnects. We wouldn't be surprised to hear something similar about the proposed AT&T / DirecTV combo too, and with the FCC's recent statements on this issue we suspect things are far from settled.
Netflix / AT&T:
We reached an interconnect agreement with AT&T in May and since then have been working together to provision additional interconnect capacity to improve the viewing experience of our mutual subscribers. We're now beginning to turn up the connections, a process that should be complete in the coming days.
