Comcast accuses Netflix of purposely sabotaging its own streams

A couple days after Netflix and Comcast fought in public, the two companies, who are supposed to be partners, are at it again. Three days after Netflix CEO Reed Hastings publicly opposed Comcast’s planned acquisition of/merger with Time Warner Cable, one of his lieutenants has done the same thing: Ken Florance, the company’s vice president of content delivery, published a blog post complaining about the way Comcast treated its streams before Netflix agreed to a commercial deal in February. And not surprisingly, Comcast* has responded with its own blog post, accusing Netflix of being less than honest about its motives. Normally at this point we would note that all this makes for entertaining blog reading, and leave it that. But Comcast has upped the ante, by accusing Netflix of something extraordinary: The cable company says the video company sabotaged its own streams prior to the transit deal the two companies reached earlier this year.