Interesting PR campaign from Netflix, which is fighting with the cable guys and telcos over the cost of delivering all that streaming video to your living room: The company is going to publish a list of broadband Internet providers, ranked by performance.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings’s letter to shareholders goes on about his company’s position vs. the ISPs at great length, and I’ll reproduce it at the bottom of the post.

But you can summarize it in a sentence: If the broadband guys insist on gouging us to get video to our customers, we’re going to make a very public stink.

So tomorrow’s list is a warning shot, meant to give the ISPs a sense of where Netflix is willing to go on this one.

Hastings says the list will detail “which ISPs provide the best, most consistent high-speed Internet for streaming Netflix,” and offers a preview: Charter is tops, right now.

But if you invert Hastings’s description, you get what he really means: We’re going to tell some broadband customers that they’re getting screwed and should switch to a new provider. Heads up, Time Warner Cable, Comcast, etc.

In other news, Netflix casually tossed off another very good quarter: The company added three million subscribers in the last three months of 2010, and says that a third of its new customers are choosing its new streaming-only plan. International expansion is still on the table for 2011 and is a major focus for Netflix going forward, Hastings said.

Here’s his warning/threat to the broadband business:

Recently the FCC adopted a version of net neutrality for wired networks in the U.S., and it’s a step in the right direction. The focus is on fair-play within an ISP’s network, but does not explicitly address entry into the ISP’s network.

Delivering Internet video in scale creates costs for both Netflix and for ISPs. We think the cost sharing between Internet video suppliers and ISPs should be that we have to haul the bits to the various regional front-doors that the ISPs operate, and that they then carry the bits the last mile to the consumer who has requested them, with each side paying its own costs. This open, regional, nocharges, interchange model is something for which we are advocating. Today, some ISPs charge us, or our CDN partners, to let in the bits their customers have requested from us, and we think this is inappropriate. As long as we pay for getting the bits to the regional interchanges of the ISP’s choosing, we don’t think they should be able to use their exclusive control of their residential customers to force us to pay them to let in the data their customers’ desire. Their customers already pay them to deliver the bits on their network, and requiring us to pay even though we deliver the bits to their network is an inappropriate reflection of their last mile exclusive control of their residential customers.

Conversely, this open, regional, no-charges model should disallow content providers like Netflix and ESPN3 from shutting off certain ISPs unless those ISPs pay the content provider. Hopefully, we can get broad voluntary agreement on this open, regional, no-charges, interchange model. Some ISPs already operate by this open, regional, no-charges, interchange model, but without any commitment to maintain it going forward.

Tomorrow, we’ll publish on our blog ongoing performance statistics about ISPs collected from our 20 million subscribers detailing which ISPs provide the best, most-consistent high speed internet for streaming Netflix. We can tell you now, though, that for our subscribers streaming Netflix, Charter is the highest-performance ISP in the United States.

Recently, there was a report that at peak times Netflix subscribers in the U.S. were driving about 20% of peak downstream last-mile Internet traffic. This may or may not be accurate, but it should be noted that because we pay for the data to be delivered to regional ISP front doors, little of this traffic goes over the Internet or ISP backbone networks, thereby minimizing ISP costs, avoiding congestion, and improving performance for end-using consumers.

An independent negative issue for Netflix and other Internet video providers would be a move by wired ISPs to shift consumers to pay-per-gigabyte models instead of the current unlimited-up-to-a-large-cap approach. We hope this doesn’t happen, and will do what we can to promote the unlimited-up-to-alarge-cap model. Wired ISPs have large fixed costs of building and maintaining their last mile network of residential cable and fiber.

The ISPs’ costs, however, to deliver a marginal gigabyte, which is about an hour of viewing, from one of our regional interchange points over their last mile wired network to the consumer is less than a penny, and falling, so there is no reason that pay-per-gigabyte is economically necessary. Moreover, at $1 per gigabyte over wired networks, it would be grossly overpriced.

Cue disbelief from people who have indeed cut the cord. Or at least want to cut the cord.

Today’s episode comes courtesy of Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, during his company’s earnings call this morning. Guess what he said after an analyst asked if his recent Netflix deal would push cable subscribers to bail out and go Web-only?

Okay, no need to guess. PaidContent’s David Kaplan jotted down Dauman’s response:

Even through this powerful recession, TV viewership held up. There is much ado about nothing, when it comes to talk of cord-cutting. We have seen subscribers on more networks increase, because we’ve seen incremental distribution from the telcos. We don’t see cord-cutting happening. If anything, it’s the economy that holds down subscribers. As it returns, so do the subscribers.

Since we’re going to see/hear this movie many more times for quite some time, it may be worthwhile to start figuring out how both sides could be right.

Here’s a theory to start with: Cord cutters are real, but they’re a very vocal minority, and they’re dramatically overrepresented on sites like this one. And even if you’re not a cord cutter, I’d guess that if you’re reading this site you’re much more likely than the average American to have a media- and tech-savvy friend who has cut the cord.

The flip side of the argument is that pay TV numbers may still be increasing, but not by much. And if the cable guys are right, and the losses they’ve been seeing are because the economy is lousy, then that strikes me as much more important than they’re letting on: Who gives up TV, and how can the cable guys not figure out a way to sell them TV at a price they can afford?

So, again, I’m just spitballing. Take it from here, or let me know what you think.

Yesterday Dodd, along with Sen. Russ Feingold (D., Wis.) said they plan to take steps to block FISA as long as it grants retroactive immunity to telecoms complicit in the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program. “No one seriously wants to financially cripple our telecommunications industry,” Dodd said in remarks before the Senate last night. “The point is to bring checks and balances back to domestic spying. Setting that precedent would hardly require a crippling judgment. It’s much more troubling, though, that our director of National Intelligence even bothers to speak to ‘liability protection for private-sector entities.’ This isn’t the Secretary of Commerce we’re talking about, but the head of our nation’s intelligence efforts. For that matter, how does that even begin to be relevant to letting this case go forward? Since when did we throw entire suits out because the defendant stood to lose too much? It astounds me that some can speak in the same breath about national security and bottom lines. Approve immunity, and Congress will state clearly: The richer you are, the more successful you are, the more lawless you are entitled to be. A suit against you is a danger to the Republic! And so, at the rock-bottom of its justifications, the telecoms’ advocates are essentially arguing that immunity can be bought.”

And, according to MAPlight’s analysis of PAC campaign contributions from Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T) and Sprint (S), it can.

To prevail, Dodd’s filibuster must be supported by 41 of the 100 senators. If its opponents can muster 60 votes–a distinct possibility given the number of Democrat’s who’ve compromised with the Republican White House on this issue–it will fail. And the 40 or so lawsuits over civil-liberties violations arising from the Bush administration’s controversial domestic wiretap program will be dismissed.

U.S. House and Senate leaders agreed yesterday to extend the Bush administration’s controversial wiretap program through at least 2012 and grant immunity to the telcos that participated in its warrantless domestic surveillance operation. Great news for AT&T (T) and other companies facing some 40 lawsuits over civil liberties violations arising from the program. Lousy news for those who filed them. “The lawsuits will be dismissed, and we feel comfortable that the standard of evidence that the law requires will be easily met,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., bluntly.

Comfortable that the standard of evidence the law requires will be met? How could you not be? The law allows the government to conduct “emergency wiretaps” without court orders on U.S. citizens for up to a week if the information is sensitive and the director of national intelligence fears it might be lost by seeking proper authorization.

Shades of J. Edgar Hoover, no? Said Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), co-chair of the House’s Progressive Caucus, “This bill scares me to death.“

U.S. House and Senate leaders agreed yesterday to extend the Bush administration’s controversial wiretap program through at least 2012 and grant immunity to the telcos that participated in its warrantless domestic surveillance operation. Great news for AT&T (T) and other companies facing some 40 lawsuits over civil liberties violations arising from the program. Lousy news for those who filed them. “The lawsuits will be dismissed, and we feel comfortable that the standard of evidence that the law requires will be easily met,” said House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., bluntly.

Comfortable that the standard of evidence the law requires will be met? How could you not be? The law allows the government to conduct “emergency wiretaps” without court orders on U.S. citizens for up to a week if the information is sensitive and the director of national intelligence fears it might be lost by seeking proper authorization.

Shades of J. Edgar Hoover, no? Said Rep. Barbara Lee (D., Calif.), co-chair of the House’s Progressive Caucus, “This bill scares me to death.“