Netflix gives cable television a wake-up call – outside of the US

When I first saw the news from Sarah Perez at ReadWriteWeb about Netflix being in the process of setting up a streaming movie service for outside of the United States I didn’t really clue in on it at first. Then as I started to think about it from my position as a resident of one of those other countries outside of the U.S. I realized that this could be the largest wake up call that cable television providers could have gotten that the future is coming to them and it isn’t going to be nice.

You see here in Canada companies like Cogeco, Rogers, and Shaw – the big three cable providers in the country – have had the marketplace pretty well to themselves. As with the telco side of the business they have dictated what we can see and how much they want to soak us for in order to watch what they provide.

Now assuming, with crossed fingers, that Netflix is including Canada among the countries that they are talking about streaming movies to the consumer would now have a viable alternative to cable television. No longer do we have to be reliant on cable television to be our sole source of movie entertainment. Depending on what kind of subscriptions and pricing that Netflix goes with I wouldn’t be at all surprise to see it be an almost instant hit with Canadians.

I know myself that if the subscription price was reasonable and I was able to pay for it using PayPal I would sign up right now. Tie that service in with Windows Media Center and I would be one step closer to being able to say good-bye to an overpriced cable service. Not to mention the brownie points I would earn with my wife.

Here’s hoping Netflix is including Canada in their roll-out plans.

Please!