Remember this from early June? Netflix and Verizon are still feuding over who's to blame for slow streaming speeds. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) The battle over Netflix streaming speeds is still raging. Level 3 (LVLT), a firm Netflix (NFLX, Tech30) and others pay to deliver traffic to Internet service providers, joined the fray Thursday, accusing Verizon of refusing to upgrade its infrastructure to boost lagging streaming speeds.
Netflix has been complaining for months that some big broadband companies are allowing streaming speeds to slow down in order to compel Netflix to pay them for a faster connection. Netflix reached paid connection deals earlier this year with Comcast (CMCSA) and Verizon (VZ, Tech30). But it said it did so "reluctantly," arguing that the Internet providers were abusing their market power to extract tolls.
The battle came to a head in early June when some Netflix subscribers on Verizon's network were seeing a message pop up on their screens about slow video speeds.
This was happening just before Netflix was set to debut season 2 of its widely popular and Emmy-nominated series "Orange is the New Black."
The broadband providers counter that Netflix is generating ever-increasing amounts of data consumption on their networks without helping to pay for the infrastructure upgrades necessary to deliver that content. They also argue that Netflix could route its traffic more efficiently to avoid congestion, but that it refuses to do so because it doesn't want to increase its costs.
In a blog post Thursday, Level 3 vice president Mark Taylor said the cost for Verizon of reducing the congestion at connection points "is absolutely trivial."
"Could it be that Verizon wants to extract a pound of flesh from its competitors, using the monopoly it has over the only conn! ection to its end-users?" Taylor wrote.
A Verizon spokesman said Friday that the company was planning a response to Level 3. Netflix said Level 3 "is highlighting the same purposeful congestion by internet service providers that we have been discussing for months."
Online video is the buzz of Sun Valley The dispute has drawn the interest of the Federal Communications Commission, which said last month that it planned to gather information on the issue to determine "precisely what is happening" and "whether consumers are being harmed."
Figuring out those questions isn't easy because none of the companies involved are telling the full story, said Dan Rayburn, a streaming media expert with Frost & Sullivan.
"This whole back-and-forth is getting really tiresome because none of them are showing all the pieces of information -- they're just showing what's in their favor," Rayburn said. He called on the firms to be transparent about the expenses involved in the various business arrangements being debated.
Netflix and Verizon have been criticizing each other despite the fact that the two companies reached an agreement in April in which Netflix will pay to boost streaming speeds by connecting directly to Verizon's network. This connection apparently isn't yet being used for all the traffic Netflix sends to Verizon, however.
Other big tech companies like Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) and Apple (AAPL, Tech30) have similar agreements with Verizon.
Getty Images Throughout the economic recovery of the past five years, one area that hasn't seen as much improvement as expected has been worker pay. Yet even though one survey of major employers forecasts pay raises next year will continue growing more slowly than a decade ago, some finally believe that the long lull in labor cost increases could finally come to an end. If that happens, it could take away one of the key underpinnings of the bull market in stocks that has been running since 2009. The 2014/2015 U.S. Compensation Planning Survey from the human resources consultants at Mercer found that most employers expect to keep their pay raises for 2015 in line with the recent past. After gains of just over 2 percent in 2009 and 2010 that corresponded to periods of extremely high unemployment, wages have increased at a higher rate. Nevertheless, employers have managed to keep increased labor costs within a tight range of 2.7 percent to 2.9 percent over the past four years, and Mercer expects that 2015 raises will come in at around 3 percent once again. But not every worker can expect to see raises that size. Mercer found that the energy industry -- which has seen some of the largest growth in the domestic economy recently thanks to the boom in unconventional oil and gas exploration and production -- should see base pay rise 3.5 percent on average next year. By contrast, several other industries, including service providers outside the financial sector, will see subpar earnings growth. Moreover, merit will determine a substantial portion of overall pay raises. Top-rated workers can expect to get raises of nearly 5 percent, while those among the lowest-rated in any particular company will be lucky to see pay levels stay flat, according to Mercer. Getting Back to Normal? Even with the slight upward trend in raises, growth in salaries still hasn't matched levels from 10 to 15 years ago when jobs were more plentiful and workers were in demand. As unemployment rates have fallen, though, companies have started getting the message that they'll have to pay their best workers more in order to retain their top talent. If that happens, then it would be good news for struggling workers, who've had to endure tough financial conditions for a long time. Median household income fell for four straight years following the 2008 recession, and even after a modest recovery, it remains below levels from the early 2000s . With inflation running at 2 percent, a 3-percent pay hike won't fully close the gap, but it will keep median incomes moving in the right direction. What's good news for workers could be bad news for investors, though. A Catalyst for the Next Correction? Historically, profit margins for U.S. corporations have run at around 6 percent, according to data from the U.S. Department of Commerce. Over the past several years, though, profit margins have climbed well above that level, ranging from roughly 8 percent to 10 percent. Although a number of factors have kept profit margins high, low labor costs and higher worker productivity have played key roles in helping companies cut costs. Many analysts have feared, though, that the trend toward lower labor costs was bound to reverse itself in time. Much of the focus of that fear has been on signs of inflation for raw materials used in manufacturing, but if labor costs climb back toward more typical historical levels, then they could put further pressure on corporate profits. High profit margins have contributed greatly to rising earnings, which in turn have helped keep the stock market climbing. As the bull market ages, though, a pause in earnings growth could be the catalyst for a long-awaited correction in stocks. If pay raises do start to accelerate this year and in future years, then resulting higher labor costs could turn out to be the cause of the next stock-market downturn. 
Gas prices have slumped to their lowest August level since 2010, according to Gasbuddy. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) Drivers, rejoice! Gas prices are the lowest they've been at the start of August in four years.