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Will Netflix Destroy the Internet?
nicholasjay writes "Netflix is swallowing America's bandwidth and it probably won't be long before it comes for the rest of the world. That's one of the headlines from Sandvine's Fall 2010 Global Internet Phenomena Report, an exhaustive look at what people around the world are doing with their Internet lines. According to Sandvine, Netflix accounts for 20 percent of downstream Internet traffic during peak home Internet usage hours in North America. That's an amazing share — it beats that of YouTube, iTunes, Hulu, and, perhaps most tellingly, the peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol BitTorrent."
destroy Slashdot?
It's well on the way - /. just isn't as relevant as it was years back.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Well, that bandwidth is what I pay my ISP for...
Does your electrical company increase your rates or move to a higher tier if you run appliances all day long? What about your water company? I know in my area both of these apply. Which is why it's cheaper to have water trucked in than it is to use the old garden hose. If I was closer to a fire hydrant I could ask the water company to run a line and hook up a meter as well.
Or are you just a bit sore that your 500GB limit, which probably equates to 100 netflix movies a month will be used up? If you're watching 100 netflix movies a month I suggest you try using that other service called..
FRESH AIR.
Netflix is not Bittorent and has a well defined source which is a commercial entity. So the ISP knows after who it needs to go.
Netflix already pays its ISPs. There's no one for anyone to "go after".
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
All the dark fiber in the world won't help solve the Last Mile problem.
My ISP makes a point of saying it - "Streaming movies and TV shows". Right there in it's spiel. All the networks are rigged to favour it - our Last Mile is asynchronous, giving us more downstream than upstream, because they want us to be good little consumers and download content, not upload it.
And now people are making scared noises because it finally worked and people started doing it? And not just scared noises, deploying technical measures to counteract it? My ISP will throttle your connection if you download more than 750MB during "peak" hours ; exactly the time you'd want to be watching a movie. Good luck with that if the stream bandwidth exceeds your new bandwidth limit, which is very likely if it's an HD stream.
While I'm glad they are taking measures to prevent my connection grinding to a halt, I'm rather disappointed that they aren't upgrading their Last Mile enough to support it - especially as they make such a fuss about being "fibre optic" (to the cabinet, not the home, shame).
I would say, if "Netflix is swallowing America's bandwidth" then America bandwidth needs to increase.
... which they then followed up with along the lines of “so hey, how about we charge extra for iPlayer bandwidth”, when the real problem was the UK bandwidth was and still is too low (just like America bandwidth). In countries with much faster internet access, these video services take up far less of the overall percentage of bandwidth and so do not swallow all the bandwidth.
@parent post, I know you are joking about ISPs but this story is really a covert PR story by the anti net neutrality people. This same kind of story was tried in the UK using the example of the BBC iPlayer bandwidth, trying to say it was a major drain on UK Internet bandwidth
Scare stories like this are used as a marketing chess move by the anti net neutrality lot of lobbyists. They want to charge for specific kinds of data and in the UK the next move they are playing is also aiming to earn even more from then also spying on the data (via deep-packet inspection) which is also needed to kill net neutrality. (The growing Police State in the UK is also seeking to use deep-packet inspection for its 24/7 spying on everyone). Deep-packet inspection has to be made illegal globally or they will continue to push to exploit it.
So to the idea "Netflix is swallowing America's bandwidth", I say, bullshit!, America needs and in time will have more bandwidth, so these reports are bullshit, no one needs to worry about these scare stories. Its like the old saying, follow the money, and the money people are behind stories like this.
Plus oh what a surprise, Sandvine, the creators of this so called report, (Two faced PR marketing move more like), already use deep-packet inspection, so they would gain from killing net neutrality and selling their services.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandvine
Sandvine you two faced bastards, we can see through your chess moves.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
I don't know. This could be a GOOD thing. Previously, there seemed to be some stigma attached to high bandwidth users. Anyone who was using a lot of bandwidth was "obviously" doing SOMETHING shady. With the birth of services like this, it's starting to become quite common for regular old users to suck-up lots of bandwidth. I think the ISP's may finally have to pony up some dough and upgrade their infrastructure.
Of course, if they'd had a bit of sense,
Thing is, the ISPs are still pissed off that you are buying a legitimate service from someone other than themselves. So they aren't going to do anything that would make it easier for you to give your money to anyone who isn't them.
You are still "obviously" doing something very wrong in their eyes.
There is no way the ISPs (especially cablecos and telcos) will change their position on this and be customer friendly unless they are forced with a pretty big stick
And after the recent US election, I can't see that happening in the near future. Consumer protection laws seem to be pretty much the opposite of the Tea Party philosophy. Or GOP, for that matter (speaking as a non-american looking in)
---
"I can't complain, but sometimes still do..." Joe Walsh
Actually, Sandvine's claims for Canada call into question their American data. Sandvine claims that Netflix accounts for 95% of data in Canada during peak hours, and this only a month after launch with a currently very small customer base. If they're going to claim such ridiculous and provably false figures (several independent ISPs have spoken up saying that, while they have noticed an increase, 95% is a load of crock), how can you trust their US data?
It may just be that I'm misinterpreting your phrasing, but even while disagreeing with them you seem to have fallen into the ISP's trap: Google and Netflix are already paying for their upstream bandwidth. They pay upstream at the datacenter, the customers pay downstream at the home/office.
What the ISPs want is for the content providers to pay something for the downstream at the customer's end as well as the customer.
Incidentally, I get the impression that there's actually plenty of capacity, for the moment at least. Obviously upgrades cost money and must be ongoing, but my 50Mbps connection in London was reasonably priced (when split between a household of four), uncapped and provided close enough to the advertised speed that I was happy.
It's less that they're worried about covering the cost of upgrades (although I'm sure that comes into it somewhat) and more that they just want to come up with a plausible sounding reason to be paid twice.
ISPs have absolutely nobody to blame but themselves. They sell ever faster services on the back of promises that it will let you stream video, then complain when people use it to... surprise surprise... stream video. It's no different to the days when they offered "unlimited downloads" then complained if anyone went over a few gigs per month. They want to sell you a service that you will never use, in the hope they can sell the same service to lots of other people who'll also never use it and then they won't actually need to provide the service. They need to wake up and smell the coffee, if they can't deliver this stuff they shouldn't promise it and they certainly shouldn't be taking our money for it.
1990's: "Spam email is using up all the available bandwidth."
2000's: "P2P file-sharing is using up all the available bandwidth."
2010's: "Netflix is using up all the available bandwidth."
Somehow the internet survived and will continue to do so.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
I note you have no video game consoles, and so I assume further that you rarely play games on the internet, and moreover your 4 BluRay players suggets you rarely torrent either.
In short, it's no surprise you don't see the downsides of NAT. Meanwhile the rest of us who do required user level end-to-end net connectivity know that NAT is the devil and needs to die for the sake of the web. When you find yourself unable to use the latest applications and/or protocols, you will come to realize this too.
May the Maths Be with you!