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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...
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!
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.
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.