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Will Netflix Destroy the Internet?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the apocalypse-now-now dept.

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."

4 of 577 comments (clear)

  1. So, how long before... by Nevo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...my ISP starts punishing me for using the Internet to do legal things that the Internet was designed for?

    1. Re:So, how long before... by MBGMorden · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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, they'd have realized a simple truth that applies to almost any computer usage, be it processing power, bandwidth, or anything else: today's power users use what tommorow's regular users are. Rather than trying to persecute your heavy users, use them as a metric to gauge what you need to roll out.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    2. Re:So, how long before... by hairyfeet · · Score: 5, Interesting

      500? 150? Hate to break the news to ya, but I'm in one of the "test markets" for the "new" caps, and guess what? It is 36Gb for residential and 76Gb for business so you can say goodbye to things like Netflix, because with caps THAT low, good luck watching movies on the net. Oh and if you go over? $1.50 per Gb! Of course these caps don't count for their own services, nor do they count for Windows updates because they are setting up a WSUS server. Now that net neutrality is dead expect expect to join me in suckitude my friends. My ISP is Cox but from what I was told once they roll it out nationally the others WILL fall suit.

      So enjoy while you can my friends, the party is nearly over. With caps that low the ISPs are gonna make out like robber barons, their test data shows the little old ladies and soccer moms won't be affected so there won't be any bitching from that circle, and of course I'm sure the *.A.A will be happy to throw lots of spin and marketing behind them to the tune of "Only thieves use THAT much bandwidth!" complete with charts in PPT showing how many MP3s or some other worthless comparison. Welcome to the future, where if you don't have FIOS (which from what I understand Verizon is quickly slowing or stopping rollouts all over the place) then you get to enjoy pre broadband Internet. Trust me, it does suck.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
  2. Will Ford Destroy the highway system? by Mikey48 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Your intrepid reported, reporting from 1910...

    Many people are reporting the growing difficulty of navigating their horses and buggies through the town streets due to the growing presence of noisy and fast moving motor cars made by Henry Ford. Predictions are that because of this obnoxious growth in motor cards that our highways will become completely unusable within 10 years!