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Netflix Dominates North American Internet
nairnr writes "Accounting for 29.7% of all information downloaded during peak usage hours by North American broadband-connected households in March, Netflix Inc. received the title in the latest Global Internet Phenomena Report released by Sandvine Corp. on Tuesday.
In its ninth such report, Waterloo, Ont.-based Sandvine found the amount of data consumed by users streaming television shows and movies from Netflix's online service exceeded even that of peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing technology BitTorrent."
Since Netflix uses almost 30% of the whole North American traffic during peak hours, they should really improve their technology. Most of the traffic is in peak hours. Instead of sending individual streams over the internet to every customer, they could develop some kind of protocol which could be used to broadcast all the streams to everyone at the same time. To make sure they don't clog the existing internet lines, they should lay down their own lines. Then they have full control over the infrastructure too. Broadcasting so many different streams probably doesn't work, so Netflix could instead start showing specific programs at certain times and people would tune in at those times to watch their favorite shows. For example once a week Netflix would show episode of every tv show and maybe movies at certain times and days. Since they own the infrastructure too, Netflix could stop worrying about all the different devices and just sell a product you put in your living room and use it to watch Netflix.
If you build it, they will pay.
(Screaming is for the media conglomerates)
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
Gee, they actually made it MORE convenient and people are willing to pay for it. Compare this to what the movie/tv studios do on a regular basis. They make it harder to get the content and people tend to find alternative sources.
See my blog at Who's Who
What I don't understand is why Netflix doesn't go to a BitTorrent style P2P swarm type streaming. This would so much get them around how the cable companies are trying to screw them over for doing nothing more than providing programming that I want over a pipe THAT I PAID FOR.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Think what that percentage would be if they supported Linux, too.
With net throttling and pressure by cable and other internet providers for NO net neutrality (and the beginnings already of quotas), Netflix is doomed. And that's (part) of the point. The providers (Comcast, AT&T, etc) want to provide their own movie streaming services but with the big gorilla in the room, that would be Netflix, they see a problem. Thus they are already setting up tiers, throttling, pricing schedules, quotas, all to murder outside competitors for the services they want to (over) charge captive customers for.
The real Netflix fix, instead of streaming the movie within the tight constraints and impaired quality necessary to prevent buffering, would be for me to order up the movie I wanted that morning like I order up DVD's from them, have them remove a previous movie to make room for the new one, and then d/l it over the day. By the time I'm home in the evening, even a slow DSL line could have a true DVD-level copy available for watching without interruption. The next morning I order another movie or two and the old ones are deleted as part of the new ones arriving. Seriously, this would be such an improvement over the existing system and the expense of mailing much better quality DVDs could go away entirely.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
As a snail mail Netflix user, I'll point this out: Never underestimate the bandwidth of a fleet of federally owned Grumman LLVs driving down residential streets and laden with DVDs.
Simultaneously add the user to the most recent multicast group for that movie.
That'll become possible once it becomes possible to set up and tear down multicast groups over the public Internet.
Such an approach would dramatically reduce the traffic overhead
Exactly how dramatic would it be? Are most people watching the same film, or are people watching different films in the long tail?
Add to that: It would result in more total data going across the ISP's network.
Unless the peer selection prefers nodes that are faster to you and/or share a longer IP address prefix. BitTyrant incorporates techniques like these, which end up choosing more efficient routes to spread pieces within an ISP as opposed to between ISPs. So the edge gets more data going across it, but the upstream doesn't.
The Netflix business model is proving that a payed-for distributed content is 'working' and successful model! Hats off for Netflix's ability to be innovative with client pull-on-demand content that is shifting TV and online media at its core. The mere $9 a month I pay (and that's ALL I pay for TV since I cancelled my cable) is a drop in the bucket to what I would pay if I could get more content.
What MPAA has to learn is that consumers like a business model where actually 'owning' DVD's is not a choice that most want. I've been also saying that Blu-ray is dead (long live blu-ray) ever since it came out. I really don't care to own a plastic disc with a movie burned on it when I can fire up my laptop or PC or Playstation or Wii and watch any move I want, anywhere I have an internet connection. Heck, my P2P downloading of movies and shows has fallen drastically since I subscribed to Netflix. Would I pay to have access to even more content - YOU BETCHA! Would I stop downloading if I could pay monthly fees to have access to quality Disney, Paramount, Sony, et al studio movies and TV shows? YES!!!!
If I, a lone consumer, can figure this out, why can't they? I just want access - irregardless how I get it. If I can pay for it, brilliant! If I have to pirate it to get access, so bit it. But it's their loss, not mine if I'm forced to be a criminal because the studios can get their heads out of there legal asses and figure out their market and customers are screaming to have access to their content.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
I remember in the early 2000s going,"If only someone could stream movies and television shows legally, they'd dominate." I told a couple people and a Comcast rep told me that they're rolling out,"On Demand" which as it turns out is moderately effective. I could never get the business model right to figure out how to legally stream movies without the movie makers going,"You can't stream out copies of our work at all." I even thought,"As long as I have one copy of their product per stream, that could be ok, right?" I never thought,"Open up a mail order delivery system, then transition into streaming later." That was the key to get to where they are now.
God spoke to me.
Making content delivery 'more efficient'? WTF?
Do you know anything about VIDEO and AUDIO? ITS BIG DATA. And in 2012 it will be bigger, and in 2013 it will be bigger... Because people will be wanting 720 and 1080p. Better compression algorithms will only go so far so as to slow down the expansion of demand for that data.
Everyone on slashdot actually knows the truth, which is that our network providers need to be upgrading infrastructure AHEAD OF TIME. They are already behind current times with so much oversaturation, throttling, and capping to attempt to compensate.
WHY NOT JUST DO THE HONEST THING. UPGRADE INFRASTRUCTURE, PASS THE BUCK TO CONSUMER. THAT'S HOW HONEST BUSINESS IS DONE, AND LAST YEAR AT&T STATED THEY COULD DOUBLE INFRASTRUCTURE BANDWIDTH AT A COST OF $6/line. ( I'd urge less profits to upper exectives to afford it, but everyone knows that CEOs run America and its doey-eyed sheep that can't even spell anymore, let alone stop buying from walmart.)
Oh wait.... maybe they can get google to co-opt the upgrade by putting out an ad-sponsored version of internet connectivity! YAY! We can do it the new-american way!
*BARF*.
Am I the only person left that would gladly pay MORE for something BETTER? Must it all be chinese crap of poor design and quality assurance? How many appliances must we throw in the dump, and how many evenings must we sit through lag, for people to realize that cheap-ass business gets you cheap ass product!
Gee, they actually made it MORE convenient and people are willing to pay for it. Compare this to what the movie/tv studios do on a regular basis. They make it harder to get the content and people tend to find alternative sources.
Hello!
The studios are the providers - Netflix is one of their licensed distributors.
Better still, the Netflix "app" is on the HDTV, video game console and set top box. The PC is sidelined and with it the BT client.
So wait, you give consumers what they want for a reasonable price, and they'll pay for it? Who would have thought! One can hope they'll learn from this, but somehow I suspect not :P.
Am I the only person left that would gladly pay MORE for something BETTER?
You're absolutely right. The problem is that we do pay more for something that isn't better. The classic example is to look at Southeast Asian bandwidth/$ rates and compare them to ours. And while I'm aware of the inconsistencies in terrain, culture and government I guess I'm just still a sucker for the bs Nationalist crap that says, "if they can do it so can we - and better."
It's that kind of ego that could really push innovation in this field but alas, I don't think that guys like you and I are all that common. I'd pay more for better to be better, but that's really just one part of a much, much larger equation.
What your asking for has already been done, they are cable companies.
WHOOSH!
people don't actually have an issue with paying to access content and will do so even though they can download the same stuff for free on bittorrent.
How the content industry let netflix take that market that was open for them to grab and how the music industry managed to let a niche computer company take over a similar music market that was open for them to grab I will never know.
Well actually of course I will know, too busy clinging to the distribution model they already had.
Google (via YouTube) and Facebook are way ahead of you on figuring that one out.
Incidentally, the last I heard before this, Netflix had something like 26.9% of prime time traffic (and were #1) with YouTube and Facebook distant #2 and #3 (at 19% and 17% I believe), so the only news here is their % went up ~3% (I made a post on that about a month ago).
You just have to give value for money. Music industry: it's pretty obvious why people either only buy singles or pirate whole albums.
Netflix lets me watch something once that I don't want to pay to own permanently, and I can watch up to 720 hours of movies/TV (i.e. leave it on constantly) a month for 10 bucks. Beats the hell out of pay-per-view as well, of course.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it