Netflix Launches Its Own Content Delivery Network

1sockchuck writes "Netflix has launched its own content delivery network to manage data delivery for its streaming video service. ISPs can choose to host caching appliances in their data centers, or peer with Netflix at Internet Exchanges. 'Netflix will provide either form of access at no cost to the ISP,' it said. As part of Open Connect, Netflix is sharing its hardware appliance design and the open source software components of the server. Does this mean Armageddon for the CDNs currently serving Akamai? Not really, according to analysts, citing the leverage Netflix had in dealing with providers."

Comments

The real question is...

[Zaelath]

will their new CDN work out that I'm not in the US more effectively?

Re:OMG! A caching server!

[DarwinSurvivor]

I think the real story here (which the summary completely missed) is that Netflix is not just setting up caching mirrors, they are trying to get the competitors to host the caching servers! Most ISP's in the US (which is about the only place netflix works anyways) are the same companies that have been trying to destroy netflix to save their cable-TV interests.

awesome!

[asshole felcher]

Now they just need some content to deliver.

Re:What about Comcast?

[dgatwood]

And the vast majority of those companies were given money by the government because for many years, every company they asked to serve those areas responded, "Hell, no". The free market works well when there are enough customers per square mile to make competition feasible. In more rural areas, true competition can't possibly work, which means the only viable alternative is a government-run last-mile infrastructure that leases access out to multiple competing ISPs.

Re:What about Comcast?

[Bengie]

If you look at the complaints of Comcast customers, it's that "the internet is slow and I'm getting packetloss" during peak and they don't use P2P or anything hoggish. But you will notice that these people also mention they live in high density areas like large apartment complexes. You will also notice other people claim to be using Comcast in the same city and don't have any issues at all.

During the whole L3 vs Comcast issue, L3 requested 270Gb of additional peering bandwidth. Remember, L3 is a tier1 back-bone. This means Comcast and send data to L3 and L3 will route that data to anywhere in the world. Being that Comcast and L3 have a peering agreement, it effectively means Comcast gets its internet for FREE. When L3 comes to you and offers you 270Gb of free bandwidth and you turn it down, that means you don't have an issue at your trunk. That's enough bandwidth for almost 70k 4Mb data streams

If Comcast doesn't have have congestion at their trunk, then the only other place is their last mile or their middle mile(or whatever it's called). When you own your own network or lease fiber, upgrading the "middle mile" is almost free. The logical conclusion is that the last mile is the bottle-neck.

Re:What about Comcast?

[Jason Levine]

I know that when I was there in the mid 00s there were places in downtown nashville without cable OR DSL because they were both too fucking greedy to spend a dime on infrastructure while the places that did have it were oversubscibed horribly.

Of course, whenever the issue of those under-served towns getting municipal broadband comes up, the big ISPs like Comcast suddenly become very interested in developing there. Not enough to actually develop, mind you, but enough to lobby to squash the project on the grounds that it would be unfair competition. You know, should they ever decide to build there.