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How Netflix Eats the Internet
pacopico writes "Every night, Netflix accounts for about one-third of the downstream Internet traffic in North America, dwarfing all of its major rivals combined. Bloomberg Businessweek has a story detailing the computer science behind the streaming site. It digs into Netflix's heavy use of AWS and its open-source tools like Chaos Kong and Asgard, which the Obama administration apparently used during the campaign. Story seems to suggest that the TV networks will have an awful time mimicking what Netflix has done."
No, they pay their ISP bills like everyone else.
I feel that way about cable.
Too much content I don't want, advertising, and shows are played via some schedule instead of streamed when I want. Sure there are workarounds like DVRs, but that is just a bandaid on a huge gaping wound.
One byte at a time?
What a stupid comment -- especially for someone highjacking my /. name.
They'll use their bought and paid for congress critters to get Netflix legislated to death and use their industry connections to get even more content taken away from Netflix to keep them under control...
There is still too much content I want that Netflix does not have available for streaming, making it not worth the price.
So you're not even counting towards that 33.33% of traffic. But a lot of people do and they are *paying* for this content.
Lots of demeritz to Starz, who started this "we're toooooo posh for Netflix" and now the other MAFIAA outfits Warner Bros. and MGM and Universal that will drive people to pirate their content.
If they think that people will subscribe to 10 different "streaming sites" like they do "cable packages", they are insane.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Comparing TV networks to Netflix is like comparing an ancient Spartan soldier to a modern, fully armed, US Marine.
Basically taking advantage of an infrastructure it doesn't pay for?
If anything(given that buildout is expensive, and keeping a run of either copper or fiber maintained and backhoe-free isn't free), Netflix is, in addition to paying its bandwidth bills just like everybody else, providing the rather valuable service of giving millions of customers a reason to buy more bandwidth.
Given the steady advances in cramming bits over lines, even shitty legacy copper, the more bandwidth your customers want to buy, the more bandwidth you get to sell per fixed-cost(rights of way, keeping the lights on at HQ, dudes in bucket trucks, etc.)
And we are paying for that downstream bandwidth. Netflix, I'm sure, pays an insane amount to their ISP for the bandwidth they use.
You are using the same logic that AT&T used when they wanted their "google tax".
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I just heard another news story that said it's 3% of all internet traffic in the US at night. That's a pretty big discrepancy. Given all other services like youtube and Hulu and all peer to peer, I seriously doubt it's 1/3. It probably is 3%.
ISPs only have so much capacity to sell though.
And Netflix is buying what ISPs are selling. And more importantly, Netflix's customers are buying their connections.
I hear this every so often since I used to work at an ISP. Basically the ISPs are longing for the days where they could sell a grandma a 10 meg connection for $100 a month and watch her use 100kb of bandwidth a day when she checks her email and looks up recipies.
Granted, we do have a problem with network saturation, where ISPs sell product they do not own, but that's their own fault, not Netflix nor their customers.
I feel that way about cable. Too much content I don't want, advertising, and shows are played via some schedule instead of streamed when I want. Sure there are workarounds like DVRs, but that is just a bandaid on a huge gaping wound.
I love the DVR you pay the cable company more each month so you can watch shows when you want because they like money!
This is why I cancelled cable TV and purchased a $40 antenna for my house and now use Amazon Prime for streaming service.
So they should raise their prices then?! Or maybe put down some more pipes?
If an ISP has a problem with its customers using bandwidth, they really have three options:
1) Raise prices per/MB; 2) Get more bandwidth; 3) Get rid of customers who use a lot of bandwidth. It seems that many ISPs want to do only 1 and 3, where the logical thing is to do 2 (because bandwidth usage will only increase in the future, and and ISP that can provide it, will have an edge of those that can't).
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
Is Netflix basically taking advantage of an infrastructure it doesn't pay for?
Nope. I'm taking advantage of an infrastructure that I pay for. I apologize for not contributing more to the CEOs of America, but I'm sure they'll find a way to get their money on my cash, one way or another.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
I would be more than happy to be able to actually download movies from Netflix during non peak times to watch at some other time. This would allow spreading out the bandwidth over the course of a day instead of everyone streaming at peak times such as 7PM EST,CST,PST
Streaming services will continue to degrade our bandwidth unless we are given the ability to download movies\shows during off hours to watch later.
I feel that way about cable.
Too much content I don't want, advertising, and shows are played via some schedule instead of streamed when I want. Sure there are workarounds like DVRs, but that is just a bandaid on a huge gaping wound.
well imagine if the content on netflix what americans had on cable in 2006 and you'll have nordic netflix! like 3 seasons of mythbusters! WHEEEE!
(yeah I should stop being lazy and cancel my sub, the reason for the poor 3rd party content on the netflix over here is that the americans who own the shows sold 'em on exclusivy deals to the domestic networks over here.. so netflix doesn't have rights to show 'em..)
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
If they think that people will subscribe to 10 different "streaming sites" like they do "cable packages", they are insane.
The sad thing is that they already do. Folks are used to paying multiple providers for content - and/or paying those providers for multiple packages. I don't think the internet will end up being any different.
Sad, but I'm afraid that's the way it's gonna go.
Hell, how many people have huge numbers of streams replacing what used to be the telephone? Email, twitter, facebook, their cell phone, their landline, text messages, etc.
Actually Netflix is trying to get past transit ISPs as much as possible via peering. Provide free peering and caching appliances to ISPs, they get their content closer to the customer, and cut down their transit costs.
I don't know everything.
It helps if you upgrade your equipment, rather than look for the world's greatest ROI on 10 Mb hubs...
I am John Hurt.
$8 is less than the cost of a matinee movie, and that's too much to pay monthly for potentially thousands of hours of video?
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
If I've learned anything from Sid Meier, it's that spearmen are damned tough bastards to beat when they want to hold their ground.
They can think that all they want. Not gonna happen.
I can always wait for DVDs.
Comparing TV networks to Netflix is like comparing an ancient Spartan soldier to a modern, fully armed, US Marine.
You give the TV guys far too much credit. Your hypothetical Spartan soldier would, of course, be doomed by inferior technology; but it is unlikely that he would resort to petulant litigation or pernicious lobbying.
Of course. The internet (not unlike everything else) tastes like chicken.
I can't imagine running out of stuff to see on Netflix, but then I only watch about a half hour or so of TV a day. Don't get me wrong, I still waste brain cells via internet instead of the boob tube... it's just that I find Netflix to be cavernous in terms of content.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Such as?
I pay for Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, NHL Center Ice, and per episode subscription for the few TV shows that I consider not worth waiting for to have the season released for "free" to the aforementioned services when they are not available on Hulu. I still save more doing it this way than I would spending money for over 1000 channels I have no desire to pay for or watch.
I run Ubuntu skinned to look like a Mac on a PC. Go figure.
Precisely, commercial bandwidth is one of the few areas where capitalism seems to be working. The price has come down substantially over the last decade. If they can't afford to provide what Netflix needs, then they should raise the rates and build out the infrastructure.
Problem solved.
He learned that from the British.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The main reason that my parents still have a satellite is sports. MLB sells their online package, but you can't see local market games on it until after the point where it's worth watching. The price is reasonable, but because it's only really useful for seeing out of market games, it's not something that somebody who likes the home team is likely to be able to get much use out of.
Personally, I don't really care, I rarely watch new programming and when I do, I'm willing to wait a week to see it online.
It eats the Internet too, eh?
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Yes, but for $8 a month you can get access to the entire DVD catalog, so $8 for the streaming library which is tiny comparatively speaking is way too much money.
Precisely, commercial bandwidth is one of the few areas where capitalism seems to be working. The price has come down substantially over the last decade.
Don't confuse capitalism and technology. The price has come down even more in some less capitalist countries.
I agree. To create an analogous situation with something other than Internet service, imagine Microsoft started going around to every business running Windows/Exchange, saying, "Hey, we deserve some of your profits. You're using our products to make money, and it's totally unfair that we don't get a cut." That'd be ridiculous,right? Microsoft offered a product, and you bought it according to their terms. If you think they deserve a percentage simply because you use their product to make money, then where does it end? Why can't 3M come after you for a percentage because you use post-its.
Even in talking about Internet service, why aren't ISPs going after every company with a website? I work for a company with a website, and we get business through the internet. We use our Internet connection to conduct our business. Should our ISP be able to come after us for a percentage of profits, just because we make money by using out Internet connection?
No. We pay for out internet connection. We pay for our hosting. Our customers pay for their internet connections. That's all the ISPs can lay claim to: the charges for providing Internet service.
Really, the only difference with Netflix is they end up being a competitor to ISPs who also provide Cable service. Well boo-fricking-hoo.
And we are paying for that downstream bandwidth. Netflix, I'm sure, pays an insane amount to their ISP for the bandwidth they use.
You are using the same logic that AT&T used when they wanted their "google tax".
If Netflix is smart, they'd would hook into various Internet exchanges to reduce their transit/ISP fees.
If the last-mile ISPs were smart, they'd install Netflix's appliance locally and reduce their bandwidth:
https://www.netflix.com/openconnect
You realize you're talking about Grecian society that quite literally gave us those things, right?
I'm pretty sure that Athens did a lot more of the heavy lifting on that side of things. They also had perks like 'culture' and 'occasionally not existing in a state of total war'; but their legal and political shenanigans are quite legendary.
Just like Akamai and others were doing 13 years ago...
'tv networks' are still in the screaming MINE MINE MINE MINE phase...
they won't even try doing what netflix has done. it won't even occour to them until they're broke and gone.
i hope cbs and fox go cable only over their hissyfit about aereo. and i hope they go alacarte so i don't have to pay for that shit. and then i hope they go bankrupt because nobody watches that obsolete shit.
its the only way they will learn.
Internet2. That would have the bandwidth to do everything they need.
Netflix paid Akamai to do this for them, although I believe they changed from Akamai last year (I am not sure if they went with another vendor, or if they started doing it themselves).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
With streaming, you're paying for instant access. Yes, you can get any DVD from them for $8 a month, and you have to wait, at minimum, two days after you select your title, to arrive. Then you have to return it before they'll ship another. That's a big inconvenience compared to streaming. I also am on the DVD plan, but I consider it a nice addition to streaming, not the main draw. If you were just on the $8 DVD plan, you could, at most, watch about 40 hours a month (a four hour TV disc every three days). With streaming, you can watch a significant portion of their catalog 24/7 all month. The value there is enormous.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
I pay for Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, NHL Center Ice
What do you do for NHL games that are blacked out of NHL Center Ice because they are shown on national or regional cable television? Last year the freaking finals were shown on what is now NBC Sports Network, a cable channel.
If they used modern H.264 and AAC encoders rather than whatever outdated VC.1 and WMA encoders they're using, they could cut that bandwidth use by a third, reducing their costs and improving the customer experience tremendously. Does anybody know why they haven't already done this?
Which is why distributing through AWS also makes sense. Tumblr and others do the same thing. It's called: most efficient CDN you can construct. And with luck, it will eat Comcast/xFinity's lunch, along with a long list of broadband cable provider's meals. Yes, you still need the last mile. No, you don't need the goofy TV signal infrastructure at 720p on a good day. Free your cable: use all of the bandwidth for packets.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I can always wait for DVDs.
Including DVDs of sporting events that are blacked out of the league's online service because they are shown on national or regional cable?
I run a small hobby ISP and I can have effectively as much bandwidth as I'm willing to pay for, or rather, as much as my customers are willing to pay for.
As a somebody selling internet access, I love Netflix and any other online service that give my potential customers a chance to blow through the incumbent telco's artificially low transfer caps (I don't put caps on my service). I can't think of another business where the typical vendor prefers that his customer use less of the product he sells. It makes no sense to me.
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
I love how the cable companies (ie:Comcast) can call me up offering me a Cable/Internet package for $70/month, only $5 more than what I nominally pay for Internet only ... but flat out refuse to tell me what the actual cost would be after taxes/fees (I was literally told that I should sign up and can cancel it after the first month if I don't like what the taxes are). I'd gladly pay an extra $5-10/mo for full cable TV access ... but in reality it's more like 20-40 after taxes and fees (which largely don't apply to Internet-only service). /rant
And those are additional reasons why Netflix+Antenna+MythTV > Cable TV
There is still too much content I want that Netflix does not have available for streaming, making it not worth the price to me, but I'm just one person whose opinion doesn't mean anything at all in the grand scheme of things, and certainly doesn't add anything to this discussion.
FTFY.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Really, the only difference with Netflix is they end up being a competitor to ISPs who also provide Cable service. Well boo-fricking-hoo.
+100 Internets to you good sir.
You appear to be in an Apple household. There's a DVD slot on Macs until very recently, and even if not, you can add a DVD slot by buying a USB DVD burner for about $30 on NewEgg.
imagine Microsoft started going around to every business running Windows/Exchange, saying, "Hey, we deserve some of your profits. You're using our products to make money, and it's totally unfair that we don't get a cut." That'd be ridiculous,right? Microsoft offered a product, and you bought it according to their terms. If you think they deserve a percentage simply because you use their product to make money, then where does it end? Why can't 3M come after you for a percentage because you use post-its.
Well they did do something analogous to this when they were doing site licensing. I don't know if they still get away with the practice but at one time they charged a per desktop license fee. Not a per installed copy mind you...they quite literally charged per machine on the premises and it did not matter if it was running a MS product or not. If the entire marketing dept. was using Macs they still got charged for a Windows license for every Mac. Engineering group all running on Sun Sparc? doesn't matter they all get charged a license.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
If any sports franchise (major league, NCAA, etc.) were to get a streaming contract that doesn't require a cable/satellite subscription, it would be the beginning of the end. I think they realize that, and is why they lock down things like ESPN3 or NFL Gametime, etc. Sports is where the revenue is for the operators...not channels like Syfy.
It's possible that that figure was only on Internet2, which has mostly academic users. Or is Netflix using BitTorrent for their downloads?
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I'll readily grant that Netflix, just like pretty much every other service ever created, is not necessarily for everyone. Particularly if you're into sports or want to watch stuff as it comes out, Netflix is probably not for you. But for those of us who prefer to wait until a show is a few seasons in or entirely completed before we even pick it up, Netflix is the best thing since P2P.
In contrast to cable plan I cut even before I started with Netflix, I now have:
1) Orders of magnitude more things to watch right now, and more of it in 1080p.
2) A subscription that costs 25% of what I used to pay ($8 vs. $30).
3) An ability to watch video while away from home.
4) No need to purchase/rent a separate device to timeshift or store content.
5) The ability to watch shows a season at a time without having to store that content or plan doing so in advance.
6) Recommendations that are actually really good for stuff I haven't seen yet.
7) No more commercial breaks or wasting time watching intros/credits on TV series.
8) No hidden fees, great customer service, and no contract.
Again, it's not for everyone, and for many people the best it can be is a supplementary service that may allow them to reduce the amount they spend elsewhere or else add some extra content that they couldn't get otherwise, but for many people, it can add a LOT of value over what cable has to offer while still being significantly cheaper.
Such as sports. If I were to replace cable TV with Netflix and NHL Center Ice, games shown on national or regional cable TV would be blacked out.
To be fair, let's limit it to scripted works more than a decade old. According to CanIStream.it, Netflix doesn't have the film Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, the film Song of the South, the film Secret of the Incas, or the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea.
Back in the old days, when Netflix worked by mailing physical DVDs, their bandwidth was about 1/3 of the total bandwidth of the Internet. They had a much higher latency (~48 hours), but a huge amount of parallelism and 4GB packet sizes.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Netflix charges 8 dollars a month for offering more content than many people who pay 100 dollars a month get from their cable subscription.
One household in my survey sample keeps cable TV around for NCAA football, NFL, NHL, and UFC. Another keeps cable TV around for MSNBC. Netflix doesn't offer such live programming.
FYI, 1 and 2 are mutually inclusive.
...Steve
Better idea just upgrade the internet connections.
Say you want to watch 24-minute episodes of a TV series on your 30-minute-each-way bus commute to and from work. To stream on the bus, you'd need an expensive cellular data plan. And it's expensive because there's a limit to how many cellular subscribers can be served at once.
I don't want to decide what I am going to watch hours in advance.
You do if you're watching a whole season of a TV series in order.
I have no interest in leaving some machine on burning power to record a show for later.
Even if you have no such interest, millions of pirates using BitTorrent have such interest.
My AppleTV is connected to a computer-only LCD panel (it only has VGA, DVI and HDMI inputs, no built-in tuner).
I thought computer-only LCD panels tended to lack audio output. Did you have Apple TV in mind before you bought your computer-only LCD panel to make sure it had an audio output?
Netflix doesn's spam. BTW your first link links to a malware site. The second describes that it was not netflix, but a spammer advertising netflix.
This is the problem with affiliate systems. People will always find ways to abuse them, and it will not be the original company. I have recieved affiliate spam that eventually goes through amazon. Was amazon responsible? No.
Granted, some companies do a better job of policing their affiliates, but all it takes is registering a few dozen domains, pasting up some crap pages, signing up for a new affiliate account, and firing off your lists again. Meanwhile pages on those same domains are serving up 'free ipad' ads to the unwary and harvesting more emails.
Silence is a state of mime.
So, Firefox complains the first site you linked to has malware, ignoring that, it's also blocked by corporate firewall...
The second link complains about a netflix ad on a webpage; I don't see what that has to do with spam e-mail?
So, I'm calling you a malware spreading link spammer.
imagine Microsoft started going around to every business running Windows/Exchange, saying, "Hey, we deserve some of your profits. You're using our products to make money, and it's totally unfair that we don't get a cut."
You don't have to imagine it. Apple does it with iOS every day. You want to put your software on a iPad or iPhone, or make any money off of said app--Apple wants their 30% cut (or hit the road, Jack).
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Forget about Netflix, the real question is: what is this "Internet" thing?
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Your comment got me thinking, and I came up with one. Insurance. ISP's want to be like insurance companies, collecting money for a service they don't want you to actually use. Unfortunately, they're not providing a service that their customers would rather not have to use.
I think it's high time to classify ISP's as a utility and be done with it.
I felt this at first, too, and I can still always find something when I'm in the mood to watch TV. But I will admit that I'm increasingly frustrated that I can't find some shows or movies that I'd like to see, and by things disappearing off the lineup. Still good, but not perfect.
I think it's high time to classify ISP's as a utility and be done with it.
Completely agree
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
1. native linux client
2. local storage of download content - they can encrypt it, require phone home verification, whatever but let me store things I would want to watch later on my local machine, up to as much storage space as I care to allocate
I can't think of another business where the typical vendor prefers that his customer use less of the product he sells.
Golden Corral and other buffet restaurants.
ISPs only have so much capacity to sell though.
Yes, and like any product when demand exceeds supply you would then invest in your company to increase your ability to fulfill it. It's called "business is going well -- we're expanding".
Starz content on Netflix sucked anyway. None of their stuff was in HD, and the prints looked like 3rd generation VHS dubs. Good riddance. Tough luck for whoever gets stuck with their half-assed shit.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
But since most ISPs are either unlimited or have such punitive overage charges that customers will never pay them, greater demand for bandwidth generally does not translate into more revenue for ISPs. Even the lowest tier 5 Mbps plan is sufficient to watch Netflix.
I can't imagine running out of stuff to see on Netflix
Agreed, every time I think I'm going to run out, I run into a new series or movie that I like. I'm watching that BBC series "Copper" right now. Would probably never have discovered it without Netflix.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
Isn't that a disclaimer appropriate for pretty much everything said on /.? Well, except for what *I* say, of course.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
A lot of BitTorrent traffic shifted to cyberlockers like MegaUpload a few years ago; I don't know if it has come back since then.
Even that, however, is not charging a percentage of profits *in addition* to the licensing fee. Besides, I'm sure that licensing arrangement was completely optional. Those businesses could still buy Microsoft products from the store according to normal licensing terms, but they got a better deal through this per-seat licensing.
I do, it is super cheap.
You need to switch providers.
I think it comes with 10Mbit for each rack.
An ability to watch video while away from home.
Are you talking about over Wi-Fi or over cellular?
No need to purchase/rent a separate device to timeshift or store content.
Unless you're on a TV that doesn't have a built-in Netflix player. Then you need to buy a Netflix player, but I'll grant that this is often cheaper than a DVR.
No hidden fees
Other than the loss of the discount on Internet service that the cable company used to give for also having TV. Some people report their ISP giving them a TV subscription for almost no additional charge.
Yeah, but to extend the simile, the Spartan won't go down without a helluva fight. And he'll be kicking, screaming, and biting the whole time.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
imagine Microsoft started going around to every business running Windows/Exchange, saying, "Hey, we deserve some of your profits. You're using our products to make money, and it's totally unfair that we don't get a cut." That'd be ridiculous,right? Microsoft offered a product, and you bought it according to their terms. If you think they deserve a percentage simply because you use their product to make money, then where does it end? Why can't 3M come after you for a percentage because you use post-its.
Well they did do something analogous to this when they were doing site licensing. I don't know if they still get away with the practice but at one time they charged a per desktop license fee. Not a per installed copy mind you...they quite literally charged per machine on the premises and it did not matter if it was running a MS product or not.
That's not the same as it only references in-business usage. This would be like Microsoft asking for a percentage of quarterly revenue from your company simply because everyone is using Outlook/Exchange justifying it as the email service helped facilitate business.
Or how about the Ford company asking a taxi fleet for a cut of the per-mile rate because the vehicles are all Ford made, ignoring that the vehicles were all purchased paid in full by the company already.
This isn't as ridiculous of a request as it may seem. Caching music is what made me a Spotify customer.
Though I believe Apple should open their platform up more, I would argue that the Apple situation is very different. They're offering a storefront and distribution for 30%, which really wouldn't be too bad if it weren't mandatory that you use their storefront. At least Apple is hosting things, designing the store, developing software, handing credit cards, etc.
Now imagine that, in addition to Apple taking their 30%, your ISP charged app distributors an additional 20% because the app was downloaded over their network. Seems particularly unfair, doesn't it? Well how is that different from ISPs wanting a cut of Netflix's profits?
I can't think of another business where the typical vendor prefers that his customer use less of the product he sells. It makes no sense to me.
It makes sense, it's just not a good way of doing business. It would be the same as an all-you-can-eat buffet worried about how much food customers are consuming for their flat rate. If customers consume more, the business loses more money. But yeah, the right way of doing it is like you're doing it: Just make more food so everyone has enough and raise your price a bit if you need to. I wish more ISPs would see it that way.
Considering how tiny the selection is, it's a moot point. It doesn't seem to matter whether one likes new or old, they're both gimped in terms of selection. And it doesn't seem to improve if you're interested in more obscure movies.
Bottom line is that you don't get $8 worth of service, unless you've got weird tastes. And certainly not enough to justify them taking the savings on warehouse and postage and keeping it for themselves.
From TFA:
They call me "18-Inch Guy", too... Probably for different reasons.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I think lots of us imagined the idea of a virtual rental service, where you rent out over the internet videos limited by the physical copies you have on your person. This would be similar to libraries or physical video rental services. The problem is you'd probably be sued. Netflix went about it the right way by doing a physical rental operation first.
God spoke to me
But most ISP's aren't really paying more for bandwidth anyways except at the last mile. The converstation I had with a few network guys was that they figured it was probably costing a few fractions of a cent more a MB than it was a few years ago.
The reason is, is that most of the major ISPs are part of netflix openconnect program. This reduces the cost to last mile bandwidth which isn't exactly as expensive to provide fast speeds for, though over subscription on a cable provider for your area could cause some serious over saturation.
https://www.netflix.com/openconnect
The openconnect I believe also saves netflix money too as they only have to update the openconnect instead of say 100 users. So when arrested development is out in the wild they will update the openconnect and everyone will be connecting to those to prevent over-saturation of netflix primary services.
At least that's my understanding.
I feel the same way. I think a lot of people are just too stuck up to enjoy shows that aren't blockbuster, AAA quality TV. My hobby is map making and scripting for games I play and I usually have something playing on a secondary monitor whenever I'm coding. Just finished watching Continuum and thought it was great. There have been a couple times I thought about canceling over the last five years but I always find something interesting by searching through the different sections and stick around.
Everyone I know has Netflix. It has become like having a Facebook account and a Gmail address.
Apparently that you are very lonely.
Note to inveterate Slashdotters: there is a form of inter-human communication that involves no electronics. It's an arcane technique sometimes called "in person" or "face to face". It does require you to be in actually proximity to the other person but has certain advantages. For instance, audio and video quality are exceptional. It can also allow for "tactile communication". This is particularly desirable when meeting a member of ... never mind, in Slashdot that would get me rated "-1: Absurd Fantasy".
"Sorry, Internet is not available in your country yet.
Enter your email & we'll let you know when Internet is available."
That's all i know about that "netflix". Segmented Internet. Not good.
aaaaaaa
Yes but ISPs DO go after business with " You're using our products to make money, and it's totally unfair that we don't get a cut" attitude.
Case in point: "Business plans" for internet service. I don't know about where you live, but I can tell you: the local telco will not provide "residential" $20/mo DSL service to "commercial" phone lines. They instead "offer" the cheapest $50/mo "business plan" that offers less speed (3mbit vs 6mbit) but includes "up to 10 email addresses, 50MB of web space" while residential service offers only 1 mailbox and no web space. You can't opt not to have the useless 50MB space or the 10 mailboxes with 100MB storage (combined).
There's also no mention of an SLA, and you're stuck with the same 800-number helpdesk when you run into trouble.
MS requires a CAL for each user accessing servers running Windows. Or they offer a site/enterprise license that removes the burden for individual CALs. They didn't/don't require a CAL for a box that didn't access the Windows Server.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
Well it is a very important point though when you think about it. If you are stuck between buying a cable subscription and getting netflix and you want something like sports your kind of stuck getting cable. Some of the major sports have subscription based viewing but I think the MLB one is the only one that covers a substantial amount of live games(home and away) but you still have to pay around 100 bucks for their service.
This will change but it doesn't change the fact that netflix has a limited number of sports on it and as far as I'm aware none of them are live. That can make netflix a no go for a lot of people who are stuck choosing between one or the other. Personally I don't watch much for sports so netflix and other services work swimmingly for me.
well, in that case you could add gym memberships. They would love to sell memberships to people who never come. (And that does happen.)
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
I know /. thinks this is funny, but some communities still use carried pigeons + USB sticks because it offers far superior bandwidth to what is available.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
Weird tastes? Just since the beginning of the year I have watched (by streaming) the following: Cheers, The Office, Breaking Bad, Psych, Burn Notice, Frasier, Archer, several not-very-obscure British series (Sherlock, etc...), and perhaps a dozen mainstream (made actual money when theatrically released) movies, Hunger Games and MI:4 included. I see nothing "weird" in that list. Perhaps you need to revisit Netflix.com.
The "savings on warehouse and postage" they "keep for themselves" is put towards the enormous bandwidth that this article is about, plus some profit that companies are supposed to make for their shareholders.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
> Tough luck for whoever gets stuck with their half-assed shit.
What else would you expect from Sony?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
And who wants to add a big honking DVD player hanging off their iPhone or iPad mini?
If you bought the iPad to stream movies, then you should have checked for availability of the particular movies that you wanted to watch on available streaming services before buying the iPad.
I would kill for Google Fiber to cover the South Bay area. I live about ten miles from both Apple HQ and Google HQ (Sunnyvale), and I can't get cable Internet service, either. My only options are MegaPath DSL, AT&T DSL, and possibly some wireless services. (No, satellite Internet does not count.) And even though AT&T keeps sending me ads for U-Verse in the mail, when I actually go to check availability of business-class U-Verse service, they tell me that it isn't offered in Sunnyvale. My grandparents' house in rural Kentucky gets faster service than I can get halfway between the headquarters of the two largest tech firms in the world.
But because my choices range from horrible to worse, while I wait for Google to rescue me from South Bay Internet hell, I've set up a poor-man's Akamai service. My server serves the text content, and all the images come from a shared hosting provider with a fast connection. It also checks once an hour, and if the shared hosting provider ever goes down for longer than that, it transparently fails over to local copies of the images. All because I can't get a usable home network connection with upload speeds measured in megabits instead of kilobits. Blech.
Please, Google. Please start providing service in the South SF Bay area.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
One [carrier] will [upgrade its network] and the rest will have to follow.
Either that or all four carriers will decide to just kick off users who use what they deem excessive data transfer volume, just as all four decided at once to double the SMS rate from 10 cents to send or receive a message to 20 cents.
If you're getting internet from Comcast, you already get the OTA channels unencrypted for free
Not for long. See this story from October.
I agree. To create an analogous situation with something other than Internet service,
... just step outside and look at the roads around your house. Most of them spend most of the day empty of cars.
Oh just this once I wish they have tons of useless patents preventing the "man" from doing this easily.
Why? You object to Netflix being able to stream movies and other entertainment to millions of people who want it? I don't understand...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I'm still on one of the old unlimited AT&T plans
Are grandfathered plans transferable from one customer to another?
And if I still want to use my non-smart TV, I'm set if I have a game console
Not necessarily. Microsoft charges an extra $60 or so per year for Xbox Live Gold service to access your existing Netflix subscription from your Xbox 360 console. Someone who plays only single-player and offline multiplayer wouldn't already be paying that.
Of course if a buffet restaurant had a similar expense profile to an ISP, the food itself would be (almost) free...:)
How would it be free? Each transponder on each cell tower has only a limited amount of bandwidth to serve customers within the cell. And new cell towers are nowhere near free.
And don't forget that Megapath used to be Speakeasy, which just rents out AT&T lines. As a result, they have even worse speeds than AT&T, and AT&T has a direct incentive to not fix their noisy lines.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
I know /. thinks this is funny, but some communities still use carried pigeons + USB sticks because it offers far superior bandwidth to what is available.
Bullshit.
Remember that Info over carrier pigeon can make you real money.
He had info, lied about it to make people go the other way, then cleaned up, based on info from pigeons.
Have you looked at how healthcare works in this country?
It's a matter of lock-in. By giving you this package the way they did they insure themselves against the situation where you personally aren't interested in TV, but maybe next month you meet the girl of your dreams, a single mother with a three year old kid. NOW you suddenly want TV, and Cablevision's competitor has this really neat bundled offer ...
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Also Athens at its height was around 20,000 citizens (plus women and children who didn't count) and over 100,000 slaves who actually did all the work. In effect all that democracy and philosophy we treasure was brought to us by elite misogynist slave owners :P
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
That's a lot of traffic for a service that everyone I've spoken to claims has nothing good.
the difference is, the apps use apple's storefront, apple's payment gateway, apple's software and update distribution, apple's ad network, etc, etc, etc. apple is earning their cut.
netflix is ONLY using internet bandwidth that has ALREADY been bought and paid for by them and by their customers. isp's have already made their money on providing the pipes, they don't deserve a penny of netflix revenues, or any 'tax' or 'surcharges' from their customers.
They probably can break their bandwidth cost down per-customer (on average.) It obviously must cost less than shipping a DVD via the USPS a few times a month. I'm a bit curious how close that margin is. Are the saving a few cents per customer per DVD, or closer to thirty or forty cents? I suppose they probably wouldn't want to tell us if they could, for fear of giving competitors useful information.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I keep reading a third of the internet is porn, a third is bit torrent, 2/3 is spam, and now 1/3 is Netflix.
Where do you stand to measure this traffic. If it doesn't cross a peer is it traffic? Do I count each leg of a path?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Agreed on the "disappearing" thing. We watched half a movie, came back the next day to finish it and it was gone! Still, my queue is growing, not shrinking.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
They are also a huge buyer of pop-up/pop-under ads. Yes, I know everyone around here uses a pop-up blocker, but that doesn't change the fact that Netflix thinks it's perfectly okay to harass users with pop-ups.
Depends on where you live
"New monthly data transfer capacity of 15 GB for uploads and downloads combined"
http://www.videotron.com/residential/internet/residential-internet/internet/basic-speed-internet
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
We have COX business and have been very impressed. While the speeds that they offer are lower, i am much more likely to get the speed promised because my traffic is prioritized at the switch. I have never waited more than 24hrs for a tech to show up and fix the problem, and they've always been very nice on the phone with short wait times. I have also had no hassle whatsoever using netflix or torrenting, and have no evidence of any kind of traffic shaping. All that combined with a static IP to run my personal website on, it's well worth the extra that i pay.
Networking 101: Bandwidth != Latency.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
The same way you take advantage of the roads that you didn't really pay for.
You mean like the 300 guys that held off 100,000?
Comparing TV networks (actually Cable really) to Netflix is like comparing apples to oranges. While both provide entertainment, they provide different types of content.
I find it quite funny always those comparisons: Xxx is using 1/3 of Internet, 10% of heavy users download 99% of normal users, etc.
But nowhere they tell you how much capacity is left.
You know that Netflix could create 99% of the whole of Internet traffic without affecting anything if there is enough capacity left?
"Netflix eats the Internet" says only something about how much Netflix is favoured by the Internet users. It says nothing about Internet capacity.
http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
Case in point: "Business plans" for internet service. I don't know about where you live, but I can tell you: the local telco will not provide "residential" $20/mo DSL service to "commercial" phone lines.
Well, yes they will, if you live in the US. One of the legacies of the Bell break-up thirty years ago was the establishment of a two-tiered tariff structure for telephone service. The regulation was very clear on this. If the line terminated at an address in a residentially-zoned area, the phone company that serviced that area had to charge the residential tariff. If it terminated in a commecially-zoned area, the phone company could charge the commerical tariff, which was 3X as large as the residential one. The location drove the tariff, not the class of consumer. It was for that reason that the dial-in servers for the ISP we started here in Tucson in 1995 were located in the garage of a residential house we rented in a quiet neighborhood. The tech support staff could live in the house and be available 24/7, and we avoided $28/mo/line on 30 lines, paying only $14/mo/line instead of $42. The phone company, US West, pitched a bitch but that was all they could do. Well, they did drag their heels for nearly a month and did try to charge us $12k to drag copper less than a hundred meters from their loop to our POP, allowing our rival to get online ahead of us. We were the second ISP to go online in Tucson by exactly 30 days as a result of their gamesmanship. When we realized they were just being assholes, we switched to MCI/Sprint, who charged us a token fee (around $200 IRRC) to drag copper nearly a klick from their loop, and got it done in two days.
THIS...IS...NETFLIX!
(apologies to Gerard Butler and Frank Miller)
MS requires a CAL for each user accessing servers running Windows. Or they offer a site/enterprise license that removes the burden for individual CALs. They didn't/don't require a CAL for a box that didn't access the Windows Server.
Correct, however this wasn't CAL licenses. This was for copies of Windows. Microsoft sent in auditors from BSA and they simply counted desktops.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Netflix use Level 3, LimeLight *and* Akamai ... and are looking at their own CDN stuff too ... just because no one vendor can provide all they need for them and they will change the edge servers you're pointed at dependent on metrics being taken from their partners ...
That was kinda my point; people with a 15 GB cap will not sign up for Netflix at all. They won't sign up for Netflix, blow their cap, and pay $100/month in overages. So Netflix does not cause ISPs to earn more money.
The site wasn't always a malware site. I probably should have posted the Internet Archive link to it. The author there described receiving unsolicited commercial E-mail from Netflix, and I distinctly remember having also received unsolicited commercial E-mail from Netflix. This would have been in the early 2000s or thereabouts.
Be who you are...and be it in style!
If they made another series of Firefly and you could only watch it legally on tv, by paying for Cable and getting a buttload of garbage you didn't want, then yes, I would probably torrent it. If, on the other hand, you could purchase it legally either by streaming it or by just buying the dvds? I would buy the crap out of it.
And Arrested Development is amazing. I recommend that you go watch it. It's pretty big news in the geek world that netflix is bringing it back - because it was a fantastic show, not because of any sort of stupid groupthink.
...Just like the US and its Constitution... :)
(zigzags away)
Interesting how no one commented that maybe this isn't the best use of the Internet....... Shouldn't all these private companies and corporations be on a "business internet" and leave the WWW for us real people out here? Oh wait, we're all gun-toting, freedom-loving, god-fearing free-market capitalists. Can't have that, now can we?
In my case, Megapath used to be Covad, but yes, they're just renting the AT&T lines. That said, at least back when they were Covad, they did manage to get AT&T to at least fix some of the problems with my line. YMMV.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
To be fair google.com usb carrier pigeon is more key strokes than chevron, copy&paste + Bullshit.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
So they should raise their prices then?! Or maybe put down some more pipes? If an ISP has a problem with its customers using bandwidth, they really have three options: 1) Raise prices per/MB; 2) Get more bandwidth; 3) Get rid of customers who use a lot of bandwidth. It seems that many ISPs want to do only 1 and 3, where the logical thing is to do 2 (because bandwidth usage will only increase in the future, and and ISP that can provide it, will have an edge of those that can't).
But, but, building infrastructure costs MONEY!
Losing high bandwidth users or raising rates makes the balance sheet look good and makes the shareholders happy and doesn't cost us any real money!
What? Are you a communist or one of those hacktivists or Pirate Bay people or something?
It's not the years, honey, it's the mileage. - Colonel Henry Walton Jones, Jr., Ph.D.
Sparta was a city-state of Greece. Thanks for playing.
When I moved back to the US we bought a $400 Vizio internet enabled TV, Verizon FIOS internet service and..... that was it. I got a free pentium D computer from work and installed fedora with xmbc, what else do I need?
Subversion of spatial scale luxury decoration ideas.
Apples and Oranges. Datacenters pack much higher densities and offer much more redundancy and management and awesome SLAs. I've seen one DataCenter advertise that they were connected to three Internet Exchanges, and that they connected to thousands of different networks directly. They per Mbit cost for that kind of bandwidth would be much higher, but you gain quality.
Using fiber, bandwidth to the last mile is virtual free, but the connections are not. What does this mean? It means user usage does not affect costs on the last mile.
Well, what about the trunk, where they do have to pay for bandwidth? That bandwidth is relatively cheap and is much cheaper than the cost of installing the last mile. Still, bandwidth is not an issue.
Dude, have you even seen 300?
No. Netflix doesn't have it available for streaming.
Sure I sold you robot insurance. But you were attacked by a cyborg. Not covered.