Slashdot Mirror
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?
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...
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Just like Akamai and others were doing 13 years ago...
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 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
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.
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.
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
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.
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."
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 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
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".
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.
Yeah that's pretty much what I was thinking. Live programming is the only thing keeping cable TV alive. Once that becomes available for streaming online, well, cable (and possibly satellite as well) is done.
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
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.
I wish I could convince the two foot guy that scrollbars are a good thing and everybody hates having to slowly slide the stupid lists across the screen.
I read the internet for the articles.
Maybe Netflix is spamming us with porn via bit torrent?
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World