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Netflix Pondering Peer-to-Peer Technology For Streaming Video
An anonymous reader writes "The folks at Ars Technica have discovered evidence that Netflix is actively researching the possibility of using peer-to-peer technology to stream its videos to its customers. The evidence: a one-month old job listing seeking a software engineer with extensive experience developing and testing large-scale peer-to-peer systems. In addition: Netflix's admission of wanting to 'look at all kinds of routes.' A recent blog post by BitTorrent's CEO explains how, in a peer-to-peer architecture, 'Netflix traffic would no longer be coming from one or two places that are easy to block. Instead, it would be coming from everywhere, all at once; from addresses that were not easily identified as Netflix addresses — from addresses all across the Internet.'"
In other Netflix news, the company has "reached an agreement with three smaller cable companies that, for the first time, will let U.S. subscribers watch the streaming video service’s content as though it were an ordinary cable channel."
I'm going to charge Netflix for the rights to transit my network.
THL phish sticks
"The Net interprets Comcast as damage and routes around it."
Have gnu, will travel.
At least on new GoT nights this would really help.
Seriously, I already have problems keeping my connection below my monthly cap (60 GB combined up/down). I don't want to share it with other subscribers.
Try it! Library of Babel
I really don't see why the networks themselves were not pushing for this. With massive amounts of "common" content things like netflix can really offload top level traffic by peering.
Well, to begin with both cable and phone companies would (much) rather you paid them for video service separately.
Then there's the fact that P2P takes them out of the position of selling access to you while removing their regulatory fig leaf of citing (inflated) numbers for adding bandwidth.
And that's just the first two.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
So now that the FCC drops net neutrality, Netflix is going to play ball with the ISPs? They've basically been DOSing the ISPs local loops for nearly a decade, blaming the ISPs and now they have the brilliant idea that maybe they should address the insane amount of bandwidth they're eating up? How much do you want to bet they stop being such assholes about peering agreements now as well? Maybe a client that caches data to? Who came up with these brilliant cost saving ideas?!?!
I don't think you understand how Netflix works -- they don't push movies over my broadband connection without permission. Instead, they send me content that I asked for -- which is the entire reason I have a high speed internet connection in the first place. If I wasn't watching streaming video, instead of a 25mbit cable internet connection, I'd have a 3 - 6mbit DSL connection for less cost.
If the cable company can't afford to handle the traffic with their infrastructure, then they ought to increase their rates. I'm happy to pay the cable company a fair price for internet service, but I don't want to pay it in hidden charges for all of the bandwidth heavy websites I use, I want to see exactly how much internet service costs so I can shop around to different providers and to make it more likely that a competitor will step in as the price of service increases.
They've basically been DOSing the ISPs local loops for nearly a decade
Why do you think the local loop was the bottle neck? Netflix speeds increased literally overnight after they paid Comcast to upgrade the internet connection at the peering points, no local loop upgrades needed.
back in the early/mid 2000's for my radio station when my Shoutcast provider disapeared. I used http://www.streamerp2p.com/ and there was also later Peercast. The streamerp2p actually worked ok but this came at a time when I lost interest in streaming with alll the laws and OMFG those geeks in their basements with their radio stations are starving the artists hysteria was in full swing. Too bad had my station up to 24 people listening at a time.
I was going to start streaming video using Peercast with their p2ptv but never got around to that.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
They've basically been DOSing the ISPs local loops for nearly a decade, blaming the ISPs
BULL, FUCKING, SHIT!!!
The ISPs customers paid for internet access. They sent out requests for packets and got them back in return as the internet is intended to work. Netflix did the exact same thing on their end of the pipe. Netflix and their consumers are NOT responsible for managing how their ISPs provide the service they've already PAID for. If the ISPs oversold capacity and delayed infrastructure improvements then that is their cross to bear.
Here's a simple thought experiment: If Netflix was replaced with 1000 independent video streaming sites producing the same aggregate volume of traffic would it be fair to single any one of them out to degrade service? Would it be fair to extort them all to double dip on both ends of the pipe? As a lazy ISP who would you then blame for your failure to provide the services your customers already paid you to provide?
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
If I buy 10 mega bits up and down. I expect the ISP to deliver that or I call it fraud.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Holy crap, which ISP's stock are you holding onto praying it goes back up?!? If ISP's had increased their capacity like they were supposed to YEARS ago and stopped over-selling their intentionally crippled network there wouldn't be a problem. Split the ISP's from the content providers and maybe North America won't be stuck in the technological dark ages for the next generation as well.
the internet has been using CDN's and direct peering for years to push video and other data intensive content
netflix not only used to pay a CDN to deliver their content, limelight, but as soon as they let their CDN contract expire they came out with super HD
go google it, it's all on industry sites and blogs. every video provider is responsible for their content delivery and netflix screwed their's up because they spend too much on content.
the way some of the dummy cord cutters are ranting comcast should be running fiber to my house if i decide to set up a cat video business because it's on the internet and comcast is responsible for everything on the internet
They did pay. Netflix payed Cogent for the amount of data they uploaded. You paid Comcast (or whoever) for the amount of data you downloaded. Your movie data has been paid for -- twice-- and never forget it.
Now, Comcast might have promised you an "all you can eat" unlimited Internet connection, but by God you paid for it, and Comcast can either deliver or just give you your money back. Note I'm not saying that connections should be unlimited -- in fact, I think end users paying per GB is fair -- but the nature of these contracts is determined by the ISPs making the offer. If Comcast are writing cheques their network can't cash, that's between their shareholders and their competition.
The real issue here is the Peering agreements between the very largest ISPs. They agreed back in the 1980s to not charge one another and simply switch to a user pays cash model. This would encourage ISPs to try and host as much content as they had users, promoting both the creation of servers and content as well as connections and end users. It's a system which has functioned astoundingly well for 30 years now.
Comcast now wants to go back on those peering agreements essentially because it is too lazy to compete. Comcast will not a) Try to make Netflix offers so that they are hosted on Comcast's Network in the first place, b) charge end users the real costs of the GB they download or c) cut the pensioned executive fat out of their operation so that they can actually deliver what the customers paid while still making money.
If Comcast succeeds in the US with this, they will have effectively broken the Internet. We will go from the Network we have to a closed off, content delivery system like cable, possibly seeing the internet fragment into a collection of internal corporate networks -- a situation more likely each days as IPv4 addresses run out. The Internet is now in danger of regressing to the original conceptions of a world wide computer network, first imagined in the 1960s,and bearing no resemblance to the open, imaginative, uncontrolled and informative network we have today. This danger is the result of the greed of companies like comcast, and the simplistic emotional arguments that constitute the current level of discourse around this, probably the most pivotal social and economic issue of our times.
May the Maths Be with you!
Everything comes down to the fact that Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, AT&T, Cox, Charter and the other big ISPs ALL sell both transit (i.e. internet access) AND content (i.e. "TV" whether that be delivered by cable, fiber or otherwise) and are willing to do everything in their power to make sure that you have to keep buying your content from them and not from someone else (otherwise they would become dumb pipes and lose most of their control)