Netflix Isn't Swamping the Internet 208
itwbennett writes "Remember the Sandvine report from earlier this week that said Netflix gobbles up 30% of Internet traffic during peak hours? It needs clarification on a couple of important points, says blogger Kevin Fogarty. First, yes, Netflix traffic spikes during prime time, but only across the last mile. Second, ISPs underestimate what a 'normal' level of Internet use really is. 'When AT&T announced its data caps – 150GB per month for DSL users and 250GB for broadband – it called the data levels generous and said limits would only affect 2 percent of its customers. It turns out Netflix users take up an average of 40GB per month just from streaming media, according to a different Sandvine report (PDF).'"
Last mile (Score:5, Interesting)
For those that are confused (Score:5, Interesting)
This is because Netflix hosts their shit with caching companies. You get people like Akamai that do data hosting. Now they have big data centers that hold lots of data as you'd expect, but they also have cache engines all over the place. They contact ISPs and say "Hey, we'd like to put cache engines in your data center. We'll provide you all the equipment, free of charge, and tell you how to configure it. This will reduce the amount of bandwidth you use."
You can see why ISPs like this and go for it. Of course the other side of it, the reason Akamai does it, is because it reduces their bandwidth usage a lot. Win-win situation.
This happened on campus like 8 years ago. Akamai gave us some cache engines and they got set up on the network. Now anything on them is just stupidly fast. Windows updates just fly down. It also made quite a noticeable dent in off campus bandwidth usage.
I don't think Netflix uses Akamai themselves, but I do know they use a service like it.
obvious slant (Score:5, Interesting)
"40 gig just from streaming data" with a lowball 150 gig allowance, with recent slashdot articles saying netflix is a large minority of people's traffic... sounds like the ISPs are correct, that 150 gig is generous.
ISPs Underestimate? (Score:3, Interesting)
Full disclosure: I used to work for a group within Comcast that looked at network traffic to the user. Let's just say I have a really strong dislike of all things Comcast.
With that said, not a chance that the ISPs are not estimating correctly. They aren't estimating. At least at Comcast, they have an incredibly good idea of how much network traffic is going through their system. And they build to a given percentile of busiest time in the entire month.
The only way you can say they are miscalculating what is going across the network is if Sandvine is not properly analyzing network traffic and is associating it with an incorrect network protocol.
Re:Advertising is swamping the internet (Score:5, Interesting)
Adblock/Adblock plus is your saviour. (or if you're super uber nerdy, a custom hosts file)
On the one hand I feel bad that I know that I'm not contributing to the continued survival of some of my favorite websites by providing them with adviews impressions (and certainly not with click-throughs), but on the other hand I work in the business of, among many other things, saving PCs that have become corrupted by malware that likely showed up in a drive-by ad-based browser attack. I feel no need to risk it.
On a somewhat related note, the sheer annoyance of today's ads have gone overboard. The days of a static tower jpg on the side of an article seem to be going the way of the dodo, where now everything is animated, full of sound, wants to jump out in front of the damn text I'm reading, or even replace the text itself (and often somehow take up an entire modern cpu core, wtf, I've got more processing power than nasa sent men to the moon with, and a "click-here-to-win-a-ps3!" ad is using all of it?!). When they have a custom "X" button on their ad that I have to click on to close the damn thing, I am ALWAYS wary, because I don't want to click on ANYTHING nonstandard. ever. That's just asking for trouble, even in today's modern sandboxed browsers.
It is sad to say, but I personally am more concerned with keeping my own system safe and secure than I am with "supporting" my favorite websites by letting their ads rape my eyes and ears at the very least, and quite possibly my system as well. They'll have to depend on other people for that, just hopefully not people I personally support.
Re:For those that are confused (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot fewer than are watching The King's Speech or Little Fockers (unfortunately). Netflix doesn't has to cache their entire library to save bandwidth. Caching the top 50 or 100 downloads for that week would yield significant savings. Long Tail arguments aside, most people still watch whatever everyone else is watching.
How are the ISPs underestimating? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm no lover of Comcast or AT&T, but I think the point about ISPs underestimating normal use is unfair.
It says that Netflix users take up an average of 40GB per month just from streaming media. In my experience, your "average" user isn't doing anything that uses more bandwidth than Netflix. Even with the lower data cap of 150GB, that leaves room for a three-fold increase in streaming bandwidth before you come close to using your allocation, with room left over downlaoding 3 or 4 full-sized games a month. Even with the supposed doubling of that rate for console users (which I doubt), that leaves plenty of room. And Mr. Fogarty needs to check his math, as 80 150*2/3.
Even if console Netflix users were averaging 100GB/mo for streaming, who can use 50GB/mo on email, web surfing, and youtube?
I think the author is overestimating how much bandwidth average users need.
Full disclosure: I am far from an average user. I have Netflix and DirecTV, both of which I use streaming video on. I also download a few DVD-sized images every month, and my wife practically lives on the web in the evenings. And yet according to my Tomato router stats, I've never even hit the halfway mark of my 250GB Comcast cap.