Netflix CEO Predicts Mobile Operators Will Soon Offer Unlimited Video

An anonymous reader shares an AFP report: Netflix head Reed Hastings predicted Monday that mobile carriers will soon offer data plans that give users unlimited video streaming to meet the rising popularity of watching TV and movies on mobile devices. Carriers offer unlimited data caps but they are usually very expensive. But Hastings said he believed mobile carriers will eventually create a two-tear system where video data is unlimited to meet the growing demand for watching TV series and movies on mobile devices. "What we are going to see I think is a number of companies pioneering new ways of offering services to the consumers where it is unlimited video data but it is limited to say one megabit speed," he said. "So it is a slower speed but you get unlimited data on that and that turns out to be very efficient on network so an operator can offer unlimited viewing."

Bit of an overreaction?

[MiniMike]

But Hastings said he believed mobile carriers will eventually create a two-tear system

How many tears does he think we shed with the current system? Hopefully the new plans will decrease sadness.

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[Megane]

But what we really want to know is if are they delicious tears.

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[Nutria]

"Cry-yyy-yyy-ing over... bandwidth."

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[hipp5]

How many tears does he think we shed with the current system? Hopefully the new plans will decrease sadness.

No, you doofus. Do you even English? He wants to create a two-tear system... as in a tear in space and a tear in time, which deliver video without the normal data constraints.

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[OneHundredAndTen]

But Hastings said he believed mobile carriers will eventually create a two-tear system

How many tears does he think we shed with the current system?.

Lots. And it is tearing me apart.

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[known_coward_69]

maybe 10 years but wireless still has some technical issues that wired telecom doesn't have

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[crow]

Exactly!

Verizon and AT&T have home Internet businesses already that they don't want to cannibalize. Sprint and T-Mobile just need to expand their capacity, but it's just a matter of time before they start offering home Internet over LTE. This will be a bloodbath for Comcast.

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[Gilgaron]

I have heard this is the reason most of the wired internet providers are dragging their feet on infrastructure, they're afraid wireless will eat their lunch will negligible last mile costs.

Unfortunately, math amd physics say no

[raymorris]

> I'd like to see wireless data buckets being large enough so that most people don't need home internet.

Unfortunately, the math and physics are such that won't happen. Not if people want to stream HD video for hours at a time. Basically the only way to make it appear as though you had that would be for the ISP to install a wifi access on each house (or two) and pretend it's not home internet service. The cost would still be the same, the only difference would be the ISP owns the access point - but the

Oh great

[colinrichardday]

Now we can be stupid on the go.

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[colinrichardday]

Yeah, but taking selfies and tits/ass shots requires some initiative.

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[known_coward_69]

netflix has the money and tech to deploy the servers and the software to allow the carriers to do this. unlike say your small startup

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[fred6666]

There are two parts to the distribution of the video to a cell phone.

The wired part from say, Netflix to the carrier. And then the wireless part from the carrier to your phone.
What is currently limited/expensive and the reason why carriers limit speed and/or put monthly cap is the wireless part. Placing a Netflix data center within a carrier's facility won't save them more than say, 1% of the total cost of delivering the video. It's marginal. So the small startup with a single server for the whole world can

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[MightyMartian]

Net neutrality is a dead man walking. I'm sure it will be repealed in very short order.

Isn't this a thing already

[AvitarX]

T-Mobile has done this at 1.5mbps for quite a while.

ATandT does 3mbps

Sprint I think has a similar too.

This seems like a pretty safe assumption, since it's been happening for a while and is currently expanding.

Funny

[lapm]

How primitive, in my country we dont have datacaps on mobile data, so i can watch my existing netflix just fine... Might have something to do with market that actually works for best solutions to consumers..

If you make video unlimited...

[hipp5]

If you make video unlimited, you might as well just make all data unlimited. Video is the thing that's using data already. Everything else (for the majority of people) is incidental.

should be from the good-luck-with-that dept.

[k6mfw]

I mean really is there ever such a thing as unlimited smooth action video that does not cost lotsa bux. Sure there are times when watching some cutesy youtube clip for 90 seconds but what about watching full 90 minutes of a fascinating documentary (like what they used to show on broadcast TV) without it always pausing (and 90 minutes becomes 5 hours). Or streaming an activity i.e. Parachute Mobile mission where video is very basic 340 size but for the whole day. This has been done because one of our people

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[DickBreath]

Yes, but it's not priced like cable TV. Yet.

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[AHuxley]

AC to make that work for wireless the hardware needs to be upgraded.
Each user of the service has to have enough of the network to the tower for 24/7 use at a set speed.
So the network to the tower might need some work.
If one tower was used to offer voice and some data to many users, more towers might be needed so all users can enjoy a 24/7 service per device.
Towers that got designed to share voice and very limited data plans will need work.
After the towers get upgraded, a new network can be offered.
How

A "two-tear system"?

[jeffb (2.718)]

Well, that would be a considerable improvement from the number of tears induced by existing plans.

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[DickBreath]

Sir, you misread what he meant.

And, No, I am not suggesting he meant a two-tier system.

Two-tear is correct as you say. But you went in the wrong direction. He did not mean crying was reduced to two single tears. Rather, he meant that the new wireless plans will make you cry twice. Thus increasing the tears.