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Netflix, of course, needs this (or some fraction of it) to be true. Meanwhile, all the current (lazy, inept, consumer-hostile, mediocre) bandwidth providers are
by danilocampos 16y ago
Netflix, of course, needs this (or some fraction of it) to be true. Meanwhile, all the current (lazy, inept, consumer-hostile, mediocre) bandwidth providers are going to try to fuck them out of the game.
So a big part of me wonders what Netflix is working on behind the scenes to secure their future from a bandwidth perspective. This is a company that has always been so proactive – I have a hard time believing they're twiddling their thumbs and hoping that AT&T, Comcast and other telecom companies will be menschy guys.
What could they do? I know very little about large scale networking. Is there some supply-side critical path that a company like Comcast needs that Netflix could buy for leverage? On the consumer end, is it reasonable to imagine them reselling bandwidth to end-users under terms that favor their business, thus spurring competition?
Everyone who controls the consumer side of bandwidth seems to be an asshole of one flavor or another – perhaps Netflix's needs could align with consumers in such a way as to change that.
- martincmartin 16y agoCould they start running fiber to people's homes? Whatever happened to Google's "experiment" of running a fat pipe to one community?
- MartinCron 16y agoI would sign up for a fast pipe from Netflix pretty much sight-unseen.
- jmillikin 16y agoGoogle has announced they'll be offering gigabit internet in Kansas City, starting in 2012.
- losvedir 16y agoNice, that'd be convenient! I'd only have to deal with one company to get both my internet connectivity and my tv/movie content. Wait a minute...
- MetricMike 16y agoGoogle announced the winner as Kansas City last month. http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2011/tc20110418_467722.htm http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2011/tc201... has some interesting notes about the implications of Google running the service and disrupting the ISP market. One strategy they talked about was using Kansas City's own infrastructure to run fiber through utility poles and already present street conduits to get fiber to the home and cut costs.
- Prolorn 16y agoJust over a month ago, on March 30, they picked Kansas City, Kansas. Google Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/ultra-high-speed-broadband-is-coming-to.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/ultra-high-speed-broa... HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2387866 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2387866
- jnw2 16y agoIIRC, a post to NANOG a while ago claimed that the cost to run fiber to the home is well over $1k/household. I think the math works out to the conclusion that neither Netflix nor Google has enough money in the bank to run fiber to a large fraction of America. So the question becomes: if you get fiber to 1% of America, is that going to be enough of a demo project to convince someone to come up with the money for the rest of America?
- thematt 16y agoThere's no way Netflix could afford to do that. Most of their cash will need to go to licensing deals just to stay ahead of the competition. As streaming video becomes ubiquitous, content will be the differentiating factor.
- MikeCapone 16y agoOne of the best and cheapest things they can do is seed the expectation of lots of bandwidth in as many people as possible so that they then put pressure on the telecoms.