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S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

reuters.com

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Re: S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

#81
post #77
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are: the advertisers pays for the service users are consuming and the users pay for the service the advertisers are consuming.

It's called currency for a reason... it likes to flow.

as long as it isn't downward

Re: S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

#82
post #71
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. To say that Netflix is generating traffic pointed at SK broadband would not be fair. Those TCP connections are initiated by the end user. Without the user requests there would be no traffic. So the philosophical question really becomes, what exactly is the end user buying from their ISP?

the physical access.

> the physical access.

Wouldn't that also include the bandwidth? Meaning, if the customer is already paying for the bandwidth they will consume, why wouldn't that cover bandwidth usage of Netflix content?

Re: S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

#83
post #51
post #4

Everyone pays for their internet access, so why should Netflix (or anyone else) suddenly pay for mine? Netflix isn’t pushing data, I’m pulling it. If my ISP is losing money then I guess they better raise their prices, no?

Netflix is pushing data AND you are pulling it.

"Push" and "pull" in this context refer to the initiation of a session. The user is pulling, because they start streaming. Netflix does absolutely nothing by itself - it doesn't randomly start delivering data to you.

Re: S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

#84
It's strange that SK Broadband would go to so much trouble rather than be happy for the profit opportunity that Netflix brings since their content is cacheable.

In Nigeria which arguably is more broadband-challenged than Korea, it took me only a few weeks to ship in a Netflix OpenConnect appliance and integrate into the network at a local fiber company where I did some work last year. All we had to do was agree with Netflix that we would keep it powered up and cover the cache-fill bandwidth costs.

Net results: Today, that ISP uses less than 2Gbps of Internet bandwidth for less than 8 hours daily to update their cached content which they deliver to thousands of Netflix users at wire speeds. Literally you're spending less than 2Gbps to acquire popular content and selling more than 10Gbps to your users during peak periods (if your local infrastructure can support it).

https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

Re: S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

#85
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If parts of your network are generating traffic that I don't think is reasonable" But it's your customers (the end users) generating traffic by watching content on my network (Netflix shows). If your customers can generate more traffic than you can handle, regardless of its a single entity or multiple entities, then that's a contract issue between you and your customers.

Exactly this. To say that Netflix is generating traffic pointed at SK broadband would not be fair. Those TCP connections are initiated by the end user. Without the user requests there would be no traffic. So the philosophical question really becomes, what exactly is the end user buying from their ISP?

They're gangsters demanding their cut. The ISPs were created with tax money and set up as a public trust then stolen away. At least in my state.

Re: S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

#87
post #51
post #4

Everyone pays for their internet access, so why should Netflix (or anyone else) suddenly pay for mine? Netflix isn’t pushing data, I’m pulling it. If my ISP is losing money then I guess they better raise their prices, no?

Netflix is pushing data AND you are pulling it.

No, they are not "pushing" data.

Pushing implies that data is sent by the server without clients explicitly requesting it.

Pulling is when the client requests data explicitly.

I get notifications pushed to my phone by Apple.

I pull YouTube videos.

YouTube doesn't suddenly decide to "push" random videos to my phone in the middle of the night.

Similarly, Netflix doesn't "push" videos to their customers.

Re: S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

#88

Similarly, Australia had problems when Netflix was first becoming popular here, putting huge strains on the network and causing widespread congestion issues from 6 to 10 pm. I wonder if we'll ever see a predictive home-caching system; if I watch the first three episodes of squid game in one night, it might be sensible to have my TV download the rest of the series overnight.

having multicast working on the internet would make this extremly efficient for the distributors (i.e. netflix) but the last mile (i.e. your ISP) still would have to deliver the packets to their customers one by one. at Netflix scale it would probably be already very beneficial to do that by broadcasting the stream starting every 5 seconds or something for uncached viewing. (i.e make the player wait for the next broadcast and jump to different ones [or start a new one at desired offset if none exist] when seeking).

Instead of using the internet its also feasible to use the DVB network like this. they could even broadcast a copy long before release so its guaranteed to be ready for offline watching when released. i am almost certain Sky Germany does something similar...

Re: S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

#89
> Netflix's data traffic handled by SK jumped 24 times from May 2018 to 1.2 trillion bits of data processed per second

What an odd way of representing data transfer bandwidth: Was it so hard to just say 1.2 Tbps (or better 150 GB/s)?

Also, maybe an ignorant question from my side: Is that bandwidth such a big deal at nation-scales? It feels like barely 1000 homes maxing out the fiber usage. All submarine cables being deployed today are already in the 100+ Tbps range, aren't they?

Re: S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game'

#90
post #8

> South Korean lawmakers have spoken out against content providers who do not pay for network usage despite generating explosive traffic It's impressive how this framing has gotten so much acceptance. The content providers are not generating the traffic, the users are, and they are paying their ISPs to be able to do so.

These ISPs have no shame. Have they forgotten their role so much that they did not wake up even when they were filing a case?
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