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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'

#91
Netflix pays for the packets that go in and out of its network. SK’s customers pay for the packets that go in and out of their home networks. So what am I missing? That’s sounds like the way things are supposed to work.

When I read this description of SK’s complaint it appears they are unhappy with the deals they struck with their customers. Nor in other words they are unhappy their customers are actually using the product.

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

#92

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.

Doesn't Netflix have a CDN in Australia, and doesn't Australia have fast Internet within the continent? I'm a bit surprised this is such a problem

We do now. The problem was when Netflix first opened here and the vast majority of people were still on ADSL links or even slower, and our NBN infrastructure was still just starting to come together (which I'm not going to go into details about because omg there's a huge political fight in that which I really don't want to think about)

Short version: our Netflix is just fine now. There were just a couple rocky weeks/months at the start. :)

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

#93

I think it becomes easier to think about this, if I frame the problem in terms of more tangible objects than bandwidth and data. The public street network is in large parts paid for by taxes, so for everyone access to the network is already payed for. If I now envision a single company blocking all streets with its giant truck fleet, I could completely understand a motion to introduce a new form of toll to be payed b…

Envision every driver owning a semi-truck made by the company. It's not a single company blocking the streets; it's the drivers who purchased the company's very large vehicles and who also paid for street access.

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

#94
post #79
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but there still need to be constraints. For instance, if I have a 1Gb symmetrical connection, it's probably still unreasonable for me to expect 1Gb connecting to my buddy's 1Gb 3k miles away.

If you and your buddy use the same ISP, no it is not unreasonable.

Right, that's likely doable on the same ISP, even 3k miles away.

It does highlight a philosophical question I raised in another comment. What exactly are consumers purchasing from last mile ISPs? Is it 1Gb to anywhere on the providers network? 1Gb to the nearest CDN/Internet exchange?

I don't think there is a good answer for this. But it's important to think about when we talk about ISPs reaching their hand towards large content providers.

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

#95
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.

No. That's not what my contract with my ISP says I'm buying.

Besides, physical access alone is useless. Unless you're claiming that ISP's have been selling physical access but giving away usage for free? I don't know if that's the intent of your comment, but again it isn't how my ISP words the contract.

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

#96
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be surprised if the normal bandwidth is able to be handled by existing connections, rather than the boxes with the ISP's. Is netflix super popular in Korea?

> Is netflix super popular in Korea? Yes, from the article: > The popularity of the hit series "Squid Game" and other offerings have underscored Netflix's status as the country's second-largest data traffic generator after Google's YouTube

Previously to Squid Game, I mean.

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

#97
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.

Time to bring back ISP shaming. Netflix would notify Verizon users in the app that Verizon's slow peering was degrading their watch experience.

https://bgr.com/general/netflix-vs-verizon-network/

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

#98
post #64

> Netflix said it will review SK Broadband's claim, and seek dialogue and explore ways in the meantime to work with SK Broadband to ensure customers are not affected. In other words, they will ship some Open Connect Appliance boxes to the ISP. https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/ And that’s nice for everyone. Some think it’s unfair that big players like Netflix can do so. But I think them doing that is far far better…

My question is why Open Connect Appliance wasn't even in their network in the first place? I mean there are only a few ISP in every country. SK Broadband isn't small either it is something like 25% of market share. If I remember correctly Korean Telecom was 50% and LG was something like 15%. SK Telecom is also the largest MNO is South Korea. And if you are into hardware you may have at least heard of SK Hynix, world'…

> My question is why Open Connect Appliance wasn't even in their network in the first place?

By having Open Connect Appliance network gives up ability to traffic engineer Netflix, which may decrease the leverage the network has with its peers or its transit providers.

Fundamentally, unless someone must peer with you (settlement or settlement free) and must peer with you on your terms ( locations, types of connections, etc ) you always want traffic that you and only you can control.

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

#99
post #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 broa…

a long, long time ago, we used devices called "vcr" to record specific streams that were broadcast over the cable network to have them ready for offline watching.

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

#100
The Internet is literally a series of erbium doped tubes, analogous to highway traffic.

Videos of cats at high enough bandwidth can melt optical interconnects.

For the same reason truckers pay some tax for brutalizing the roads, giant content providers beaming data through these systems must be taxed lest the Internet infrastructure be destroyed and the cost only be burdened by general taxpayers instead of users. (because Netflix would just charge users more, but in the meantime they will fight to have other non-user taxpayers maintain the infrastructure)

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