S.Korea broadband firm sues Netflix after traffic surge from 'Squid Game' • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by chii » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:34 PM UTC

wodenokoto wrote: post #45

A lot of commentors here are defending that netflix shouldn't pay data charges. I don't know how internet prices works for big players, but from the perspective of a little guy, it seems kinda reasonable that netlflix pay, doesn't it? I mean, why am I paying for bandwidth on AWS? Shouldn't that be paid for by the downloading party? If I download something from my neighbors computer over a p2p app, then we both still…

> why am I paying for bandwidth on AWS? Shouldn't that be paid for by the downloading party?

you're paying for it because it costs money to provide bandwidth on both ends, and AWS is just shunting the cost onto you itemized.

Netflix, believe it or not, also charges for the bandwidth it uses, but it hides it unitemized into the subscription fee, and in sufficient quantities that when averaged across all it's subscribers, they come out at least breakeven.

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

#132

Post by moate » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

chii wrote: post #126

dewoleajao wrote: post #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…

> for the profit opportunity Sk broadband already got paid from their customers. Netflix is merely incurring more costs for them, which is why they are suing in court in the first place! Sk broadband would prefer that their customers don't have netflix, but only browse text websites!

I worked in pricing and I always framed it as a scale with "Greed" on the left and "Customer Service" on the right and the 2 ideas being in a tug of war.

Greed wants to charge customers infinite money and provide 0 product in exchange for it. Customer Service wants to give away everything for free to as many people as possible.

To be a real, viable business you need to find that sweet spot where neither of the two makes too many of the decisions.

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

#133

Post by moate » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:40 PM UTC

freemint wrote: post #65

evgen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice ISP you have there SK Broadband, would be a shame if your users could not access one of the most popular sites on the internet.

Nice costumers you have there SK Broadband, would be a shame if your costumers leave you. Oh? They are unlikey with Netflix not in a monthly cancelable contract but Internet plans generally require contracts of 2 to 3 years in South Korea.

Nice contracts you have there SK Broadband, it would be a shame if your anti-consumer behaviors started to nullify their enforcability...

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

#134

Post by lowdest » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:42 PM UTC

perryizgr8 wrote: post #125

jonnat wrote: 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.

> The content providers are not generating the traffic, the users are Huh?? I am not serving terabytes of movies from my home connection. Netflix is.

Netflix has no association with this ISP, you do. It's your choice to request Netflix streams for delivery through the ISP. Blaming Netflix for this would be like an apartment building blaming Amazon for delivering too many boxes to the mail room.

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

#135

Post by dahart » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

jonnat wrote: 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.

Don’t miss the past paragraph in the article, “In the United States, Netflix has been paying a fee to broadband provider Comcast Corp (CMCSA.O) for over seven years for faster streaming speeds. https://reut.rs/2Y8wOzb”

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

#136

Post by Arrath » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:45 PM UTC

perryizgr8 wrote: post #125

jonnat wrote: 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.

> The content providers are not generating the traffic, the users are Huh?? I am not serving terabytes of movies from my home connection. Netflix is.

The users are paying the ISP to have that content served to them through their connection.

Is the ISP mad that more users are using more of their promised service allowance? Too bad, maybe they shouldn't oversell their networks.

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

#137

Post by Arrath » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:47 PM UTC

14 wrote: post #119

TheJoeMan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah but in a backwards twist my ISP now has a 1Tb per month data cap. You’d think this was huge, but I wanted to download all my games to a new Xbox…

That is a failure of Xbox in my opinion. Games are 100gb these days. Massive. My monthly bandwidth is line 400gb. That is pretty common in Canada. We can’t afford to download all the games, again. There should be a local transfer of games done over wifi. It should be made easy.

Uh, there is?[1]

[1]https://support.xbox.com/en-US/help/hardware-network/console...

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

#138

Post by Arrath » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:53 PM UTC

wiradikusuma wrote: post #13

Let customers vote with their wallet then. If I were the judge, I would ask Netflix to stream low bandwidth version of the content so it won't impact SK Broadband. AND, tell BOTH parties that they must put announcement in their respective website, "SK Broadband provides you internet at a cost (as per their claim). To enjoy Full HD of this content, pay extra to SK Broadband". See which party the customers will be angr…

Considering how often I've seen the "SK has the best/fastest consumer internet connections" news bits, I'd be awfully angry at the provider for drumming up the hype and failing to deliver.

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

#139

Post by mdip » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

gumby wrote: post #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 p…

I think it's fairly simple: in the original arrangement where ISPs provided access to content and that content was not video, ISPs were making out like bandits offering unlimited service at ridiculous speeds while not having to upgrade their own connections since customer demand was lower. Suddenly content comes along that increases customer demands on their "unlimited service" and instead of the ISP deciding correct the capacity imbalance (and accept that they "done screwed up"), they cry "unfair" and run to the courts.

Back when peering agreements were in place it made sense for everyone involved; ISPs get great content they don't have to provide and/or pay for, content providers get access to customers. Now, however, ISPs are finding out that these agreements are very costly for them, they can't turn to their customers for more money due to competition and they can't just block Netflix because those same customers would leave for another ISP so they turn to the courts to repair their mistakes. If they win, Netflix gets screwed, the customer gets screwed and the ISP gets rewarded for their mistakes... that sounds like a heck of a public-private partnership. :)

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

#140

Post by kijin » Fri, Oct 01, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

jonnat wrote: 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.

The framing gets a pass because the majority of "explosive traffic" comes from foreign companies. Google and Netflix have no voice in the Korean lawmaking process. When they go to court, they fall right into the trap of the framing that local companies have already set up.

South Korea is well known for having fast internet, but the internet is only fast within the small country. International connectivity has always been crappy, and getting crappier every year as telcos focus on legal avenues instead of actually laying enough undersea cables to meet the demand. In the past, most Koreans only visited Korean sites because of the language barrier; that's no longer true. But it's going to take a lot of time and money to remedy years of neglect in international connectivity. Especially SK Broadband, who IMO has been the most complacent in this department among the Big 3 telcos, precisely because of their huge domestic market share. Where is the money going to come from? Obviously not by cutting executive bonuses. SK Broadband seems to think that they can extort it out of Google and Netflix who, despite their global prominence, are relatively defenseless in Korean courts.