Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days • Hacker News Board

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#271

Post by hobofan » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

dylz wrote: post #220

hobofan wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big German ISPs don't have Netflix caches within their infrastructure, which might be part of the problem here. Last mile infrastructure might be even worse though.

Germany is rather odd compared to the other countries with its adoption of broadband tech - for example you see a decent bit of FTTH/FTTx in NL, NO/DK/SE (muni owned, early adopters), etc. Then you go to Germany and it's mass of DSL (and some areas cable). I wonder what happened or why?

Not an expert on the topic, but IIRC this is the rough outline:

- The main ISP of Germany is Deutsche Telekom, a formerly state-owned company that was privatized ~25 years ago, which Germany still holds stock in

- In the past Telekom was awarded big contracts to expand broadband access across the country

- Telekom is/was really slow at fulfilling those contracts, and at the same time behaves in an anti-competitive manner towards any independent ISPs that try to fill the void

- The government doesn't punish any of that behaviour like they rarely do with a big German company, even more so with privatized ones that they have a stake in

To also be fair towards Telekom a bit, Germany is a very decentralized country, which is a boon in a lot of situations, but also challenging for any infrastructure projects. Part of the contracts was that they also have to expand broadband access in all rural parts of Germany.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#272

Post by TrickyRick » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #260

jazzyjackson wrote: post #256

Maybe if we had kept using bittorrent for TV distribution we wouldn't have so much global traffic downloading "The Avengers" for the millionth time, you would just download it from the nearest host (also the way the internet worked before HTTPS, there used to be way more local caching of content being downloaded over and over again)

Except residential upload speeds are usually only 1/10th of the corresponding download speed.

Doesn't really matter though, still means (Slightly oversimplified) that a peer can connect to 10 hosts and not have to download at all from the origin server. Also this simply isn't true in a lot of European countries where upload and download speeds are equal, but that's a different thing.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#273

Post by TrickyRick » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:54 PM UTC

cjblomqvist wrote: post #267

codyb wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t Netflix originally p2p in some manner? I can’t remember the exact details (and I may be wrong), but I could have sworn their original architecture was distributed in one way or the other.

You might be thinking about Spotify, which had a torrent-like technology originally. Nowadays I think it's fairly limited.

Also Voddler I guess?

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#274

Post by codyb » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

cjblomqvist wrote: post #267

codyb wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn’t Netflix originally p2p in some manner? I can’t remember the exact details (and I may be wrong), but I could have sworn their original architecture was distributed in one way or the other.

You might be thinking about Spotify, which had a torrent-like technology originally. Nowadays I think it's fairly limited.

Thanks that might be right!

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#275

Post by knicholes » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #256

Maybe if we had kept using bittorrent for TV distribution we wouldn't have so much global traffic downloading "The Avengers" for the millionth time, you would just download it from the nearest host (also the way the internet worked before HTTPS, there used to be way more local caching of content being downloaded over and over again)

It sounds like it's time for some popcorn.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#276

Post by aidenn0 » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #256

Maybe if we had kept using bittorrent for TV distribution we wouldn't have so much global traffic downloading "The Avengers" for the millionth time, you would just download it from the nearest host (also the way the internet worked before HTTPS, there used to be way more local caching of content being downloaded over and over again)

At least in the US, Netflix colocates a box with the most popular content on premises with the ISP, so the last mile could be the bottleneck here.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#277

Post by MrSouth » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

schnable wrote: post #9

Interesting counterpoint to the "broadband is so much better in Europe" trope. Unless of course we are under strain here in the US as well....

This move is just a solution in search of a problem. We still have better internet than you in ALL places, including mobile connectivity, literally everywhere. I can say fiber to the home 250/250 & coax 500/500 dominate the market. There is pumped up ADSL everywhere country-side. This move is coming unilateraly from a person who doesn't understand internet and woke up and had to be busy with something. Many IX report a slight increase in capacity, from 10% to 20%.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#278

Post by orcasauce » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #256

Maybe if we had kept using bittorrent for TV distribution we wouldn't have so much global traffic downloading "The Avengers" for the millionth time, you would just download it from the nearest host (also the way the internet worked before HTTPS, there used to be way more local caching of content being downloaded over and over again)

As I understand it Netflix has hardware in ISP data centers to do exactly that. https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#279

Post by orcasauce » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:56 PM UTC

knicholes wrote: post #275

jazzyjackson wrote: post #256

Maybe if we had kept using bittorrent for TV distribution we wouldn't have so much global traffic downloading "The Avengers" for the millionth time, you would just download it from the nearest host (also the way the internet worked before HTTPS, there used to be way more local caching of content being downloaded over and over again)

It sounds like it's time for some popcorn.

Would you be so kind to pass some to me? Popcorn that is.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#280

Post by ivnubinas » Thu, Mar 19, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

aidenn0 wrote: post #276

jazzyjackson wrote: post #256

Maybe if we had kept using bittorrent for TV distribution we wouldn't have so much global traffic downloading "The Avengers" for the millionth time, you would just download it from the nearest host (also the way the internet worked before HTTPS, there used to be way more local caching of content being downloaded over and over again)

At least in the US, Netflix colocates a box with the most popular content on premises with the ISP, so the last mile could be the bottleneck here.

Yes, it's the same here (Dominican Republic).