“Shall we watch another episode?”
Streaming is taking off in a big way, say ISPs, but can current models keep up with unmetered data and HD quality?
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Streaming
“Shall we watch another episode?”
As CNet reports, those are the five words Australians are now saying to each other every night according to iiNet chief technology officer Mark Dioguardi, after 25% of the ISP’s traffic was now consumed by Netflix.
But there are rumblings about whether Australia’s internet infrastructure and pricing models are built for demand.
“We wanted to roll out the red carpet for Netflix because we thought that was a key demand [from customers],” he said. “What has happened has been absolutely amazing. About 15 days ago, we announced that Netflix makes up 15 percent of our total traffic. Today it’s 25 percent,” he says.
“When we say we rolled out the red carpet, we rolled it out, and people are just storming down it.”
But he warned Netflix’s popularity was merely a taste of things to come.
“What’s going to happen in the next couple of years?” he asked. “What’s going to happen when the 30 percent of Smart TVs today which are mostly high definition go to 80 percent Smart TVs all at 4K? When the streaming services really take off, what’s going to happen to demand?”
Meanwhile Optus chief executive officer Allen Lew said that players like Netflix, Stan and Presto should be prepared to pay Optus if they expect end-users to get a quality service.
“We will continue to preserve net neutrality but we’re talking about the possibility … [of offering] a premium service that we as a network provider can ensure to an [over-the-top] provider if they pay for that premium service,” he said.
“To ensure that the optimised, or the best customer experience, is achieved by the end user we need to make sure that the [over-the-top providers] — whether they’re Netflix or others — understand that to preserve the network quality and give you an HD video in the homes, they need to work collaboratively with us.”,” he said.
Asked by Fairfax Media whether that collaboration would involve a fee, he said: “Charging is one way.”
Last week Netflix indicated it regretted agreeing to unmetered data with Australian ISPs such as iiNet.
3 Responses
The US has been through this. 80% of traffic at peak time in the evenings is video from Netflix, Hulu, youTube etc. And they are doing it on crappy DSL networks that only connect in major cities. Though there are arguments over “net neutrality” with ISP wanting to charge Netflix etc. extra for good connections, and buying politicians to overturn the FFCs opposition.
Here obviously the NBN has been designed for it (most of it has no other real purpose), but its being done in an inefficient manner and politically motivated manner so will take years yet to arrive in most places.
There’s plenty of surplus capacity in the major links at the moment. The problem iiNet had was that they didn’t estimate the evening peak and buy enough capacity in advance, for some reason the monopoly supplier and competitor Telstra it taking its time in selling them more.
Wow and the Australia tax is on its way. What a load of bull.
Perhaps the ISPs should be working with the government to offer a decent service to all areas of the country before thinking of charging because we are watching Netflix… Because the $70 I pay for Internet now isn’t already enough to expect that it just works.
Gee, they’re using this SVOD internet access like switching iceberg lettuce on a burger to rocket and charging as ‘gourmet’.
If we only had NBN as a stock standard overall, then we wouldn’t be living in the past.
Suck it up, Optus (and the others), or customers will move elsewhere.