[AusNOG] Netflix, AWS and Softlayer vs. Australia

[Mark ZZZ Smith]

----- Original Message -----
> From: Oz Nog <oz.nog at yandex.com>
> To: Mark ZZZ Smith <markzzzsmith at yahoo.com.au>
> Cc: ausnog at lists.ausnog.net; Joshua D'Alton <joshua at railgun.com.au>
> Sent: Wednesday, 3 December 2014, 11:45
> Subject: Re:[AusNOG] Netflix, AWS and Softlayer vs. Australia
> 
>>  From the articles I've read ever since capped plans were started to be 
> introduced in the US (by Comcast IIRC, at 250GB a few years back IIRC) they 
> haven't been very popular at all.
>    Well, of course they haven't been popular since it's a plain 
> anti-consumer money grab by Comcast. Unfortunately some users have not had a 
> choice in the matter.
> 
>>  Maybe other people on the list have, but I haven't come across any. Can 
> you link to at least one of them?
>   The complaints are most often voiced in the comments section of whatever 
> writeup touches upon the matter.
>   Here's a typical comment from Hacker News:
> 
> "I live in one of the areas with the caps and this is how it plays out:
> 
> 1. I tell my wife to stop playing so many movies on netflix. 2. I stopped 
> watching youtube or other video services unless I really, really want to see 
> something. 3. I watch my internet usage and choose when to use it. 4. I 
> cancelled Hulu. 5. I grow suspicious of my neighbors when my usage seems high as 
> there is no breakdown of where usage comes from. 6. I suspect comcast's own 
> services are not counted towards the meter, but can't prove anything. 7. I 
> stopped playing so many games. 8. I now strategize my downloads.
> 
> There is no real other choice in my area -- the closest competitor to Comcast 
> offers less than half the speed and only advertises for 1/4 the speed.
> 
> In my opinion, as someone affected by this, it's just a way to squeeze the 
> customer more and maintain a monopoly on content."
> 
> Source: "What Xfinity Internet Data Usage Plans will Comcast be 
> Launching?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8639038
> 

Something doesn't seem quite right about that complaint.

According to this article from 2012, Netflix 1080p movies are streamed at up to 4.8Mbps (before the application of the technology the article is about):

https://gigaom.com/2012/02/01/eyeio-video-encoding-netflix/

"Netflix’s 720p HD videos come in at roughly 3.8 Mbps, and 1080p videos go up to 4.8 Mbps."

4.8Mbps or 0.6 MB/s or 2160 MB/h into a 300 000 MB cap being complained about in that thread is therefore worth in the order of 138.8 hours of 1080p video per month.

Assuming 4 hours watching per week night, every week night, and 20 week nights per 4 week month, that uses up 80 hours of the 138.

So there is now 78 hours left for the weekends. 4 times 2 day weekends is 8, and 78/8 is 9.75 hours of video being watched on both Saturdays and Sundays every weekend.

The above complainant doesn't say if they have kids, and it's likely that he would say that if they did, so we'll assume it is just him and his wife. It might be possible for both of them to consume a total of 138 hours of 1080p video content in total a month, however I think they'd be an anomaly, as there really isn't much time to do anything else. This is assuming they're both full time workers, if one or both of them are unemployed or on a full time pension then consuming that amount of content is far more achievable, but that also makes them less representative of typical residential broadband usage in the US.



> Cheers,
> 
> Baz
>