[AusNOG] Netflix in AU, break up Go4, or TPG peering breakup?

[Mark Newton]

On Jul 21, 2014, at 2:10 PM, Jacob Gardiner <jacob at jacobgardiner.com> wrote:

> What about the potential for Australian produced content to be streamed to your nearest internet connected computer or tablet? Or better yet, exported via Netflix to a global audience?

How is that in any way affected by the peering terms they offer to Australian ISPs?  They can do that already.

> Netflix solve a distribution issue, they’re not a studio. This being said, Netflix need the infrastructure to be present and that’s what this conversation is about.

Netflix already have the infrastructure — they can carry out their entire business from the USA.  Including servicing hypothetical Australian customers.

They are also a studio, by the way. Just sayin’.

> The NBN idea was meant to stimulate our industry to move beyond what it is now and enable businesses LIKE Netflix to set up and provide new services to Australia. (hence my dig at our dependance on mining)

Really? I don’t think that was the Government’s plan for it. I don’t think they thought about those issues at all. For them, it was about restructuring the industry to make up for the failure of the market to magic its way past Telstra’s CAN infrastructure monopoly.

There was certainly a lot of woo about what else it was supposed to achieve, so it’s possible that some politician somewhere had a brain explosion and said it was all about “stimulating [Australia’s] [Internet] industry.” He almost certainly didn’t remember saying it 4 hours later, though.

> IF the government was to talk to a business like Netflix and ask them what a fast growing online business needs to operate they’d hopefully be more receptive than listening to a bunch of complainers (I imagine the government looks at groups like this as whingers). 

Why would they want to offer incentives for a business that doesn’t pay tax in Australia, doesn’t employ Australians, doesn’t use profits to benefit Australians, to set up in Australia?

That’s crazy talk. Where’s the Australian public interest in that?

Netflix’s involvement in Australia is purely extractive:  Their commercial aim will be to relocate as much cash from our economy to their bank accounts as possible.  They need a grand total of zero Australian investment to achieve that.

> netflix need - good connectivity, everywhere & local film and media content. - I think most people in AU want the same?

They need nothing local.  They need adequate connectivity, which they already have by virtual of their cheap-and-cheerful transit deals in the USA.

The reason you want them to peer is for YOUR needs, not theirs.  YOU don’t want to pay for transit to satisfy your users’ desires to purchase their services.  So YOU are responding in essentially the same way the network neutrality bad guys are responding in the USA, by expecting the Government to swoop in and make Netflix’s cost of operations higher so that yours can be lower.  This isn’t about “most people in AU,” it’s about your business.

Australia has nothing to offer Netflix, other than bureaucratic interference from ACMA and the Classification Board, and a massively over-inflated sense of entitlement.

If I was them, I’d be avoiding Australia simply because it’s too administratively difficult to offer content services here.  Why bother?  Australian voters have clearly signaled that they’re so delighted with inferior expensive choices that they’ll make it very difficult for better choices to arrive, and expect regulators to interfere endlessly with any who do — something they don’t need to deal with anywhere else. So if I was them I’d be spending my money in places where I wouldn’t have to pay a commercial premium for the extra regulatory overheads, unless and until Australian voters changed their tune.

Personally: I enjoy using Netflix right now. I aim to continue to do so, regardless of whether they plonk a few racks of servers at Global Switch. If you think they’re so great, why aren’t you using them already too?


  - mark



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