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Netflix Urged To Slow Down Streaming To Stop the Internet From Breaking (cnn.com) 199

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
The European Union is urging Netflix and other streaming platforms to stop showing video in high definition to prevent the internet from breaking under the strain of unprecedented usage due to the coronavirus pandemic. From a report: With so many countries on forced lockdowns to fight the spread of the virus, hundreds of millions working from home and even more children out of school, EU officials are concerned about the huge strain on internet bandwidth. European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who is responsible for the EU internal market covering more than 450 million people, tweeted Wednesday evening that he had spoken with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. Breton called on people and companies to "#SwitchtoStandard definition when HD is not necessary" in order to secure internet access for all. "Commissioner Breton is right to highlight the importance of ensuring that the internet continues to run smoothly during this critical time," the Netflix spokesperson said. "We've been focused on network efficiency for many years, including providing our open connect service for free to telecommunications companies."
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Netflix Urged To Slow Down Streaming To Stop the Internet From Breaking More

Netflix Urged To Slow Down Streaming To Stop the Internet From Breaking

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  • Aren't we continually reminded how backwards the US is, with it's poor coverage and lack of Internet speeds for a given price, relative to the enlightened nations of Europe? Now it turns out that their peacock-strutting over their "cheap, fast, universal" Internet is really just a glass house from which they've been throwing rocks...

    • Re:The EU, not enough Internet? Unpossible! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @10:19AM (#59848530)
      The way I read that, you can’t overload the Internet in the US with video streaming if you a large portion of the US only has dialup that can’t really stream videos.
      • Few people have dialup. Lots have slow DSL, such as myself; the best I can get is 3Mbit/768kb. Luckily, I have little interest in tv (streaming or otherwise) and movies and I don't game at all.
        • I think at one point the current FCC suggested to rollback the definition of broadband to 10mbps down instead of the current 25mbps. It’s also noted that the current FCC has been criticized on how it measures broadband coverage. For example the minimum size it was using was zip code which is highly variable and marking it having broadband if one person in the zip code had it not accounting for actual coverage percentages.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lgw ( 121541 )

        That's the joke, but the reality is Netflix has built a huge CDN in the US with servers very close to the edge. I suspect they're more centralized in the EU.

        • I don’t know that Netflix does or does not have CDNs in Europe. If they do, I suspect they were not meant to handle this much capacity.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by lgw ( 121541 )

            If they weren't designed to handle this uptick, then they weren't designed to handle the next few years of growth of Netflix, which would be pretty silly. The mantra is always "design for 5 years of growth, architect for 10".

    • The US is a few weeks behind Europe with regards to the pandemic. Give it a little time, we'll be in the same situation here.

    • There is an AR-14. It is used by the Republic of Surea Armed Forces and replaced the M16A1 in 2002.

      So, while we know he MEANT AR-15...the AR-14 is a suitable substitute.

    • You know what I always say, "let he who lives in the glass house cast the first stone."

  • #SwitchToReading (Score:5, Funny)

    by rho ( 6063 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @10:09AM (#59848474) Journal

    Don't shame people into standard def video, shame them into reading. Downloading all of Project Gutenberg is probably 4.5 seconds of Game of Thrones or whatever.

    For that matter, start telling people to get out and plant a garden. Even an apartment balcony can grow some herbs and maybe a tomato plant. Getting out in the sun is a good thing too, we don't get enough vitamin D.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
      You get plenty of vitamin D. It's in your milk and probably your flour. You get it whether you like it or not. Just like iodine.

      • You get plenty of vitamin D. It's in your milk and probably your flour. You get it whether you like it or not. Just like iodine.

        I'm KETO you insensitive clod!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by pjt33 ( 739471 )

      Maybe the balcony can, but I can't. One time when my parents came to visit, I took them to visit the botanical garden and my mother bought me a rosemary plant from its shop. The plant died within a month. What really hurts is that it grows merrily on the nearby hills despite them not getting any more rain than my balcony.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by olau ( 314197 )

        Not so fast. Plants on the nearby hills probably have several meters of earth underneath them, and are not in a rain shadow from a house.

        Try a larger pot next time, or buy a self-watering solution where you only need to top up once in a while.

  • When people don't understand the Internet (Score:5, Informative)

    by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @10:10AM (#59848476)
    Netflix has had localized content deliver networks (CDN) [wikipedia.org] to offset Internet congestion for years. In fact they created an open CDN [netflix.com] and offer it to anyone. If the Internet breaks because of Netflix it is only going to break the localized provider who failed to rightsize their customer network infrastructure.

    • I don't think there are the circumstances they were planning for though.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *
        Then that is some shitty planning. Especially because communication infrastructure is much more portable, flexible and upgradeable than say - highways.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by darkain ( 749283 )

        The current version of these edge CDN servers can dish out almost 200gbps of traffic PER NODE. Netflix gives these edge nodes out FOR FREE to ISPs. If they don't have them, it is the ISPs fault. We've known for the past decade that video bandwidth is a high cost, Netflix solved that problem, and it was up to the ISPs to accept that solution.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by rldp ( 6381096 )

      Yeah but due to EU's content restrictions, many users are forced to use a VPN so they can access the actual uncensored catalog.

    • Re:When people don't understand the Internet (Score:5, Interesting)

      by grahamsz ( 150076 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @10:22AM (#59848546) Homepage Journal

      My ISP runs a Netflix OCA and it's great. I get ~900Mbps to Netflix and 2ms ping times.

      On the one hand, I see how it's a preference given to a particular service, but there's no doubt Netflix is a monster when it comes to bandwidth use and I'm surprised more ISPs don't take them up on it.

      • I'm surprised more ISPs don't take them up on it.

        Greed!!!
        Even though this costs Netflix a lot of money they offer it to ISPs for free because they know a good user experience means a happy customer and they need to maintain their customer base. AT&T being the d!cks they are wouldn't allow Netflix to put their CDN on their networks unless Netflix paid AT&T!?!? AT&T kept blaming buffering on Netflix even though it was AT&T's fault. Netflix finally decided they needed to be on AT&T network so they capitulated and agreed to pay AT&T f

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dissy ( 172727 )

        My ISP also has a local netflix cache that works wonderfully.
        Also the closest interconnect to a google datacenter is only three hops away 'as the network cable flys'

        What these policy makers are missing is that any ISP transferring netflix streams over the internet itself, are ISPs that have specifically and intentfully chosen to do so.

        So long as any actual policy made reflects this detail I see no problem with it.
        ISPs that chose to transfer that content over the internet can be throttled at the source. Doi

    • I don’t think Netflix built enough capacity with CDNs to handle this much data.

    • It is the localized networks that get overcharged! Becaue the local ISPs were obviously not building infrastructure to support everyone watching 4K at the same time, when that never happens in real life (not even now). They built it, to support the normal state, with a reasonable buffer for daily/weekly/yearly variations, while being cost-effective. Both because of the competition and because of shareholder demands.

      This here is a rare state. The networls were not built for it. Like everyone calling everyone

  • edge (Score:3)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @10:10AM (#59848478)
    I thought these big CDNs typically cached at the edges
    • CDNs have a capacity. They do not magically scale up without limit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        Yea, but how is this any different than normal evenings or the summer time exactly? Kids weren't exactly playing outside anymore even before the virus.
        • On any normal evening or summer time, a portion of people (and a good portion) would not be at home streaming. Places they would be: theaters, bars, downtowns, restaurants, museums, etc. All those places are closed right now.
  • If one source is generating more data than your pipes can route, isn't the proper thing to lower the priority for that data source, and if necessary just start to drop that traffic?

    Past history with DOS type things should have them ready to adjust as necessary.
    • I'm probably wrong, but I think that is an anathema to the Net Neutrality supporters, which is the position that Netflix supports.

      • I think that is an anathema to the Net Neutrality supporters....

        That is not at all any part of Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality revolves around the notion that bandwidth should not be shaped based solely on where the packets are coming from, or where the packets are headed. For example, packets coming from Walmart should not be throttled by an ISP just because Walmart hasn't paid a fee to the ISP to prioritize Walmart's packets.

        ISP's should be a neutral transporter of data packets.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bobby ( 109046 )

      I think that makes sense.

      I'm also thinking they could lower the resolution and greatly reduce bandwidth usage. Video players used to sense bandwidth (including packet dropping) and auto-adapt. Not sure if that mechanism is still in place, but I think it would fix the problem.

      Unless the video becomes useless, then there's just an oversell of capacity.

  • The fucking EU (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rldp ( 6381096 )

    They really don't understand anything, do they?

  • Automatic throttling (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @10:21AM (#59848540) Journal

    The Netflix client software already automatically throttles bandwidth and will only use the highest quality that can stream uninterrupted. If the internet in general degrades due to Netflix it will also self-correct for this very reason. Same with Youtube. And Amazon Prime Video, and.... you get the idea.

    • There are other people and things using the Internet too, you know?
      Netflix is eating up more than it should.

      • More than it should? What should people choose to do with their Internet connections? How much bandwidth should streaming use?

        Neither Netflix or end users are doing anything wrong by streaming. Bandwidth is not crude oil or fresh water, it doesn't get "used up". What ISPs should be doing is recognizing that putting Netflix OCAs [netflix.com] in their NOCs (and equivalents from other services) is not only a good idea but a way to significantly increase network performance. With an OCA a lot of content comes from the cache

  • Does the Internet infrastructure really have no separation built into its pipes? If Chrome starts going crazing and demanding 100% of my CPU, Chrome crashes, not my computer. I would of assumed that requesting large amounts of data from a single site could slow down local traffic, but could never crash the Internet as a whole with only 1 site getting requests and relatively few of those.

    Also the consumer of data seems like the prefect passive Internet user to me, and far less disruptive than some P2P user c

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )
      It's not from a single site. There's other streaming services as well. Hence network congestion is still a thing.

      And like everywhere the ISPs have way more paying customers than their infrastructure can support. So they rely on the hope that at no point in time everyone is going to download large amounts of data at the same time. In times like this it could get problematic.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      You must be new here. /. used to DDOS entire sites off the internet, been a while since that happened though.

  • It's theater (Score:3)

    by hax 109 ( 6610968 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @10:39AM (#59848630)
    Dude is just posturing. There is no bandwidth shortage. Network operators have already confirmed that they don't see a problem. (I have half a gigabit per second via FTTH without caps and it's all there.)

  • I'm not convinced this ask makes any sense (Score:3)

    by Mouldy ( 1322581 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @10:44AM (#59848654)
    It stands to reason that;
    - People are generally either watching Netflix OR working. Very rarely do you get both at the same time.
    - Netflix usage is low during working hours but high in the evenings
    - Work-from-home usage is high during working hours but low in the evenings
    - Work-from-home traffic is likely a lot less than Netflix traffic. Company VPNs, Skype etc will use a lot less bandwidth than Netflix content.

    I also read a couple of days ago [theregister.co.uk] that ISPs have already commented something similar; They can already handle Netflix fine, so the work-from-home addition to the networks really isn't a problem.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tippen ( 704534 )
      Easy now... rational, data-driven analysis will get you nowhere here. There's a VIRUS out there! We have to DO something!!1!!

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tippen ( 704534 )
        And, of course, to be totally fair, the daytime traffic load would need to account for the addition of millions of kids that would normally be in school, plus lots of extra video conferencing for businesses.

      • There's a VIRUS out there! We have to DO something!!1!!

        And they told me I was an idiot for buying a Mac. Who's laughing now, COVID-19!

  • I don't have to RTFA to know this a social media petition started by clueless people.

  • (...) while there has been a sharp increase in internet usage, no outages or adverse affects have so far been reported (...)

    That's what the article says and that's how it is. The rest of the article is noise at best. This Thierry dude sent a Tweet. That's it. Thierry sending a Tweet is not stuff that matters, at least not to us, but obviously it matters to Thierry, who would like the whole world to know that he spoke to the CEO of Netflix.

    Apart from some isolated cases of incompetent ISPs that never worked fine to begin with and my own 17 year old WiFi network, the Internet is Just Fine.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Caps are extremely rare in Europe. Backbone bandwidth is cheaper in Europe than in the US and prices are in constant decline because there's so much unused bandwidth. There is no need to throttle. Netflix operates a CDN and doesn't even use a lot of backbone bandwidth. The access networks are not overloaded either. All the talk about slow internet is only about the last mile connections (where DSL over long lines is the main concern). The commissioner doesn't know what he's on about.

  • You get used to 144p. Don't worry. I've watched worse VHS.

    • Two possible replies:

      "144p is still better than scrambled cable porn."

      "You get used to it, though. Your brain does the translating. I don't even see the pixels. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead."

  • Caused by Ajit Pai! (Score:3)

    by sdinfoserv ( 1793266 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @11:05AM (#59848784)
    Since the Verizon lobbyist turned FCC chair Ajit Pai killed net neutrality - provider investment in infrastructure plummeted. The direct opposite of what both Ajit & the providers claimed would happen:
    https://arstechnica.com/inform... [arstechnica.com]
    Less investment directly means not increasing backbone bandwidth. This is what happens when Oligarchs and Corporations set policy rules, they rules to enrich themselves over benefit or needs of the people they are supposed to serve and who pay their salaries.

  • Most ISPs have a local Netflix server anyway?
    I have been working from home for a week now and haven’t seen or heard about any problems and we have 1500 users connected through our VPN. 10x normal load.

  • Telework (Score:3)

    by blackfeltfedora ( 2855471 ) on Thursday March 19, 2020 @12:28PM (#59849212)
    I would think the increase in teleconferences and video meetings would be a bigger problem than Netflix.

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