Re: COVID-19 vs. our Networks

[Mel Beckman <mel () beckman org>]

If you say "$Service should reduce their bit rates because this is an emergency!" , I guarantee that exact same 
argument will be made well after this crisis has passed with a different definition of "emergency", and adding on "well 
it's an emergency to me!"

Well, that’s a silly argument. Do you think people can’t tell the difference between a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and 
somebody who’s having a “personal emergency”?

 -mel

On Mar 20, 2020, at 7:43 AM, Tom Beecher <beecher () beecher cc> wrote:


It is something that matters, because it has the potential to set a dangerous precedent.

If you say "$Service should reduce their bit rates because this is an emergency!" , I guarantee that exact same 
argument will be made well after this crisis has passed with a different definition of "emergency", and adding on "well 
it's an emergency to me!".

Some of the pipes Netflix goes through is also used by other services that aren't as adaptable.

And how is that Netflix's responsibility? They have already taken action to ramp down bitrates when they detect 
congestion. Why should other applications be able to say piss off, I don't want to? Didn't we just have a 10 year net 
neutrality argument that we're not supposed to want to treat the bits differently?

On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 10:17 AM Mike Hammett <nanog () ics-il net<mailto:nanog () ics-il net>> wrote:
It's one of those most important things that matters.

The end user likely won't notice the difference between 4k and 720p. They also aren't likely to notice the transition 
from one to the other.

The person on the VPN, VoIP call, video conference, video game, etc. will very much notice the congested link, even if 
it's only a few seconds.


Yes, Netflix video is very efficient, if not the most efficient. They're also one of if not the largest slingers of 
bits on the Internet. Small changes in usage of such a huge player totally eclipse most other usages on the Internet.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/306

Netflix recommends 25 megs for Ultra HD, while only 5 megs for HD. That's a 5x difference in something people likely 
won't notice and would make a big difference on the additional VPN, VoIP, video conferencing, etc.



-----
Mike Hammett
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________________________________
From: "Blake Hudson" <blake () ispn net<mailto:blake () ispn net>>
To: nanog () nanog org<mailto:nanog () nanog org>
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2020 9:01:18 AM
Subject: Re: COVID-19 vs. our Networks

Yes, but does that matter? If there's extra capacity on the link, Netflix runs at full rate. If there is not extra 
capacity Netflix rates down to prevent congestion. While streaming video (including Netflix) uses a lot of bandwidth, I 
don't see Netflix causing congestion. It gets a bad wrap, and I think that's unfair because Netflix is actually really 
efficient and really conscientious compared to others.

On 3/20/2020 8:52 AM, Mike Hammett wrote:
Some of the pipes Netflix goes through is also used by other services that aren't as adaptable.



-----
Mike Hammett
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________________________________
From: "Blake Hudson" <blake () ispn net><mailto:blake () ispn net>
To: nanog () nanog org<mailto:nanog () nanog org>
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2020 8:32:45 AM
Subject: Re: COVID-19 vs. our Networks


On 3/19/2020 12:22 PM, Mark Tinka wrote:
> On 19/Mar/20 18:07, Matt Hoppes wrote:
> > Agreed... 720 or 1080 Netflix will work just as fine as 4K for the
> > next month or two.
> Well, the article claims "Drop stream quality from HD". That means 4K,
> 1080p and 720p.
>
> If you have an OCA on your network, how does this encourage consumers to
> use the "extra bandwidth" for anything else?
>
> Are we assuming we know how consumers want to spend their time now?
>
> Mark.

Across several eyeball networks I'm not seeing any noticeable increase
in peak (95%) demand between now and January. Since Netflix
automatically scales down data rates in the event of congestion, the
only thing I foresee forcing Netflix to reduce data rates [ahead of any
congestion] would accomplish is causing excess link capacity to go
unused (wasted). This sounds like a policy decision made without a
technical argument... e.g. not a data driven decision, but a decision
made out of fear or panic.