Re: COVID-19 vs. our Networks

[Tom Beecher <beecher () beecher cc>]

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> 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
> Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL>
> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb>
> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions>
> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix>
> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange>
> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
> <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp>
> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
> ------------------------------
> *From: *"Blake Hudson" <blake () ispn net>
> *To: *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
> Intelligent Computing Solutions <http://www.ics-il.com/>
> <https://www.facebook.com/ICSIL>
> <https://plus.google.com/+IntelligentComputingSolutionsDeKalb>
> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/intelligent-computing-solutions>
> <https://twitter.com/ICSIL>
> Midwest Internet Exchange <http://www.midwest-ix.com/>
> <https://www.facebook.com/mdwestix>
> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/midwest-internet-exchange>
> <https://twitter.com/mdwestix>
> The Brothers WISP <http://www.thebrotherswisp.com/>
> <https://www.facebook.com/thebrotherswisp>
> <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSdfxQv7SpoRQYNyLwntZg>
> ------------------------------
> *From: *"Blake Hudson" <blake () ispn net> <blake () ispn net>
> *To: *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.