Monday 16 January 2012

Netflix in the UK and Net Neutrality

I see Netflix are launching in the UK which is good news for TV and film addicts but is going to cause some headaches at the Internet Service Providers.  Some report put Netflix usage in the US at over 30% of all bandwidth, or to put it another way, it adds half as much again to current Internet traffic volumes.

Whilst this isn't in itself an insurmountable problem for the backbones, the crunch will come when subscribers realise that the £5.99/month Netflix fee doesn't change the contract on their home broadband connection.  Most broadband connections in the UK are provided by BT and their cheaper tariffs have usage limits.