Internet around the Globe
I watched the Jacksonville Jaguars vs Buffalo Bills game this past Sunday on Yahoo, partly because I’m a big football fan, but mostly, because I wanted to see what the experience would be. Streaming is the future, and Netflix has proven that. Many have followed in Netflix’s footsteps such as Amazon, and video streaming will be the way in which we watch TV.
Thinking back to the decision made on net neutrality, and recent claims that Netflix represents 30% of internet traffic, I wonder how long it’ll be before streaming becomes affected. My Yahoo experience was seamless. I started watching it on my laptop, which was not a good experience, but then moved to mobile. Flawless experience. I have to say, it made me more interested in the game. It really is about the experience. And Yahoo: delivered 8.5 petabytes of content!
I wrote about the amount of data that’s coming, and how storage needed to change, but it’s not the only thing that needs to change. As we see streaming becoming more mainstream, the Facebooks and the Googles of the world are trying to figure out how the connect the world. A little over 1/3 of the world has access to the internet, so there’s still a great deal of opportunity to bring the world together. But how to do this? Facebook is looking at new and innovative ways to deliver affordable internet, and Google’s initiatives are moving along as well.
Which brings me back to net neutrality. Many of these companies are trying to figure out affordable ways in other parts of the world. However, in North America, we have the Verizons and Comcast battling Netflix and Google. Should there have been fast lanes, as Mark Cuban and others suggested? If everyone is to get the same performance, who should pay for the infrastructure upgrades needed to deliver an acceptable performance level? Should I and Netflix pay the same? Even though Netflix has 30% of traffic? Or should we also suffer the same performance?
In today’s world, we see the internet as a ‘birth right’, and I, for one, can’t live without the internet. But there is nothing more frustrating than poor performing internet connectivity. If net neutrality has a good way of providing the funds needed to build a reliable and high performance network in order to support all the traffic, then this will work. Laying down cables throughout the country and at the bottom of the ocean is a laborious chore, and very expensive. If we, as consumers, are going to be the payers of that infrastructure, even though we don’t have 30% traffic on the internet, then I’m not for that. Why shouldn’t companies like Netflix, Yahoo, Amazon, and other video streaming and bandwidth-intensive companies pay for infrastructure upgrades? They are the ones who would benefit from a high performing network. It seems that the consumer loses in the end.
What are your thoughts?
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