COVID-19 vs. our Networks

Sat Mar 21 11:28:36 UTC 2020

* Mike Hammett:

> 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.

4K isn't supported by all devices and plans.  I'm not sure what kind
of savings you can actually realize there.  It could be that 4K
content isn't worth caching near the edge.  Then ditching 4K could
still have a significant effect despite relatively low usage by
subscribers.  Similarly anything that reduces content diversity (like
serving only one category of 1080p streams).  Reportedly, the issue is
backhaul capacity for some CDN nodes in Europe, and not capacity from
the local cache to the subscriber, but I do not have any direct
knowledge of that.

Relaxing copyright and patent restrictions might also help, at least
in the medium term.