COVID-19 vs. our Networks

Fri Mar 20 13:32:45 UTC 2020

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.