On 13/07/2014 01:22, nanog@brettglass.com wrote:
"Open Connect" is not, in fact, a CDN. Nor is it "peering." It is merely a set of policies for direct connection to ISPs, and for placing servers in ISPs' facilities, that is as favorable as possible in every way to Netflix. It costs Netflix as little as possible and the ISP as much as possible.
it's a local cache server and of course it costs Netflix as little as possible because they're a business not a charity. The access service provider gets better performance, gets to choose where in their network makes most sense to have the device installed, and gets to save on transit / long-hauling costs. The overall traffic figures aren't changed in any material way, so it's not obvious why you claim that "it costs [...] the ISP as much as possible", because it just doesn't. For local content cache services of this type, some service providers are large enough to be able to financially muscle the content providers into paying for hosting / local connectivity fees, etc. This is nearly always a function of whether that sort of a deal can be strong-armed or not. The reverse is also true: the content providers will nearly always decline to pay hosting and connectivity fees if they feel they can get away with it. Both situations are a reflection of the relative importance of each business to each other. Nick