On Dec 27, 2012, at 13:19 , randal k <nanog@data102.com> wrote:
I work at a datacenter in southern Colorado that is the upstream bandwidth provider for several regional ISPs. We have been investigating our ever-growing bandwidth usage and have found that out of transits (Level3,Cogent,HE) that Netflix always seems to come in via Hurricane Electric. (We move ~1.4gbps to Netflix, and are thus not a candidate for peering. And they have no POP close.)
Your statement about peering makes no sense. You are trying to engineer where their traffic comes and yet you refuse to have a direct connection which would give you full control? Weird.......
I tested this by advertising a /24 across all providers, then selectively removed the advertisement to certain carriers to see where the bandwidth goes. In order, it appears that if there is a HE route, Netflix uses it, period. If there isn't, it prefers Level3, and Cogent comes last.
Completely unsurprising.
Since Netflix is a big hunk of our bandwidth (and obviously makes our customers happy), we are included to buy some more HE. However, if Netflix decides that they want to randomly switch to, say, Cogent, we may be under a year-long bandwidth contract that isn't particularly valuable anymore.
With all of that, I am interested in finding out of any knowledge about Netflix transit preferences, be it inside information, anecdotal, or otherwise. I did email peering@ but haven't heard back, thus the public question.
Why don't you ask Netflix? And why not ask them for kit to put on-net? <https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect> -- TTFN, patrick