Justin’s original question was “….. Is it well known where the newly released Disney+ streaming service content is sourced?...” With Eric’s finding of “I saw various content being served from Akamai, Amazon, Fastly and Limelight so far. I'm in Montreal.” Is this an absolute answer as to how Disney+ is handling delivery of their content? If not, are there any Disney folks listening that could respond to me either off list or on the community thread here about how we should expect to see this Disney+ content sourced and whether or not Disney+ has or is planning on building out an ISP-located CDN type of network, much like all the others? (OCA, FNA, AANP, AEC, ACE, GGC) -Aaron

They have some improper geolocation for us, would be nice to have them input to this chain. On Tue, Nov 12, 2019 at 1:00 PM Brian J. Murrell <brian@interlinx.bc.ca> wrote:

On Tue, 2019-11-12 at 19:49 +0000, Justin Krejci wrote:

...

As the service grows in popularity, and its breadth of content and manageable price is likely to attract a lot of growth, I'd like to plan for any necessary augmentations to the network.

From the end-user/viewer network capacity perspective is a new streaming service likely to (significantly) "add new viewers" or more likely to just shift existing viewers away from an existing service (i.e Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.) to Disney, resulting in a net-wash from the end-user/viewer network capacity perspective?

I guess the question is, will Disney content compel users who are not already streaming to start streaming?

Cheers, b.

On Tue, 2019-11-12 at 15:26 -0500, Valdis Klētnieks wrote:

I can foresee a lot of families subscribing to Netflix *and* Disney+ because neither one has all the content the family wants to watch.

Absolutely. But the time spent watching Disney would *replace* (not be in addition to, or would it? Would Disney's content result in existing streamers watching more hours of streaming than they did before?) Netflix watching.

Has anybody seen a significant drop in total streaming traffic due to Netflix users jumping ship to Amazon/Hulu, or are consumers just biting the bullet, coughing up the $$, and streaming more total because across the services there's more stuff they want to watch?

I actually suspect streaming is going to decline (at least in comparison to where it could have grown to) if this streaming service fragmentation continues. I think people are going to reject the idea that they need to subscribe to a dozen streaming services at $10-$20/mo. each and will be driven back the good old "single source" (piracy) they used to use before 1 (or perhaps 2) streaming services kept them happy enough to abandon piracy. The content providers are going to piss in their bed again due to greed. Again. Cheers, b.

Neither Good Omens nor Game of Thrones are available for streaming on Netflix (you'll have to go to one of their competitors). Overall I tend to agree with Brian that people's time and eyeballs are finite. As more streaming services emerge, usage will simply be split between streaming providers. There might be a slight increase in overall streaming usage due to the effect you mentioned (more content available for a wider audience than in previous years), but I don't expect it to be an overnight change for our industry. Matthew Petach wrote on 11/12/2019 2:53 PM:

Different target audiences.

Now the parents can be watching "Good Omens" or "Game of Thrones" on Netflix while the kids are streaming "The Lion King" on Disney+ streaming.  Instead of the whole family watching one show together, now we have segmentation in the marketplace.

End result is more total overall bandwidth consumption.

Matt

On Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 12:38 Brian J. Murrell <brian@interlinx.bc.ca <mailto:brian@interlinx.bc.ca>> wrote:

On Tue, 2019-11-12 at 15:26 -0500, Valdis Klētnieks wrote: > > I can foresee a lot of families subscribing to Netflix *and* Disney+ > because neither one has all the content the family wants to watch.

Absolutely.  But the time spent watching Disney would *replace* (not be in addition to, or would it?  Would Disney's content result in existing streamers watching more hours of streaming than they did before?) Netflix watching.

> Has anybody seen a significant drop in total streaming traffic due to > Netflix > users jumping ship to Amazon/Hulu, or are consumers just biting the > bullet, > coughing up the $$, and streaming more total because across the > services > there's more stuff they want to watch?

I actually suspect streaming is going to decline (at least in comparison to where it could have grown to) if this streaming service fragmentation continues.

I think people are going to reject the idea that they need to subscribe to a dozen streaming services at $10-$20/mo. each and will be driven back the good old "single source" (piracy) they used to use before 1 (or perhaps 2) streaming services kept them happy enough to abandon piracy.

The content providers are going to piss in their bed again due to greed.  Again.

Cheers, b.

On Nov 12, 2019, at 4:19 PM, Mark Andrews <marka@isc.org> wrote:

People can really only watch one thing at a time. Net streaming of the last mile is unlikely to change much. Just where that content is coming from may change.

This is my feeling as well. It may impact people whose models assume that 20% of video is Netflix (or whatever service) as that ratio changes. - Jared

My point was that Disney has a lock on much of the content kids love. Netflix/HBO/AmazonPrime, not so much. So, the new eyeballs aren't going to be from parents watching different shows, it'll be from parents watching their adult-ish stuff, while the kids are happily ensconced with Disney+. I called out Game of Thrones and Good Omens as shows that are popular with adults but that aren't terribly family friendly, so you won't be getting many 12-and-unders watching them. That's where the new eyeballs come from. Matt On Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 13:17 Mark Andrews <marka@isc.org> wrote:

They can already stream different content to multiple devices simultaneously. All this does is make some content that wasn’t available previously now available.

People can really only watch one thing at a time. Net streaming of the last mile is unlikely to change much. Just where that content is coming from may change.

Mark

...

On 13 Nov 2019, at 07:53, Matthew Petach <mpetach@netflight.com> wrote:

Different target audiences.

Now the parents can be watching "Good Omens" or "Game of Thrones" on Netflix while the kids are streaming "The Lion King" on Disney+ streaming. Instead of the whole family watching one show together, now we have segmentation in the marketplace.

End result is more total overall bandwidth consumption.

Matt

On Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 12:38 Brian J. Murrell <brian@interlinx.bc.ca> wrote: On Tue, 2019-11-12 at 15:26 -0500, Valdis Klētnieks wrote:

...

I can foresee a lot of families subscribing to Netflix *and* Disney+ because neither one has all the content the family wants to watch.

Absolutely. But the time spent watching Disney would *replace* (not be in addition to, or would it? Would Disney's content result in existing streamers watching more hours of streaming than they did before?) Netflix watching.

...

Has anybody seen a significant drop in total streaming traffic due to Netflix users jumping ship to Amazon/Hulu, or are consumers just biting the bullet, coughing up the $$, and streaming more total because across the services there's more stuff they want to watch?

I actually suspect streaming is going to decline (at least in comparison to where it could have grown to) if this streaming service fragmentation continues.

I think people are going to reject the idea that they need to subscribe to a dozen streaming services at $10-$20/mo. each and will be driven back the good old "single source" (piracy) they used to use before 1 (or perhaps 2) streaming services kept them happy enough to abandon piracy.

The content providers are going to piss in their bed again due to greed. Again.

Cheers, b.

-- Mark Andrews, ISC 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: marka@isc.org

This has gone well beyond out of scope of the NANOG list. Discussing who watches what kind of content has nothing to do with networking. Can you guys take the conversation elsewhere? - Mike Bolitho On Tue, Nov 12, 2019 at 4:34 PM Matthew Petach <mpetach@netflight.com> wrote:

My point was that Disney has a lock on much of the content kids love.

Netflix/HBO/AmazonPrime, not so much.

So, the new eyeballs aren't going to be from parents watching different shows, it'll be from parents watching their adult-ish stuff, while the kids are happily ensconced with Disney+.

I called out Game of Thrones and Good Omens as shows that are popular with adults but that aren't terribly family friendly, so you won't be getting many 12-and-unders watching them.

That's where the new eyeballs come from.

Matt

On Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 13:17 Mark Andrews <marka@isc.org> wrote:

...

They can already stream different content to multiple devices simultaneously. All this does is make some content that wasn’t available previously now available.

People can really only watch one thing at a time. Net streaming of the last mile is unlikely to change much. Just where that content is coming from may change.

Mark

...

On 13 Nov 2019, at 07:53, Matthew Petach <mpetach@netflight.com> wrote:

Different target audiences.

Now the parents can be watching "Good Omens" or "Game of Thrones" on Netflix while the kids are streaming "The Lion King" on Disney+ streaming. Instead of the whole family watching one show together, now we have segmentation in the marketplace.

End result is more total overall bandwidth consumption.

Matt

On Tue, Nov 12, 2019, 12:38 Brian J. Murrell <brian@interlinx.bc.ca> wrote: On Tue, 2019-11-12 at 15:26 -0500, Valdis Klētnieks wrote:

...

I can foresee a lot of families subscribing to Netflix *and* Disney+ because neither one has all the content the family wants to watch.

Absolutely. But the time spent watching Disney would *replace* (not be in addition to, or would it? Would Disney's content result in existing streamers watching more hours of streaming than they did before?) Netflix watching.

...

Has anybody seen a significant drop in total streaming traffic due to Netflix users jumping ship to Amazon/Hulu, or are consumers just biting the bullet, coughing up the $$, and streaming more total because across the services there's more stuff they want to watch?

I actually suspect streaming is going to decline (at least in comparison to where it could have grown to) if this streaming service fragmentation continues.

I think people are going to reject the idea that they need to subscribe to a dozen streaming services at $10-$20/mo. each and will be driven back the good old "single source" (piracy) they used to use before 1 (or perhaps 2) streaming services kept them happy enough to abandon piracy.

The content providers are going to piss in their bed again due to greed. Again.

Cheers, b.

-- Mark Andrews, ISC 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742 INTERNET: marka@isc.org

On 11/13/19 1:06 PM, Niels Bakker wrote:

* mikebolitho@gmail.com (Mike Bolitho) [Wed 13 Nov 2019, 12:05 CET]:

...

This has gone well beyond out of scope of the NANOG list. Discussing who watches what kind of content has nothing to do with networking. Can you guys take the conversation elsewhere?

On the contrary.  This discussion informs eyeball networks' capacity planning requirements for the upcoming years.

It'd be nice to go from anecdata to data, though.

    -- Niels.

Indeed ... as an eyeball network, this is all very relevant. Another aspect that hasn't been mentioned in this thread (I think), is that besides there being a potential saturation of streaming services, there's also the backroom dealings between content and content-providers. Here's some data: Netflix just lost "Friends", one of its most popular offerings (and probably more than a blip on my bandwidth graphs) to HBO Max. This is but one example, but, as a whole, stuff like this is very important for capacity-planning. Not saying it's gonna happen, but if Disney "lost" the Star Wars franchise to, say, Amazon, you better believe there are likely to be traffic shifts. (Yes, I know they own it.)

CAVAET: I don't have a dog in this hunt. On 11/13/19 6:46 AM, Mel Beckman wrote:

This is silly off-topic. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here, according to NANOG guidelines.

https://www.nanog.org/resources/usage-guidelines/ > https://www.nanog.org/bylaws/

"The NANOG mailing list was established in 1994 to provide an open forum for the exchange of technical information, and lively discussion of SPECIFIC IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES (emphasis mine) that require cooperation among network service providers. "Posts to NANOG’s mailing list should be focused on operational and technical content only, as described by the NANOG Bylaws." Yes, some of the Disney Plus thread has strayed outside the four corners of the rules of the mailing list, but the bulk of the thread has to do with two things: geolocation inaccuracies, and traffic capacity shifts. For some network operators on this list, the discussion does not describe issues on their networks. But "some" is not "all".

On 13/Nov/19 01:32, Matthew Petach wrote:

My point was that Disney has a lock on much of the content kids love.

Netflix/HBO/AmazonPrime, not so much.

Maybe it's the changing times, but my 4-year old nephew, 12-year old sons and 8-year old nieces all get their kids programming from Youtube. Mark.

On Tue, Nov 12, 2019 at 04:52:25PM -0500, Brian J. Murrell wrote:

On Tue, 2019-11-12 at 12:53 -0800, Matthew Petach wrote:

...

Different target audiences.

That are already satisfied with existing services, so no new target audiences.

...

Now the parents can be watching "Good Omens" or "Game of Thrones" on Netflix while the kids are streaming "The Lion King" on Disney+ streaming.

But they could watch lots of (Disney even) content on Netflix already. So I still don't see an increase in consumption just because of Disney+.

...

Instead of the whole family watching one show together, now we have segmentation in the marketplace.

Disney+ doesn't change "whole family watching one show together" (or not -- because individuals watching their own streams is already possible) model from the current model.

Cheers, b

I agree with this. I mean, it might bring on a few new streaming viewers but these would be those who haven't yet transitioned to streaming video for the majority of their watching habits. So this won't really establish a new audience but it could help siphon more away from cable/sattelite. Its just the equivilant of a new channel coming along. One person can only practically watch one show at a time (maybe doesn't apply to football games...) so if there's a given audience size, all this really does is shuffle the ratings around a bit. As to the "$10-20/mo for eight different services", I tend to think that people are gonna rebel at some point and seek out some sort of a centralized service and we'll kinda be back to where we started, with each source getting payment for the specific program viewed. Hard to tell, but the fragmentation thing will start to come to the forefront before too much longer, IMO. -Wayne --- Wayne Bouchard web@typo.org Network Dude http://www.typo.org/~web/

On 12/Nov/19 22:53, Matthew Petach wrote:

Different target audiences.

Now the parents can be watching "Good Omens" or "Game of Thrones" on Netflix while the kids are streaming "The Lion King" on Disney+ streaming.  Instead of the whole family watching one show together, now we have segmentation in the marketplace.  

End result is more total overall bandwidth consumption.

And an even greater social gap than what we now have. Also, not sure about your kids, but mine are more interested in Fortnite (boys) and Instagram (girls) than The Lion King. I think the appeal of nostalgia by Disney and the rest of the Hollywood establishment is likely to, I suspect, resonate more with the older generation. I'm not sure our kids will enjoy the Mickey Mouse series as much as we did. For this younger generation, new, original content probably stands a better chance. Time will tell. Mark.

...

I think people are going to reject the idea that they need to subscribe to a dozen streaming services at $10-$20/mo. each and will be driven back the good old "single source" (piracy) they used to use before 1 (or perhaps 2) streaming services kept them happy enough to abandon piracy.

The content providers are going to piss in their bed again due to greed. Again.

This!

At the beginning of this year, I dumped Prime Video because while I initially got it for "The Grand Tour", almost all the other content was not available in Africa.

I foresee a new business model: VPN / streaming bundle. Get all your streaming services bundled together, proxied and VPNd from their native regions. -Bill

While I agree about the likely outcome, I will point out that consumers have been begging for unbundling for years. This fragmentation of streaming services _IS_ the direct result of that request. It’s unbundled service, exactly what they have been asking for. Owen

On Nov 26, 2019, at 01:54 , Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:

On 12/Nov/19 22:36, Brian J. Murrell wrote:

...

I actually suspect streaming is going to decline (at least in comparison to where it could have grown to) if this streaming service fragmentation continues.

I think people are going to reject the idea that they need to subscribe to a dozen streaming services at $10-$20/mo. each and will be driven back the good old "single source" (piracy) they used to use before 1 (or perhaps 2) streaming services kept them happy enough to abandon piracy.

The content providers are going to piss in their bed again due to greed. Again.

This!

At the beginning of this year, I dumped Prime Video because while I initially got it for "The Grand Tour", almost all the other content was not available in Africa. Didn't see the point of shelling out over US$100/year for just one show, especially since we already have Netflix + a local linear pay TV service.

I bought the wife a new iPhone 11 Pro earlier this month. This got us 1-year's worth of free AppleTV+. Not a lot of content so far, but I hear the same about Disney+. Granted 2 of the 3 shows on TV+ are not bad. But it's free, so what the heck.

I'm not keen on paying for more than one streaming service, if I'm honest. There already isn't enough time in the world for regular life, never mind watching one streaming service... now we have to deal with more, each with their own price? Not sure how well the streaming providers expect regular folk to take all of this fragmentation.

As my daughter would say, "They can miss me with it :-)".

Mark.

This started under the Cable regime, People were complaining about having to buy channel bundles instead of simply choosing the channels they wanted to subscribe to. Owen

On Nov 28, 2019, at 11:33 , Ross Tajvar <ross@tajvar.io> wrote:

Well, not exactly. Each service is still a bunch of shows and movies bundled together. If you only want to watch one show, you can't just buy that, you have to buy the whole service.

Of course, there are services where you can buy individual movies and episodes (Google Play comes to mind). But Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, etc. don't operate that way.

-Ross

On Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 1:53 PM Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com <mailto:owen@delong.com>> wrote: While I agree about the likely outcome, I will point out that consumers have been begging for unbundling for years.

This fragmentation of streaming services _IS_ the direct result of that request.

It’s unbundled service, exactly what they have been asking for.

Owen

...

On Nov 26, 2019, at 01:54 , Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu <mailto:mark.tinka@seacom.mu>> wrote:

On 12/Nov/19 22:36, Brian J. Murrell wrote:

...

I actually suspect streaming is going to decline (at least in comparison to where it could have grown to) if this streaming service fragmentation continues.

I think people are going to reject the idea that they need to subscribe to a dozen streaming services at $10-$20/mo. each and will be driven back the good old "single source" (piracy) they used to use before 1 (or perhaps 2) streaming services kept them happy enough to abandon piracy.

The content providers are going to piss in their bed again due to greed. Again.

This!

At the beginning of this year, I dumped Prime Video because while I initially got it for "The Grand Tour", almost all the other content was not available in Africa. Didn't see the point of shelling out over US$100/year for just one show, especially since we already have Netflix + a local linear pay TV service.

I bought the wife a new iPhone 11 Pro earlier this month. This got us 1-year's worth of free AppleTV+. Not a lot of content so far, but I hear the same about Disney+. Granted 2 of the 3 shows on TV+ are not bad. But it's free, so what the heck.

I'm not keen on paying for more than one streaming service, if I'm honest. There already isn't enough time in the world for regular life, never mind watching one streaming service... now we have to deal with more, each with their own price? Not sure how well the streaming providers expect regular folk to take all of this fragmentation.

As my daughter would say, "They can miss me with it :-)".

Mark.

Speaking as a consumer I tend to purchase content and things like OTA broadcasts are available overnight without commercials. Thus is worth it for me. Cut the 30 minute show to 18-22 and can download without geo locks wherever I am. Sent from my iFridge

On Dec 1, 2019, at 4:31 PM, Jay R. Ashworth <jra@baylink.com> wrote:

Each service *is a cable company*, requiring it's own set-top box (or a plug-in that works on your current box/tv.

Note also that you can't DVR any of this stuff, and it *does* go away.

I agree with Brian, this is not unbundling, it's just removing one layer of distribution; you no longer need the Cable company to play aggregator to the content distributors, you now buy from them direct (especially true in the case of HBO and Disney, except ESPN is not yet included). The next logical large player to enter the global** direct-to-streamer market would be NBCUniversal, so I'm sure we will soon be preparing for that one too :) Rob On Fri, 29 Nov 2019 at 06:47, Brian J. Murrell <brian@interlinx.bc.ca> wrote:

On Thu, 2019-11-28 at 10:50 -0800, Owen DeLong wrote:

...

While I agree about the likely outcome, I will point out that consumers have been begging for unbundling for years.

This is not the "unbundling" that consumers have been begging for. Rather I would submit that it's actually quite the opposite and much more like the bundling that they have been railing against.

The "unbundling" that consumers have been begging for is minimally, the ability to buy a single channel for a fair price and not have to take 14 other channels of *garbage* with it at 15x the cost one of those channels. I say minimally because I suspect that the really savvy consumers would actually rather even pay (again, at a fair price) per show or episode.

But that's not what's happening with this fragmentation. This fragmentation is like the cable company splitting up that "once price for all" bundle and putting the pieces into other bundles, each at the same cost as that original "all in one" bundle that the consumers were originally happy with and saw as fair value. Of course now to continue to getting those pieces of the original bundle that they were happy with, consumers are having to buy multiples of these new bundles and their costs are driving up sharply accordingly.

...

This fragmentation of streaming services _IS_ the direct result of that request.

I would submit that that is completely untrue. Do you really think Disney pulled out of Netflix and started their own service because consumers wanted Disney to unbundle from Netflix? I would suggest that that is completely not why. Rather, Disney was not happy to have just a piece of the Netflix pie, and decided, as greedy as they are, that they would sell their own pies and take the fully monthly subscription price.

...

It’s unbundled service, exactly what they have been asking for.

Again. No. Not at all. Not even close. Quite the opposite in fact.

The problem with suggesting that this is unbundling is that the cost of Netflix didn't reduce when Disney pulled out and Disney (I would bet, I haven't actually looked at it's cost) isn't charging the faction of the Netflix cost that would be commensurate with their percentage of the entire Netflix library.

So there has been no "unbundling" of any sort. Rather it's been an exercise of actually creating a new bundling. And I still predict that once the reality of this sets in with consumers, they are going to reject it and head back to that low (zero) cost means of obtaining their media that they used when they were unhappy with the previous generation of bundling.

b.

Again, this has gone beyond off-topic for the NANOG list. Please take the discussion elsewhere. -Mike Bolitho On Thu, Nov 28, 2019, 3:52 PM Michael Thomas <mike@mtcc.com> wrote:

Back in the old days, we had the ultimate in unbundling: you walked up, got a ticket, and watched the movie.

In principle it wouldn't be that hard these days to do something similar with a tremendous reduction in friction. Basically pay-per-view on steroids.

My sense is that it would be tremendous failure though: how would a consumer know how to value different content? Going to a movie is comparatively a big commitment with plenty of time to decide if you think it's worth it. Channel surfing, not so much. So maybe we are doomed to some sort of bundling.

The big problem is that I don't want to pay for a month of content to watch one or two shows. And I definitely don't want to pay a month's worth of content to three dozen providers of which i may only watch a few of their programs a couple of times a month. Now if you reduced that to, say, a day pass I might bite, especially if there was no more friction than the usual channel surfing.

Mike On 11/28/19 2:23 PM, Robert Haylock wrote:

I agree with Brian, this is not unbundling, it's just removing one layer of distribution; you no longer need the Cable company to play aggregator to the content distributors, you now buy from them direct (especially true in the case of HBO and Disney, except ESPN is not yet included). The next logical large player to enter the global** direct-to-streamer market would be NBCUniversal, so I'm sure we will soon be preparing for that one too :)

Rob

On Fri, 29 Nov 2019 at 06:47, Brian J. Murrell <brian@interlinx.bc.ca> wrote:

...

On Thu, 2019-11-28 at 10:50 -0800, Owen DeLong wrote:

...

While I agree about the likely outcome, I will point out that consumers have been begging for unbundling for years.

This is not the "unbundling" that consumers have been begging for. Rather I would submit that it's actually quite the opposite and much more like the bundling that they have been railing against.

The "unbundling" that consumers have been begging for is minimally, the ability to buy a single channel for a fair price and not have to take 14 other channels of *garbage* with it at 15x the cost one of those channels. I say minimally because I suspect that the really savvy consumers would actually rather even pay (again, at a fair price) per show or episode.

But that's not what's happening with this fragmentation. This fragmentation is like the cable company splitting up that "once price for all" bundle and putting the pieces into other bundles, each at the same cost as that original "all in one" bundle that the consumers were originally happy with and saw as fair value. Of course now to continue to getting those pieces of the original bundle that they were happy with, consumers are having to buy multiples of these new bundles and their costs are driving up sharply accordingly.

...

This fragmentation of streaming services _IS_ the direct result of that request.

I would submit that that is completely untrue. Do you really think Disney pulled out of Netflix and started their own service because consumers wanted Disney to unbundle from Netflix? I would suggest that that is completely not why. Rather, Disney was not happy to have just a piece of the Netflix pie, and decided, as greedy as they are, that they would sell their own pies and take the fully monthly subscription price.

...

It’s unbundled service, exactly what they have been asking for.

Again. No. Not at all. Not even close. Quite the opposite in fact.

The problem with suggesting that this is unbundling is that the cost of Netflix didn't reduce when Disney pulled out and Disney (I would bet, I haven't actually looked at it's cost) isn't charging the faction of the Netflix cost that would be commensurate with their percentage of the entire Netflix library.

So there has been no "unbundling" of any sort. Rather it's been an exercise of actually creating a new bundling. And I still predict that once the reality of this sets in with consumers, they are going to reject it and head back to that low (zero) cost means of obtaining their media that they used when they were unhappy with the previous generation of bundling.

b.

On 29/Nov/19 00:51, Michael Thomas wrote:

The big problem is that I don't want to pay for a month of content to watch one or two shows. And I definitely don't want to pay a month's worth of content to three dozen providers of which i may only watch a few of their programs a couple of times a month. Now if you reduced that to, say, a day pass I might bite, especially if there was no more friction than the usual channel surfing.

In the midst of Netflix + my linear pay-TV service, we actually rent movies, on-demand, from the linear pay-TV service, which cost over & above what you pay them monthly already. Fair point, it's US$2 - US$4 per movie, but that's movies that are still reasonably new (3 - 4 months off the cinema circuit) that would only make it to mainstream TV or VoD 12 - 18 months later. And we do that only twice a month, on average. Mark.

On Nov 29, 2019, at 12:44 PM, Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com> wrote:

Isn’t NBCUniversal’s streaming service called Xfinity? Isn’t it one of the older ones?

No, their new service is Peacock and will launch in 2020. [1] I’m sure they’ll have the same set of CDNs that service them as the other streaming services and that most of them will eventually go the Netflix (OCA) style route for their VOD content over time as well. - Jared https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacock_(streaming_service)

On 28/Nov/19 21:44, Brian J. Murrell wrote:

This is not the "unbundling" that consumers have been begging for. Rather I would submit that it's actually quite the opposite and much more like the bundling that they have been railing against.

This. Mark.

On 29/Nov/19 10:44, Bjørn Mork wrote:

Sure. Like we all have been begging for an "Internet service" without any peering...

The consumers have been begging for unbundling of content and transport. This does not imply fragmentation of either. That's a content provider straw man. It is only reasonable to assume that all content providers will see the benefit in mutual agreements for content exchange with all other content providers. Just like it's reasonable to assume your ISP will let you access services hosted by some other ISP.

Of course, if ISPs wanted to make money then they would have tried to monopolize the market by fragmentation. Not..

Agreed. It's either naive or presumptuous of any VoD provider to think that they can each have 100% of the market. More so, that sharing the market through fragmentation is a viable way to guarantee their going concern over the long term. Mark.

On 29/Nov/19 13:14, Brandon Butterworth wrote:

And try busting or buying each other as they fight to be the only one.

Aggregators get away with it as there is some value in not having to mess around buying each item individually but they get greedy and there is easy profit in selling bundles of exclusive stuff you won't use.

If they'd stick to just being frictionliess marketplaces for buying any content you want they'd be providing a useful service (as IXP help in peering).

The trajectory for all of this is that, ultimately, if the VoD providers do not come together and federate or make a solid plan, we'll end up right back where we started - content piracy. I will cop to being an avid Napster user way back in 1999. For several years since, my main music sources have been legitimate - iTunes, Apple Music, Beatport and Traxsource. All these are, as you say, aggregators; and in the end, they will be the winners. I have zero desire to pirate music - also, I'm a DJ :-). I also have zero desire to pirate video content because Netflix + my pay-TV service give me everything I want:     - They are in Africa.     - Performance is great.     - Uptime is great.     - Content is generally good.     - Content is plenty.     - Price is reasonable I'm happily forgoing exclusive content on another VoD service, even if it meets most of the above. That said, if they can integrate into a single source, happily paying slightly more for the benefit. Mark.

On Friday, 29 November, 2019 05:43, Brandon Butterworth <brandon@rd.bbc.co.uk> wrote:

I'm not conviced music really learned either, once CDs are gone there will be little access to reasonable quality uncompressed downloads as everyone chases quite compressed streams.

There are quite a lot of places where you can buy DRM free lossless audio files ranging in quality from CD (44.1 kHz/16-bit/2 channel) all the way up to 192 kHz/32-bit/5.1 channel and beyond. These are basically CDs (or better) without the physical CD media and packaging. There are also streaming services that stream in "CD" quality (lossless 44.1kHz/16-bit) or better, if you prefer that model (and can live with the fleeting availability of the content). There are even a few record companies (as long as you do not want an American one) that will sell you their entire collection of digital studio masters in lossless DRM free format. There is not, however, and equivalent for Video -- it is presently stuck at the "compressed all to ratshit" video and audio level -- unless you buy physical media and extract the data yourself. -- The fact that there's a Highway to Hell but only a Stairway to Heaven says a lot about anticipated traffic volume.

On 29/Nov/19 14:42, Brandon Butterworth wrote:

Bringing this back on charter, how many different CDN appliances will we need to host for all these VoD providers? I'm just as guilty there having made our own CDN for the BBC (as well as using commercial ones).

This is one of the practical issues we are having to consider with this VoD provider fragmentation.

From experience, CDN's prefer on-net caches to peering/public caches, and just about all of them are building away from the Akamai's of the world.

We, for example, host a number of CDN clusters at our CLS's along the Eastern and Southern African coastline. As some of you may remember the recent discussions on CLS's vs. data centres for co-lo, it presents a real problem when trying to meet scale, and you want as much content on-continent for your eyeballs as you can get. Mark.

I guess the question is, will Disney content compel users who are not already streaming to start streaming?

Maybe, maybe not. But what is 100% certain is that Disney knows how to make content that people want to watch a LOT of , and Disney+ is going to be the only place to get that content. Customers are going to go where the content they want to watch is. That's not going to be Netflix/Amazon/Hulu, unless their forays into original content do a major reversal. On Tue, Nov 12, 2019 at 3:00 PM Brian J. Murrell <brian@interlinx.bc.ca> wrote:

On Tue, 2019-11-12 at 19:49 +0000, Justin Krejci wrote:

...

As the service grows in popularity, and its breadth of content and manageable price is likely to attract a lot of growth, I'd like to plan for any necessary augmentations to the network.

From the end-user/viewer network capacity perspective is a new streaming service likely to (significantly) "add new viewers" or more likely to just shift existing viewers away from an existing service (i.e Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.) to Disney, resulting in a net-wash from the end-user/viewer network capacity perspective?

I guess the question is, will Disney content compel users who are not already streaming to start streaming?

Cheers, b.