Internet Usage patterns and the unlimited problem

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DjG

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#150622 28-Jul-2014 18:35

So id like to know what people think on this.

I run a few networks around the place and I'm seeing this more and more.

Users are not downloading (i.e. saving to disk) much these days, torrents are representing SFA of the total traffic, the majority of the traffic down is streamed from the likes of youtube, netflix, hulu etc. The problem i see with this is that the average usage per user of international bandwidth is now 1.8+ Mbit. now I'm considering that my household uses a fair bit of netflix and hulu we stream it at approx 4 - 6Mbit, now if we have 1K users streaming at any one time and thats not that many users and all streaming at one particular time thats 4 - 6Gig of international transit.

From where I sit its just not feasible to be running links that hot for the amount of users, the financials just dont add up unless your doing something dodgy or on the cheep.

so back to my question....

what are the GZ users now doing, are you streaming from the US or are "linux torrents" the way for the majority ?

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#1097348 28-Jul-2014 18:49

Based on those numbers, I very much doubt your users are representative of the average user.

We are a few years away from an average international usage of 1.8Mbps.

Eta:chorus stated that average throughput at their handovers is around 250kbps per customer, and only a proportion of that will be international traffic. Maybe 70-80%

Coil

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#1097354 28-Jul-2014 18:55

A large amount of traffic is stored somewhat local so we dont have to go off shore. Take the akamais for example. They run all of Facebook for this part of the world and other stuff. Steam and other game clients all store locally and P2P will; most likely go to some seedbox in AU or heaps of people in NZ if you are on the LinuxISOBay. Not much traffic will be going to the USA. if you were to count only *my online time and get a usage of offshore traffic it would probably be in the range of 80-200kb/s. I use quite a lot but for the time on its nothing compared to local. I kind of consider Australia local.

freitasm

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#1097358 28-Jul-2014 18:58

DjG: so back to my question....

what are the GZ users now doing, are you streaming from the US or are "linux torrents" the way for the majority ?

Back to your question: streaming. Watched the entire House M.D. series (seasons 1 - 8) in the last three months on Netflix, plus a few Amazon Instant video movies, plus a few nature (BBC Wild life series, Sir David Attenborough, etc) on Hulu.

On top of that online storage (100GB on OneDrive storing documents, photos, music, home videos), plus Crashplan for backup. And remote work.

Used around 150GB/month before going unlimited probably using around 250GB now.

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PhantomNVD

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#1097396 28-Jul-2014 19:52

Can't wait to be able to stream at my next house (waiting to sell this one before I can afford to build it though) so I WILL be a streamer, but with my current crappy 1mb/s (max) speeds I can't even watch YouTube w/out buffering on anything more than 360p, so I'm currently a "Linux torrent" user, just cos I can leave it on all night and watch it tomorrow buffer free.

Would/will definitely stream when I've moved and can... Really, never rewatch ANYTHING (except kids movies) so why bother storing them locally when I (won't) need to?

hio77

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#1097402 28-Jul-2014 19:54

its funny really, when i first looked at my data usage moving out of home (where i was pushing the limits as hard as i could) i expected ild be easily pushing crazy ammounts.

so moved out, and rolled onto a nice big plan.

after doing things like getting rid of that REALLY annoying yellow line on steam when things a paused, keeping my whole library active, i see on average 1~2GB of updates for a 250~ game library per day... thats pretty manageable if you ask me.

My Viewing has had one alteration since moving, that is quality increasing, infact on some points i even view less - i used to always have a backlog of things to watch, while i waited for things i was downloading to finish.

im yet to jump on to the whole streaming phase, im a big one for having the real files onhand, store it on the fileserver for later - mainly out of habit from when i was sharing a slow rural connection.

moving to unlimited, made no difference to my usage, which is pretty variable at best..

heres the last few months.... need to get around to dropping that free youtube addon...

worth pointing out though, i outsource my heavy network traffic, conducting 99% of my P2P traffic in the netherlands.

rather variable, compared to say, my parents rural line. which so far this month has done 310GB(predict this to hit 350GB before the end of the month easily), up from the 120~ it was doing before going unlimited. (thats basically maxing out solid 24/7 all month long.) - quite clearly here the unlimited plan made a huge difference, more than doubling and full knowing this behaviour is going to be constant.

so, while going unlimited has not affected me one bit, i manage other lines in-which it has more than doubled usage.

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NonprayingMantis

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#1097405 28-Jul-2014 19:56

NonprayingMantis: Based on those numbers, I very much doubt your users are representative of the average user.

We are a few years away from an average international usage of 1.8Mbps.

Eta:chorus stated that average throughput at their handovers is around 250kbps per customer, and only a proportion of that will be international traffic. Maybe 70-80%

the other thing I meant to add is that whilst the only viable streaming options just eat international bandwidth right now, that won't be the case in a year or so.

We'll have a (hopefully) better Sky go service, Telecom's Lightbox service launching soon, a local Netflix (probably) and who knows what else.
With a bit of luck, there will be much less need to stream stuff from overseas.

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charsleysa

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#1097525 28-Jul-2014 22:35

Just so add my two cents, we usually use 300GB a month in my household, 7 people, and a good 3rd of that data is my overnight seeding and torrent downloads. I don't think the issue is bandwidth, it's the cost of that bandwidth. Very little is actually fetched from overseas and AU connections can sort of not be considered international since we've got such good peering with them.

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mynxnet

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#1097536 28-Jul-2014 22:52

Our products were designed and are marketed to customers with a focus on streaming on fast connections. As such our customer base is not the "norm".

Eta:chorus stated that average throughput at their handovers is around 250kbps per customer

We have been watching utilisation closely. At peak viewing times we are seeing a very high average per customer through-put. I think thats what DjG is focusing on. An average over a day/week/month is not very telling. The peak times however are. What is becoming more and more important to us is GB/S @ peak times not GB/month.

Also don't forget the younger generation (< 18 years old). From customer stories they are coming to terms with the technology and finding the age appropriate content with easy access. The customers we have who are just above this age group are some of our biggest consumers of bandwidth. This may be an indication of things to come.

As a side note. I would very much doubt Netflix/hulu will enter the NZ market for some time as the cost of content rights vs consumer base just doesn't add up. Even Sky has to work hard to keep profits up at ~$70 per month. Imagine trying to deliver that at $14 per month. I cant wait to see local offerings, but wonder if these offerings will be a match for the bigger global players.

I was once told by a lecturer "Content is king". In this case couple that with the internets mantra easiest access wins, and I think you will have some metric to expect where/how the content will come from. He who has the best content with the easiest access will be the source of traffic. At the moment I personally believe this is not local in origin, but there are new products on the horizon that will have to be evaluated. If the content is available through an easy streaming means that will be most likely as its instant, after that LinuxISOBay I guess will take over.

Whinery

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#1106492 11-Aug-2014 14:37

From where I sit its just not feasible to be running links that hot for the amount of users, the financials just dont add up unless your doing something dodgy or on the cheep.

Every major ISP in the country runs Bluecoat Caches, which do cache YouTube. Also, the big guys have Google and Akamai CDNs local.

So 100% international streaming wouldn't be that much international bandwidth, and since much of the content is "viral", it is viewed by multiple local people at a similar time, then ignored. So a cache/CDN is very effective at delivering content.

As to your question, I do a mix. Sometimes I like to be able to store the content to view bits and pieces as I see fit. Other times, streaming it is easier. Streaming is less reliable. The streams crash, and pausing for breaks can break the stream as well, so I need to re-load and try to find the point I left off. Pausing a local file has never failed me, so things I expect to be watching later and expect to pause (movies, TV series), I'll download, rather than stream.

PhantomNVD

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#1106602 11-Aug-2014 16:51

Have you seen the new Lightbox offering?

Decent content, local AND $15/month...
SKY' days are numbered already...

hio77

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#1106606 11-Aug-2014 17:07

PhantomNVD: Have you seen the new Lightbox offering?

Decent content, local AND $15/month...
SKY' days are numbered already...

if only they would accept me for the trial dammit!

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DonGould

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#1106644 11-Aug-2014 18:06

PhantomNVD: Have you seen the new Lightbox offering?

Decent content, local AND $15/month...
SKY' days are numbered already...

You're in dream land if you think Sky's days are numbered.

I will very much agree that there might be a bit more value coming from Sky and we might see a price correction on some of their products but the suggestion they're over is just being silly.

Sky have an installed based of ~1.5m or more units.

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#1106645 11-Aug-2014 18:08

DonGould:
PhantomNVD: Have you seen the new Lightbox offering?

Decent content, local AND $15/month...
SKY' days are numbered already...

You're in dream land if you think Sky's days are numbered.

I will very much agree that there might be a bit more value coming from Sky and we might see a price correction on some of their products but the suggestion they're over is just being silly.

Sky have an installed based of ~1.5m or more units.

Sky have quite a large amount of live sport followers currently... would be interesting to see lightbox successfully capitalize upon that!

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SaltyNZ

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#1106647 11-Aug-2014 18:17

It's too early to say Sky's days are numbered. But the cracks are starting to show. And no matter what the CEO says in the paper, he's scared alright. If he's not, then the shareholders should consider agitating for someone who IS.

Sky COULD turn it around. But not with their current attitude.

I was a Sky customer for 10 years before I cancelled it in favour of Netflix and Hulu. They didn't lift a *finger* to try to get me to stay when I called. The writing may not be on the wall yet, but they've chosen a colour and a nice new brush.

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PhantomNVD

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#1106648 11-Aug-2014 18:17

Yes, but didn't they just lose a major sport event lineup to an online streaming co.?

If someone like with pockets as deep as telecom (Lightbox) starts gaining traction with VoD's, why wouldn't they want to pouch on Sky's sports scene too?

While it might take 10 years or so, I really think ALL pay to play when WE decide you can (esp in low 720p def like sky is now) is on it's way out. Look hard at the Netflix/Hulu/Amazon moves to capitalise on 'big pipe' fibre broadband capabilities, add in unlimited caps... Tell me again why SKY will still be here (unless it adapts pretty quickly!) in 10 years?

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