After three years with Akamai Content Deliver Network (CDN) service, Netflix will switch to Level 3 Communications for its CDN service.  Why would Netflix do this?  Presumably because Level 3 is offering a more attractive deal to Netflix for outsourced server, storage, and Internet services.

Level 3 will have to double its storage capacity and add 2.9 terabits per second (Tbps) of bandwidth to accommodate Netflix video streaming services.  To wrap our head around that 2.9 Tbps number, that’s enough to serve one million concurrent users at an average of 2.9 Mbps which is sufficient for 720P “HD” video streaming.  That one million concurrent user capacity should be sufficient to serve 12 million Netflix subscribers.

Contrary to “Net Neutrality” myth that “all Internet sites run at the same speed“, there are very few websites that has this kind of reach into American homes.  There is no such thing as “server neutrality” or “storage neutrality”, “IT neutrality”, or “Net Neutrality” because economics demands that companies should get more if they pay more.  Google’s YouTube and Netflix are likely the only two content providers on the Internet that can operate at this scale, and Netflix requires even more bandwidth than YouTube according to data from Sandvine.

Netflix occupies 20% of all North American Internet traffic during peak 8PM to 10PM hours which is likely the time families are watching movies and TV shows on demand from Netflix.  It’s quite possible that Google YouTube has more “views” than Netflix but each YouTube video typically lasts less than 5 minutes while Netflix videos are 30 to 90 minutes long.

[Cross-posted at Digital Society]