Netflix had an outage of several hours that prevented their customers from accessing any streaming content. This article discusses whether Netflix is spending enough on infrastructure, but what has also emerged is that Netflix customers using the company's streaming services are now consuming 20% of all the bandwidth in the U.S. during peak evening hours. As I and many others have been predicting for years, video in all its forms is now driving use of the Internet.
Economic developers who dismiss the Netflix bandwidth trend as "not our problem" do so at their peril (and at their community's peril), as business use of videoconferencing is already routine. A year ago, Design Nine staff were rarely asked to make use of videoconferencing by our clients, but over the past several months, it has become commonplace for us to augment on-site meetings with video-enabled distance meetings. Internally, we coordinate the activities of staff in remote locations via video instead of the phone, and some days my videoconference use is probably higher than my use of the phone.
Meanwhile, communities that ignore the bandwidth tsunami and let their local businesses try to buy overpriced bandwidth via fifty year old copper infrastructure are putting their existing businesses at a competitive disadvantage (essentially inviting them to leave for a community with better infrastructure) and driving away new businesses. Design Nine's bandwidth costs have doubled in the past year, largely because of lack of competition. We have good service, but costs are increasing because in our business park, there is essentially a monopoly. I've spoken to one business owner down the street who has looked seriously at moving his entire business to Northern Virginia because of the lack of competitive fiber services here.