Netflix up until this point has relied on commercially based content delivery networks to share its “Watch Instantly” platform with customers, now with billions of hours of content being delivered the company has announced “Open Connect” a new CDN created for and distributed by Netflix.
The move should help Netflix save a lot of money by streamlining its own data, while creating an improved viewing experience for its customers, all in a seamless package that customers will not even notice occurred.
By taking advantage of a Netflix controlled program internet service providers could potentially free themselves from the bottleneck being caused by massive amounts of Netflix data. ISPs will have the option to install Open Connect within their own networks or peer with Netflix directly. Netflix says direct connections or a peer solution will cost the same while offering ISPs more freedom.
In the official Netflix Open Connect blog post vice president of content delivery at Netflix Ken Florance reveals:
Now, in addition to these general-purpose commercial CDNs, we are enabling ISPs to get Netflix video data from Open Connect, a single-purpose Netflix content delivery network we’ve established. The world’s other major Internet video provider, YouTube, has long had its own content delivery network. Given our size and growth, it now makes economic sense for Netflix to have one as well. We’ll continue to work with our commercial CDN partners for the next few years, but eventually most of our data will be served by Open Connect.
With a user base that is once again growing and new partnerships expected to boost the networks content delivery in 2013 news of a Netflix owned and operated CDN could not come at a better time for consumers and ISPs.
