We received this in our warehouse this morning, and we are installing it on our network very shortly.
This quite pretty red box (it will certainly stand out in our server racks!) is one of only four Netflix Open Connect Appliances in the country and what it means for our residential customers at Worldline who use the movie and TV streaming service is seriously cool.
Canadians love Netflix. It may be an American company but, per capita, we are pretty much their best customers. How many of us use it regularly? 40%! To give you an idea of what kind of uptake that is, currently 79% of Canadian households have either Cable, Satellite or Fibre TV, and that’s been around for decades. Netflix has been around for less than five years.
What’s more interesting is, it turns out we’re ditching our TV providers at a record pace in favour of Netflix and other such services. Up until 2013 the customer base for TV providers were on a steady increase. Then suddenly, for the first time, there was a decrease. And every year those “cutting the cable” have been on an increase.
It could be due to our far too long winters, or the fact that we don’t like our TV providers very much, but we are leading the world in cable cutting and taking on alternative avenues for our entertainment.
Like Netflix. Now, about that server we’re installing. For our Worldline customers, it means that, unlike most other providers, Netflix content will be served to our customers locally, from our all-Canadian network, instead of having the viewing content imported from the U.S.
As a result, for Worldline customers, the quality will be better, the signal stronger, and with less chance of latency issues during peak hours. (That dreaded spinning daisy wheel!) It also means that, since it’s all in Canada, the NSA won’t know what you’re watching if you are worried about stuff like that. (And if you’re not, you should be). Also, since our Internet service is unlimited, they can also enjoy as much of this content as physically possible, with no worries of being dinged at the end of the month with a massive overage charge.
It’s a serious piece of machinery. Essentially, it’s a super capacity hard drive that stores more than 8 years (!) worth of HD video content and is constantly receiving the latest available programming with a daily 7.5TB update.
As you can see, this is not a home-use machine. Just imagine how long it would take for you to download 7.5TB a day?
We’re happy to be working with Netflix, providing our customers the very best this service has to offer, and we know they are going to love it.
Happy watching!
