Netflix UK

[HoriZon]

Now with it been officially launched here in the UK I'm starting to think the 40GB banwidth limit I have for the day time is gonna be way too little as I want to watch a lot of things but its gonna eat my allowance, isn't it time IDNet got with it and offered unlimited or at least double what they have now with all these streaming sites we have access too.

I'm on the best package I can get which is ADSL MAX, ADSL2+ is coming here in August but its still only 60GB.

[psp83]

You could go with Business Premium, download & upload is unlimited, £72.88 a month though 

[Simon]

Yes, unlimited comes at a cost. 

[Steve]

http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/01/the-netflix-versus-lovefilm-smackdown-which-one-is-worth-your-money/

Useful summary of both offerings

[Lance]

I think that something the majority of Idnet customers know or realise I that cheap all you can et is to be avoided like the plague if you still actually want a decent usable service.

[Gary]

I am trialling neflix on the ps3 quality is great, its cheaper than Sky Movies, but with Sky you do get the latest releases, the issue is how much bandwidth it uses, in the long term it may turn out to be expensive as watching a film/TV show in the evening is still peak rate, and I won't be up after midnight to watch one. 

[Steve]

2Gb+ for HD movie is a worry. Although it's convenient with either Netflix and Lovefilm streaming the releases are not that recent and it's probably just as easy and probably cheaper to wait for the DVD through the post.

[pctech]

Hmmm, I was thinking of giving this a go too as it works on the xbox too but I don't think I will if its 2GB per film.

Download WoW hoovered up a lot of my reserve.

[Steve]

I was picking the worse case scenario for HD video

https://signup.netflix.com/HowItWorks

We offer 3 video quality settings to help you manage your data usage: Good (up to 0.3 GB/hour), Better (up to 0.7 GB/hour) and Best (about 1.0 GB/hour but up to 2.3 GB/hour when streaming HD content). The default setting is "Good" and you can change the setting any time you want - your price will remain just £5.99 a month. Netflix streams a little bit of data as a buffer each time you start a film or TV programme. Frequently starting and stopping films and TV programmes will result in a small increase to the amount of data Netflix streams to you per hour. In most cases this will be less than a few minutes' worth. Check with your internet provider or mobile carrier for information on possible internet data usage charges.

[Dougc]

I'd just like to start by saying that I love IDNet.  I've been with quite a few ISPs over the years, and I've always come back to IDNet for the excellent support, network performance and lack of intrusion (traffic shaping etc).  Recently however; I've found I'm increasingly exhausting (or coming very close to) my bandwidth allowance for the month.

I'm currently on the Home SuperPro ASDL2+ package, which gives me the maximum bandwidth that IDNet provide for non-business customers (60GB peak, 300GB off peak), but I'm finding that this package just doesn't fit my usage profile.  Between HD streaming TV, YouTube, downloading and working from home, I find myself less than half way through the month and already at 37GB bandwidth used!

I've already rang IDNet to ask whether there was any better package for me, but unfortunately the polite lady I spoke to told me that the only other option was to move to a business package, where I'd get 120GB of bandwidth (regardless of time), but it would cost £60 a month.  I would gladly trade the majority of my off peak bandwidth in a 5:1 ratio for peak bandwidth if I had the option!

I'm not entirely sure what I'm wanting to happen as a result of this post, I just wanted to have a bit of a moan, because I don't want to move away from IDNet, but if it turns out that it just isn't going to be cost efficient for me to stay, I'm not sure what choice I have!

Note:  Netflix launching in the UK has influenced much of this post

[Rik]

The core of the problem is the way BT charge for bandwidth. IDNet have little room to play with when it comes to bandwidth allowances unless, like some ISPs, they oversell their capacity, then allow a free-for-all. It's true that by doing that, you can have unlimited bandwidth, but not necessarily at a speed which is of any use to you.

[Dougc]

Yeah, I kinda suspected that might be the case

I'm hoping that I can just make do with using the £1 per GB if I go over my limit.  I guess I'll just have to keep a close eye on it.

[Rik]

Or stay up very late at night.

[Simon]

I have no idea if this is a stupid question, but is there any way to record Netflix so that one could take advantage of off peak bandwidth?

[Rik]

Me neither, but logic says yes.

[pctech]

Probably not legally.

[Technical Ben]

Is it not great when you can change the laws to make it illegal to avoid your spurious charges...

[psp83]

This is why I normally rent movies from blinkbox or iTunes..

Set the download going after midnight and watch it the following day / evening.

[Simon]

Presumably, it doesn't matter to Netflix when the download occurs, be it during the day, or overnight.  If they could somehow make it so that downloads could be saved, for a one-off viewing, I'm sure that would increase their business, and it would also help to spread the bandwidth loads, if people could schedule downloads.

[.Griff.]

If they could somehow make it so that downloads could be saved, for a one-off viewing, I'm sure that would increase their business

I don't think it would Simon.

It's one thing downloading a film on a PC but don't forget that a large proportion, and growing rapidly, of their marketplace is smart devices such as Smart TV's, media players, consoles, tablets, phones and so on where saving a file is either simply not possible or would require all sorts of DRM.

As for the service itself I watched Food Inc the other night which played fine but when I tried A Fistful of Dollars earlier the audio was all over the place.

[pctech]

I don't know if the same is true for the actual delivery platform but the Netcraft toolbar indicates their site is running off the Amazon cloud at the moment.

I expect they are looking to see how it goes over here before setting up infrastructure at which time they may offer that service but it might get a tad expensive if they were getting hit by a traffic spike in the early hours every morning.

[pctech]

I don't think it would Simon.

It's one thing downloading a film on a PC but don't forget that a large proportion, and growing rapidly, of their marketplace is smart devices such as Smart TV's, media players, consoles, tablets, phones and so on where saving a file is either simply not possible or would require all sorts of DRM.

As for the service itself I watched Food Inc the other night which played fine but when I tried A Fistful of Dollars earlier the audio was all over the place.

Sounds like latency caused by the file being on a US server Griff, experienced that with Youtube myself and even happens on a 1 Gbps fibre connection when I'm at work.

[zappaDPJ]

I'm not yet sure how much of the currently available Netflix content I'd be interested in but the price is certainly right. Unfortunately I'm also in the situation where I would have to substantially increase my package allowance and that puts the price tag far too high for me. Even if you could download the content during off-peak for later viewing it somewhat defeats the object of content on demand. Virgin media has recognised that people's Internet usage is changing and BT needs to do the same. They simple can't be allowed to retain their current wholesale prices.

[pctech]

Another reason why Wholesale/Openreach need to be mutually owned like the likes of LINX and LoNAP so they are non profit and serve the needs of the ISPs.

[Rik]

Pig alert, don helmets!