Re: Netflix transit preference?

["Patrick W. Gilmore" <patrick () ianai net>]

On Dec 27, 2012, at 13:19 , randal k <nanog () data102 com> wrote:

> I work at a datacenter in southern Colorado that is the upstream bandwidth
> provider for several regional ISPs. We have been investigating our
> ever-growing bandwidth usage and have found that out of transits
> (Level3,Cogent,HE) that Netflix always seems to come in via Hurricane
> Electric. (We move ~1.4gbps to Netflix, and are thus not a candidate for
> peering. And they have no POP close.)

Your statement about peering makes no sense.  You are trying to engineer where their traffic comes and yet you refuse 
to have a direct connection which would give you full control?  Weird.......


> I tested this by advertising a /24 across all providers, then selectively
> removed the advertisement to certain carriers to see where the bandwidth
> goes. In order, it appears that if there is a HE route, Netflix uses it,
> period. If there isn't, it prefers Level3, and Cogent comes last.

Completely unsurprising.


> Since Netflix is a big hunk of our bandwidth (and obviously makes our
> customers happy), we are included to buy some more HE. However, if Netflix
> decides that they want to randomly switch to, say, Cogent, we may be under
> a year-long bandwidth contract that isn't particularly valuable anymore.
>
> With all of that, I am interested in finding out of any knowledge about
> Netflix transit preferences, be it inside information, anecdotal, or
> otherwise. I did email peering@ but haven't heard back, thus the public
> question.

Why don't you ask Netflix?

And why not ask them for kit to put on-net?  <https://signup.netflix.com/openconnect>

-- 
TTFN,
patrick