The Netflix Effect - Are UK enterprises seeing the bigger picture?
UK businesses unconcerned by streaming media's bandwidth consumption.
New research from Vanson Bourne reveals that senior IT decision-makers in UK enterprises are largely unconcerned about the UK launch of streaming video service Netflix, despite claims that the service accounts for 32.7% of all USA peak internet traffic.
As fig 1 shows, in only 13% of UK enterprises surveyed has the UK launch of Netflix caused discussion of network capacity, with over half (52%) stating that there will be no re-evaluation of capacity in the wake of the Netflix launch.
When exposed to the news of Netflix’ substantial impact on US internet traffic, one-in-five enterprise IT heads surveyed (fig 2) expressed concern that their company’s use of the internet might be compromised by the “Netflix Effect” should it enjoy the same levels of success in the UK.
Fig 2: Do you think that the launch of Netflix in the UK might hinder your organisation's ability to send and receive data across the internet?
In the US, Netflix’ burgeoning popularity has led to major US ISPs investing heavily in infrastructure, and in some cases to cap consumer data consumption.
Though UK enterprises have not uniformly recognised Netflix’ potential impact on their own networks, they are clear that UK ISPs need to reinforce the country’s digital infrastructure to be ready for the growth in popularity of streaming video services. Fully 84% say that UK ISPs need to act in order to maintain their level of service, and 1 in 7 of them say that upgrade needs to be “dramatic”.
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