Netflix building its own content delivery network "Open Connect"
(CBS News) Netflix announced Tuesday the launch of Open Connect, a new content delivery network (CDN) for the company's videos.
Previously, Netflix has had to rely on third-party CDNs to host its videos, which in turn was delivered to subscribers, via their Internet service providers (ISP), who wanted to stream movies or television shows. The move to create Open Connect will make Netflix its own video host, taking out an extra step between ISP and customers. What this ideally means for customers is a faster connection.
"The world's other major Internet video provider, YouTube, has long had its own content delivery network," Ken Florance, vice president of content delivery at Netflix, said in a blog post. "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.
Netflix reports its content makes up more than 30 percent of peak web traffic on U.S. ISP servers. Currently, 5 percent of Netflix videos are served by Open Connect. That number is expected to grow gradually in the next few years.
