[elithrar]

> First, OpenConnect is just a CDN run by Netflix, they could call it bunny protocol it’s just a name. But, they don’t have unlimited boxes at every ISP, in almost every case you can get P2P connections between specific users with lower network overhead than those users connecting to one of the ISP’s data centers.

They have boxes in a lot of ISPs.

If “P2P” requires you to transit your last mile to your ISPs POP and then back down to another user, and Netflix requires you to transit to the ISP POP and back out again... has P2P gained you much? In most cases downstream throughput is much higher as well, making the in-ISP cache box far better for most.

P2P has its place but it’s hard to argue its better for video distribution.

[Retric]

Many ISP’s have significantly more and largely unused bandwidth between users vs the overall network. This is often done for simple redundancy as you want a minimum of two upload links if not more. However, it’s much simpler to run a wire between two different tiny grey buildings in a neighborhood than run a much longer wire to another section of your core network. Ideally that’s just a backup for your backup, but properly configured routers will still use it for local traffic.

Another common case is if you want X bandwidth from A to B you round up to hardware with some number more than X. This can result in network topology’s that seem very odd on the surface.

PS: I think you’re confusing what I am saying, this is not pure P2P it’s very much a hybrid model. Further Netflix was seriously considering it for a while in 2014, but stuck with a simpler model.