Anyone who is an iiNet ADSL broadband customer would be painfully aware of the advent of Netflix a fortnight ago. iiNet is mercilessly flogging their marketing point that Netflix customers will get unmetered data downloads on iiNet plans.
The result has been that within 1 week, iiNet reported 15% of its broadband width was being consumed by Netflix - that figure appears to be a daily "average" - as demand is highest between 5pm and about midnight, one can reasonably assume that streaming TV is consuming even more.
I know enough about broadband to know that the more data being streamed along a pipeline and the more users, the lower the overall speed and reliability for all. Such is the case. iiNet's ADSL service has deteriorated significantly in the past fortnight.
One suspects that iiNet are ramping up book value to maximise their worth to takeover prospect, TPG. Once any takeover concludes, TPG will be left with a lot of unhappy broadband customers, assuming there are any left. Not much point trying to use the net if your neighbour is sucking all the bandwidth watching Wrestlemania in HD.
