Aussie Broadband has announced that it’s substantially upgrading its network caching capabilities for Netflix – meaning that customers will soon get quicker response times when streaming shows from the service.
The purpose of local caching is simple – it sets up spots on the Internet Service Provider’s (ISP) network that high-traffic data can be pulled from without having to always go to the same source that may be further away for some customers. It’s like having a library network throughout a state – instead of going to the biggest library in the state’s capital, you can pick up the book you’re after at your town’s local library.
This is what Aussie Broadband is currently upgrading – the size of its local caches, or to use my above comparison, the size of its library of stored local data, bumping up how many people can stream concurrently.
And the internet service that Aussie broadband is focusing on is Netflix. With this upgrade, Aussie Broadband is adding one terabit per second capacity boosts to its caches for Netflix, which the company said will allow tens of thousands of customers to access the streamer simultaneously. The company claimed that the upgrade will boost Netflix capacity on its network by about 140 per cent.
“By installing more local caches, we’re bringing content closer to Aussie users – reducing the latency between them and the content and making the experience better for our customers,” Aussie Broadband general manager of networks Ben Cornish said.
It’s often difficult to see the advantage of some NBN providers while plans are broken up across several speed tiers (typically but not limited to NBN 25, 50, 100, 250 and 1000), with internet providers often trying to attract customers with extra inclusions or lower costs.
Aussie Broadband’s commitment to setting up network link partners for caching, however, puts it ahead of some competitors in terms of user experience by offering lower latency and faster response times. Other services that Aussie Broadband has link partnerships with include Activision-Blizzard, Facebook, Google, Twitch and more.
The ISP’s new Netflix caches are in the process of being commissioned.