I remember when I first subscribed to Netflix streaming (using a Smart DNS, but don't tell anyone) and how impressive it was.At the time, I had a 4Mbps DSL connection, a Wi-Fi 3 router with 54Mbps of bandwidth, and a 720p plasma TV.The Netflix app ran on my PlayStation 3.
It was all just enough to run smoothly, and I saw that it was good.Today, I have gigabit fiber (at least on paper), and a Wi-Fi mesh system that covers my whole home in Wi-Fi.The more I think about it, the more it's obvious that Netflix is one of the main drivers behind the network upgrades I've made over the years, and I suspect that's true for a lot of you out there as well.
Netflix made whole-home Wi-Fi coverage matter In bed or in the bathroom, we must binge Netflix started its streaming service all the way back in 2007, the same year as the first iPhone saw the light of day.Up to that point, there really was very little need for home Wi-Fi (if you even Wi-Fi) to cover your entire home.The internet was something computers used, so if your laptop or desktop PC was covered, then all was well.
Services like Netflix and devices like smartphones and tablets give us a reason to want internet coverage in all the rooms of our home.Which is when you realize that your bedroom is in a dead zone.UniFi Dream Router 7 9 Brand Unifi Range 1,750 square feet The Unifi Dream Router 7 is a full-fledged network appliance offering NVR capabilities, fully managed switching,a built-in firewall, VLANs, and more.
With four 2.5G Ethernet ports (one with PoE+) and a 10G SFP+ port, the Unifi Dream Router 7 also features dual WAN capabilities should you have two ISP connections.It includes a 64GB microSD card for IP camera storage, but can be upgraded for more storage if needed.With Wi-Fi 7, you'll be able to reach up to a theoretical 5.7 Gbps network speed when using the 10G SFP+ port, or 2.5 Gbps when using Ethernet. $295 at B&H Photo Video $279 at Unifi Expand Collapse Netflix transformed bandwidth from a personal resource into a household utility Everyone wants bandwidth on tap I don't want to claim that Netflix drove us to getting better routers all by itself.
It was a massively popular service that happens to benefit from owning a router that's better equipped to handle multiple concurrent connections over Wi-Fi.Keep in mind that when Netflix started offering a streaming service in 2007, Wi-Fi 3 was the existing standard.In 2009, we got Wi-Fi 4, which was faster, but didn't have the ability to communicate with more than one device at a time.
Instead, it could talk to one at a time, and just cycled between them very rapidly.With Wi-Fi 5 in 2013, Wi-Fi routers gained true multi-connection capability and this was exactly what we needed with smart home, smart TV, and smartphone devices getting into full swing.Without this technology, watching multiple Netflix streams at once, particularly HD ones, would have been all but impossible.
Netflix raised expectations for network reliability Stuttering was not an option YouTube started streaming video two years before Netflix, and if you'd tried to stream video back then you'd know that even those sub-SD 360p clips would have to buffer a long time before you could watch the whole thing in one go.It's not just that a 1Mbps connection (or dial up!) was slow, it was that the connection kept pausing, dropping, and reconnecting.It was pretty normal to have a download fail partway, which is why special download resuming programs were popular.
Services like Netflix meant people expected their streams to work as well as cable or broadcast TV.While, again, we can't give Netflix direct credit for the improvements in broadband technology, we can give it credit for the CDN it built and the streaming algorithms.I distinctly remember being skeptical that my 4Mbps connection would let me watch 720p video on my TV, but it worked from day one and has been working till this day.
Netflix still has some of the lowest bandwidth requirements of the streaming services that it competes with, and whether you like the actual shows it produces, it's hard to argue with the technology itself.Netflix helped create the modern connected home The app is everywhere It's funny that my PlayStation 3 was my gateway to Netflix (and other streaming apps later) because at that time I did not have any sort of smart device connected to my plasma TV.There were no smart TVs as we know them today yet, and I'd been using a satellite decoder and a RCA cable bundle running from my PC to the TV to watch clips stored on my hard drive.
But soon Netflix was on everything.Smart TVs, streaming boxes and sticks, smartphones, and more.Being able to cast video from my phone to a TV seemed like black magic to me at first, but was another benefit of drastic improvements in Wi-Fi bandwidth.
Netflix inspired an entire generation of homelabs Ironically, given Netflix made people largely abandon physical and local media, the example of how a streaming service should work inspired the rise of self-hosted services like Plex and Jellyfin.Netflix has pushed us to achieve what decades of niche HTPC enthusiasts could not.Now people could have all the convenience of Netflix, but with a library of content acquired and curated themselves.
The more of my physical media collection I add to my Plex server, the less I use services like Netflix.It's pretty ironic that I've actually canceled my Netflix subscription after paying for it more than a decade, but all the fringe benefits it encouraged are still working for me every day.
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