Korean ISP Pissed at Netflix Because Everybody’s Watching ‘Squid Game’

There’s at the very least one participant who’s not significantly pleased in regards to the success of the Netflix hit Squid Game—and that’s SK Broadband, a South Korean web supplier. According to Reuters, the ISP is suing Netflix to pay up for utilizing a lot bandwidth and the upkeep prices because of site visitors surges stemming from the streaming big.

By SK Broadband’s estimates, Netflix owes 27.2 billion received ($22.9 million) in 2020 alone. The ISP handles roughly 1,200 Gigabits of Netflix information processed per second as of September, in line with Reuters. That’s up 24 instances from May 2018, and widespread Netflix Korea productions like Squid Game and D.P. are purportedly a giant motive why.

Netflix isn’t having it, nevertheless. The firm has already appealed the ruling. A number of days in the past, Netflix published a blog detailing its contributions to the South Korean financial system, claiming it’s created 16,000 jobs and $4.8 billion in development. In the weblog, Netflix says it’s been a “platform for the spread of new Hallyu culture through shows like Kingdom, Vincenzo, and even the recently premiered Squid Game.” It additionally touted that Squid Game is the primary Korean collection to make it to the No. 1 spot on Netflix US.

As for the place all that is coming from? Earlier in June, a South Korean courtroom sided against Netflix in a case the place the streaming firm argued that SK Broadband had no grounds to demand bandwidth charges. These charges would basically pressure streamers like Netflix to pay further to make sure their content material reaches customers. At the time, Netflix argued it was simply doing its job by creating content material, and the bills had been a part of SK Broadband’s responsibility to offer web to its subscribers. Instead, Reuters stories that the Seoul Central District Court dominated that it was “reasonable” for Netflix to be “obligated to provide something in return for the service.”

At the guts of that is that good ole debate over internet neutrality and information caps—and it’s a battle we’ve seen earlier than. Should SK Broadband succeed, it will set a precedent which will embolden different ISPs to try to do the identical. Back in 2014, Netflix and Comcast had been at odds over the ISP throttling Netflix. There was merely an excessive amount of Netflix site visitors and the infrastructure to deal with it hadn’t been constructed—and neither Netflix nor Comcast needed to pay for it. In the top, Netflix forked over the cash and has been paying Comcast for higher streaming speeds for greater than seven years. But whereas the way forward for internet neutrality seems to be considerably brighter (for now) beneath the Biden Administration, it’s clearly not a executed and settled deal the world over.