We love our Kiwi cousins here at Gizmodo, so it’s with a heavy heart we regret to inform them that US movie streaming company netflix has completely rejected the potential for the service to launch in New Zealand. But there may still be hope for Australia…
According to the NZ Herald, Netflix VP of Product Innovation Brent Ayrey told the ITEX business tech summit in Auckland that the company wouldn’t be launching in NZ due to restrictive download limits and problems obtaining content rights.
Ayrey is quoted as saying that figures have shown that next year the average US Netflix customer will need one terabyte of bandwidth every month for movie streaming using the service. Given that New Zealand doesn’t offer anything close to a 1TB plan, Netflix has had to rule out a launch in the land of the All Blacks.
But! You know who does offer 1TB plans? Australia. Plus we have a world class fibre broadband network rolling out as we speak. While the company is kind of occupied preparing for its UK rollout next year, it did say that Asia is key to its international expansion plans back in June. And you know what country is almost in Asia? Australia.
So, while our Kiwi cousins lament their lack of Netflix, let’s keep fingers and toes crossed that no blatant rejection is good news for our hopes of an Aussie Netflix launch.
[NZ Herald via The Register]
DrWeirdo
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:34 AMAnd where are the Aussie content providers in all this? I cut my cable (Foxtel) a few months back because i could no longer stand to pay $83/mth, get saturated with advertising and have little to no choice in the matter. Since then I have been living off the dregs of IPTV that are available here whilst listening to podcasts from the US discussing the content that they have, which is infinitely better than here.
I am happy to pay good money for a full featured service but there just isn’t anything available that can compete with traditional cable TV content. OPTUS is my ISP and i am watching their MyTV offering with some interest, but it seems so far from the complete service that cable offers that I doubt it will be worth getting.
So i guess until the Australian content providers can get their act together we will have to rely on the US to provide the solution for us.
Glenn
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 10:45 AMPerhaps Netflix should partner with ISP’s in NZ to offer unmetered content… I certainly hope they do that here.
John
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 11:23 AMI think the stupid thing is that after fighting for so long for copyright privilages to allow to stream all this stuff in the us they have to start the fight all over again. Umm hollywood created the stuff shouldn’t they have the final say who is allowed to watch their content, not stupid tv channels that no one watches anymore
Dan Miller
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 11:28 AMYou mean the first class fibre network that is costing us billions and will take 9 years to fully roll out? Don’t make me laugh. It all ready dead in the water.
Penmonicus
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:59 PMThe one that will still be world-class in 9 years time? That’s the one.
brad
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 11:37 AMand until “someone” rolls out a decent service, we will continue to pirate to our hearts content.
Adam
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 12:14 PMYou can use Netflix in the US now. Just use http://unblock-us.com
rekuhs
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 12:22 PMInternet cost far too much and gives far too little in downloads in NZ for something like Netflix to work anyway.
jonny
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 1:21 PMCopyright is B-roken.
Stephen
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 2:10 PMor you could use the netflix alternative aussie company quickflix, thats what i am doing ant the quality is great… although they dont have as many titles or streaming to many tv / dvd/ systems their prices and quickness to send dvd’s + streaming quality is great
Dante
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 3:42 PMI use Netflix from the US on my Apple tv 2 and iOS devices at home via a VPN service. It works a treat and no lag or buffer despite living in a area outside ADSL2 in Sydney outer suburbs. On average we use 60-80GB a month and usually content is streamed the majority of the day as my wife and kids are home all day watching kids shows and movies. I’m always online with at least 3 devices connected either surfing or downloading content.
1 terabyte is way too much and I doubt most would use that much
Tristan
Wednesday, November 30, 2011 at 5:25 PMCare to share which VPN service you use?
Are they reasonable?
Dante
Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 5:25 PMI use unblock-us and hotspotshield app. It’s $5 USD a month for a year
ANthony
Thursday, December 8, 2011 at 2:49 PMI use netflix on 4 apple tv’s 2 iPod touches and 1 iPad.
Been using it for about 6 months and it is great.
You need to sign up for a weeks free trial of unblock-us and then 1 month of Netflix to check it out.