Netflix at a crossroads. The costs of mailing DVDs vs. streaming content.

Netflix is offering streaming-only service in Canada and they're starting to heavily push that option in the US. Whether they can ramp up the selection of streaming titles without raising subscription costs precipitously is a big question. Will instant access trump the loss in quality and occasional network glitches inherent in streaming video? Will a major shift to streaming content consume so much bandwidth that it clogs the internet? According to Sandvine, a company that analyzes internet traffic, Netflix already accounts for 20% of the downstream traffic in the US during peak times and that's with their current assortment of mostly non-premium content.

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