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Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be so kind to pass some to me? Popcorn that is.

I would never risk suggesting people use the legal app popcorntime to pirate copyrighted material.

What is the advantage over good ol' fashion torrenting?

I guess I'm just an old timer....

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#412
post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DOCSIS is fine now, but being a cable network supporting legacy systems takes up most of the upload spectrum for any cable ISP.

You can configure cable to use more of its channels for upstream. They just don't because that would hurt downstream and force them to run more cables to make up the difference. There's absolutely no reason you can't have symmetric cable if cable companies wanted to pay for the infrastructure.

It's not a matter of "running more cables", and not just a matter of cost. They have to complete their IPTV migration, which is a massive project, and has been in progress for years now. They also have to upgrade hardware at every single node, which is a multi-year project. With that also comes brand new noise mitigation problems.

Yes, you can configure it to use more channels for upstream, but only if you cut off television to all of those paying customers, likely losing a lot of subscribers, breaking carrier agreement contracts, lose the advertising dollars, and go out of business before you even get there. You also have to swap out all of their cable boxes, and leave whoever purchased their own box hanging.

As far as I know, no ISP in North America is currently using any DOCSIS 3.1 features for upload, and they're barely taking advantage of the features for download. Moving to OFDMA is the big barrier to opening upload speeds. The protocol supports it on paper, but turning paper into massive co-existing television and ISP infrastructure is not trivial.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#413

On totally unrelated news, Popcorn Time 4.0 was recently released and using it is decriminalized in many European countries (but not in others, so stay safe): https://popcorntime.app/

What is the advantage of this over simple old torrenting?

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#414
The reality is that there is no capacity issue. ISP networks are perfectly capable to handle the demand (spoiler: it hasn't increased much, see public IX stats). This is an attempt to revive the net neutrality debate from big ISPs through the EU. This is about the wish of ISPs to double-dip (be paid once by their end users, and another by the content providers).

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#415

There’s so much that seems wrong about this. 1: home network capacity used to be at peak around 7PM IIRC. There should be significant spare headroom on the network during the working day. 2: Netflix already downgrades when bandwidth is limited. The smart move would be to tell Netflix to downgrade more aggressively, on the theory that would allow more “important” traffic to get priority, while still allowing people to…

> I keep being amazed at how consumerism drives side benefits. Without Netflix and gamers, how much worse off would we all be right now? Oh, I'm over here wondering how much these consumer activities contribute to climate change.

I guarantee you that a switch from activities which use gasoline and aviation fuel, to those which use wall power, is a net positive for CO2 emission.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure it's standard practice at these companies to never let front line call center staff acknowledge known problems. Sometimes, the automated phone menu will give you a recorded generic message that they are currently experiencing a service issue, but that's intended to convince you to hang up and patiently wait for them to sort their shit out. I've never had a front-line rep be at all useful in diagnosing…

Yeah true. I guess I need to remember the ISP I work for here in Australia (front line tech support, and then network operations physical security and infrastructure) was widely recognised as the best ISP in Australia multiple years running, so I shouldn't use it as a baseline expectation.

So how was life at internode or aussie?

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't we talking about Europe?

Yes. Did they ask for a refund for unused services as part of their cancellation? It sounded more like they were just moaning (my fave past-time!). The "Europe" qualifier seemed necessary as many people on here aren't in Europe.

Many people here aren't in America either, but from the American perspective:

You have a right to demand partial refunds for service outages. I once spent several hours of my life getting a They sent a tech over to install a new router and I enjoyed faster, uninterrupted service for the remainder of my tenancy, so I count it time well spent.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pandemic doesn't affect what are good business practises. I understand that Americans might be more lenient in those terms, but Europeans tend not to be.

are you serious? not offering a refund when you fail to deliver the product is something that makes americans absolutely furious. it's one of the only sacred consumer protection issues here. I've already received billing credits or refunds for every service I'm subscribed to that's halted for coronavirus.

Looking at how bad you let your ISPs treat you, I'm quite serious, I think.

Re: Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe for 30 days

#419

On totally unrelated news, Popcorn Time 4.0 was recently released and using it is decriminalized in many European countries (but not in others, so stay safe): https://popcorntime.app/

What is the advantage of this over simple old torrenting?

you can start watching immediately as it is downloading and it has a player built in, whereas the traditional torrent client needs to finish the video first and you need a separate video player.
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