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AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

adriano.fyi

71–80 of 305 posts

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#71
post #64

"Modernizing its search engine has become an obsession at Google".... No doubt it can be modernized, but just making Google search as good as it used to be would be helpful. And why not better than it used to be with the traditional interface? That would still be worth doing even if Google adds on a superb AI. Search is the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg and Google is killing it, and I don't mean "killing"…

I think you might have written this comment on the wrong post

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#72
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ATT has provided the best service of any carrier while traveling, so I will use them. Really? My experience with AT&T while traveling has been pretty awful. In the US, in rural areas, Verizon is better. And outside the US, Google Fi gives you international data roaming as part of the base package. One of the reasons I switched to Google Fi is because it's so much better when traveling.

I used Google Fi for a while, and while I'd love to use them as a primary carrier again, I can't until they choose to support add-on SIMs for watches. As a Google Fi and YoutubeTV customer, I cannot wait until I no longer have to give AT&T any money at all.

The only thing with Fi is that it is T-Mobile, and you'll always be in a lower priority block of customers compared to people paying for T-Mobile directly, which mean you'll see slower traffic in congested areas at peak times (including e.g. during rush hour traffic).

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of their plans downscale video, or at least they used to

This is interesting, I don't see how this is possible from a technical sense

its trivial with a simple rate limit.

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#74
post #64

"Modernizing its search engine has become an obsession at Google".... No doubt it can be modernized, but just making Google search as good as it used to be would be helpful. And why not better than it used to be with the traditional interface? That would still be worth doing even if Google adds on a superb AI. Search is the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg and Google is killing it, and I don't mean "killing"…

Google search can't be as good as it used to, because the web isn't as "clean" (pure? idealistic? honest? legitimate?) as it used to be. People making websites with the goal of appearing higher in Google's results means Google has to work on countermeasures. That sets off a game of cat-and-mouse, and means actual good results are caught in the crossfire.

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#75
post #35

> I already knew from previous experience that for some reason, AT&T traffic to fast.com is throttled. Why AT&T wants bandwidth to appear lower than reality is a mystery to me, but I digress This I think is because they throttle ip addresses for known video streaming sites. That is one of (the only reliable) ways an ISP can get the streaming provider to drop the stream to a lower quality one by default. Since fast.co…

> Said the other way around: fast.com is great to see actual throughput from Netflix as opposed to some fake throughout from a dedicated speed test site for the exact same reason. Yup. This is pretty much the reason Netflix created fast.com. They wanted a speed test service that couldn’t be gamed by ISPs. Many ISPs will prioritise traffic to know speed test services (like Ookla’s speedtest.net), making their services…

Now that my ISP bundles Netflix subscription into their internet plans, access to netflix and fast.com now practically saturate the fiber link, while before it was outright blocked. Hooray for no net neutrality I guess.

Another fun part: when netflix IPs was blocked by this ISP, it's pretty much impossible to use netflix because the only way to get around the block was to use VPN, but netflix itself blocks VPN access.

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#76
post #61

> for some reason, AT&T traffic to fast.com is throttled. Why AT&T wants bandwidth to appear lower than reality is a mystery to me My guess is that Netflix is throttled, and given that fast.com is a Netflix site, fast.com is throttled too.

Since almost everyone usingfast.com on an AT&t network also use AT&t DNS, I'm surprised they don't do something funky with that, for example throttling IPs that did a recent Netflix.com lookup, but not IPs that did a recent fast.com lookup

Because if this was a workaround to get better Netflix quality, then there would be 1000 blogspam articles about it. It's too good to be true ("visit fast.com to make Netflix load faster"), and the Internet loves that kind of thing.

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#77

While everyone knows that all wireless carriers are universally terrible, I've actually had a fairly noneventful (read: good) experience with T-Mobile over the last decade. I've never observed evidence of traffic shaping or any other shady business (like capturing NXDOMAIN DNS responses and directing you to a sponsored search page). I've also never observed significant performance degradation from congestion-based pr…

Yeah, except they leak customer data regularly and have offshored tons of customer service to India -- including onboarding. When I tried to sign up, they didn't know what an esim was and wanted my SSN, along with other data that could easily be used to steal my identity. I don't want to spend my days arguing with people, definitely not about the existence of esim; but I did that day. It went all the way up their cus…

> As for me? ATT has provided the best service of any carrier while traveling, so I will use them.

I'm curious about your reasons to say that AT&T provides the best service "while traveling". I'm guessing it would be domestic travel, because AT&T roaming charges are the second highest among the big three (I believe Verizon is actually even more expensive).

I was a customer and an employee of AT&T for a while, and I find T-Mobile to be better in almost every aspect, except perhaps for coverage in very rural areas, which I don't mind. T-Mobile 5G coverage and speed is also significantly better.

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#78
post #64

"Modernizing its search engine has become an obsession at Google".... No doubt it can be modernized, but just making Google search as good as it used to be would be helpful. And why not better than it used to be with the traditional interface? That would still be worth doing even if Google adds on a superb AI. Search is the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg and Google is killing it, and I don't mean "killing"…

Is it possible to return Google to pre-seo blackhat days? I think the golden egg has been poisoned, even if Google tried it's best

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of their plans downscale video, or at least they used to

This is interesting, I don't see how this is possible from a technical sense

Netflix should have it own set of AS. And after that it's quite simple, routers can do throttle for decades.

Re: AT&T Wireless traffic shaping apparently making some websites unusable

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Said the other way around: fast.com is great to see actual throughput from Netflix as opposed to some fake throughout from a dedicated speed test site for the exact same reason. Yup. This is pretty much the reason Netflix created fast.com. They wanted a speed test service that couldn’t be gamed by ISPs. Many ISPs will prioritise traffic to know speed test services (like Ookla’s speedtest.net), making their services…

Now that my ISP bundles Netflix subscription into their internet plans, access to netflix and fast.com now practically saturate the fiber link, while before it was outright blocked. Hooray for no net neutrality I guess. Another fun part: when netflix IPs was blocked by this ISP, it's pretty much impossible to use netflix because the only way to get around the block was to use VPN, but netflix itself blocks VPN access…

I'm curious where you live and what provider does this weird Netflix reselling practice.
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