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USA ISP Speed Index

ispspeedindex.netflix.com

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Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#31

Post by cydonian_monk »

tinbad wrote: post #17

I have Comcast home internet in the bay area (Speedtest is around 30mbit down/8 mbit up) and every time I try to watch anything on Netflix it buffers for a minute and the resolution usually stays unacceptably low (320p?!) while usually having to buffer again every 2-5 minutes, sometimes for the whole run time of the show. Meanwhile, Comcast's own XFINITY streaming service delivers instantly (no buffering) at full HD…

I've had the exact same experience in Houston with Comcast + Netflix at slightly faster speeds. Eventually I dropped Netflix because it was unusable everywhere except my phone. Oddly I don't have the same issues with Amazon Prime, YouTube, or MLB/MiLB streaming. Given that Prime is also a direct competitor to Comcast streaming I'm not entirely convinced this experience with Netflix is the result of some deliberate plot on the part of Comcast versus some other bizarre issue.

That isn't to say I disagree with network neutrality - I think it's vital. I'm just not going to attribute to malice what is quite possibly the result of incompetence.

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#32

Post by CWuestefeld »

I don't see that this tells us anything of interest at all. It's certainly not saying how fast a given ISP can go if you pay for it. I think it's largely reflecting a combination of which ISPs have a higher-proportion of subscribers on cheap plans, and who has users that are pulling content through marginal WiFi connections.

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#33

Post by saadullahsaeed »

tinbad wrote: post #17

I have Comcast home internet in the bay area (Speedtest is around 30mbit down/8 mbit up) and every time I try to watch anything on Netflix it buffers for a minute and the resolution usually stays unacceptably low (320p?!) while usually having to buffer again every 2-5 minutes, sometimes for the whole run time of the show. Meanwhile, Comcast's own XFINITY streaming service delivers instantly (no buffering) at full HD…

I live in San Francisco and I have exactly the same issue, it started happening more recently. Speedtest is 35mbit down/10mbit up

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#34

Post by brownbat »

tinbad wrote: post #17

I have Comcast home internet in the bay area (Speedtest is around 30mbit down/8 mbit up) and every time I try to watch anything on Netflix it buffers for a minute and the resolution usually stays unacceptably low (320p?!) while usually having to buffer again every 2-5 minutes, sometimes for the whole run time of the show. Meanwhile, Comcast's own XFINITY streaming service delivers instantly (no buffering) at full HD…

I had similar issues with Verizon, others have reported similar issues with Time Warner and YouTube, but had some success by blocking one of the IPs in midroute: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/196170/how_to_st...

It's hard to tell how often this is getting messed up by content delivery partners in the middle, versus intentional traffic shaping, but it sucks either way.

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#35

Post by brownbat »

Would be more useful if it controlled for what plans people are on.

You really need a scatterplot here, or to look for clusters at certain speeds. Say you're looking around 15 Mbps. At that rate, which company has all the subscribers coming in at 16, and which ones at 13 or 14?

Since there are a relatively small number of speed options, it should be possible to notice these sorts of clusters in the data.

Also, how sensitive is a certain company's speeds to time of day? Whose average dips the most during peak viewing times?

It seems like even a little data analysis would go a long way here...

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#38

Post by rosser »

tinbad wrote: post #17

I have Comcast home internet in the bay area (Speedtest is around 30mbit down/8 mbit up) and every time I try to watch anything on Netflix it buffers for a minute and the resolution usually stays unacceptably low (320p?!) while usually having to buffer again every 2-5 minutes, sometimes for the whole run time of the show. Meanwhile, Comcast's own XFINITY streaming service delivers instantly (no buffering) at full HD…

Contrariwise, I have Sonic's "Fusion" bonded ADSL in SF. My modem and Speedtest.net report around 12/2 Mbits down/up, and both Netflix and Amazon Prime consistently stream flawless HD for me.

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#39

Post by middleclick »

aaront wrote: post #10

I wonder why Canada is never on this? Our ISPs deserve a little public humiliation.

Right! I even entered /canada manually but it seems like they just don't measure it. Though humiliation means nothing to the Big Three but it is still fun to watch how horrible our internet providers are.

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#40

Post by penguindev »

modeless wrote: post #28
penguindev wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can test on many different servers, I tested to a server in virginia since I assume it would be a reasonable proxy to ec2 us-east bandwidth.

The list of speedtest.net servers is public and I don't doubt that Comcast uses it to drive traffic shaping decisions. Speed tests are meaningless except to establish an upper bound on last mile speed. They are not representative of bandwidth to real services like Netflix, YouTube, Dropbox, Steam, etc.

I can't argue with that. I just checked actual scp speed to and from ec2 and I'm getting slower downloads then uploads right now. At 7PM my time. 6.3mbps up, 4.5mbps down.

speedtest.net shows those exact speeds now as well. That's nice, 80% of bandwidth going away in a few hours :-)

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