61–70 of 238 posts
Net Neutrality is fine. The FCC just needs to reclassify internet providers as common carriers rather than information services. To quote from the Washington Post [1]: "Broadband is currently classified by the FCC as an information service, a category that gives the agency a fairly limited set of regulatory options. If Internet providers were classified instead as common carriers, the FCC's rule would likely stand. I…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By far the most correct observation. These guys are just following a script - they probably don't even know what half of the words mean. Please don't read anything into it or assume the outsourced support is somehow privy to anything at all that goes on inside Verizon other than what the FAQ system he's using tells him on screen.
The netflix data itself points to a gradual lowering of bandwidth to their service. Now here's 2 scenarios : 1) Verizon decided to enter some router configurations that affect the packet forwarding to Netflix (well, most likely FROM netflix, as the internet is not actually symmetrical). What we should see as a result of this is a sudden change in bandwidth. 2) The load on the interfaces in between is changing, either…
Isn't the cost to deliver a gigabyte of traffic something less than five cents, and decreasing?
Does Netflix actually stream video data from AWS or from other CDNs? Can the OP compare the route to AWS to the route to the Netflix server?
Someone should write a speed test website that looks to read from a set of common cloud services and then compares the speeds and records this based on ISP and location. This shouldn't be hard to setup and you'll get a ton of page views probably for ever. One can then see degradations over time and based on ISP. Would be even nicer to have some controls in there too so you can see if well known cloud services are slo…
Netflix already do this, http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/
I have experienced exactly this on Comcast. Suddenly, about two months ago, Netflix and Hulu became terrible to watch. I thought maybe it was my cable modem, so I upgraded it and still no luck. So I signed up for a VPN service and tested watching Netflix and Hulu both on the VPN and off. Sure enough, when on the VPN, I get the highest quality picture. When I disconnected the VPN, Netflix dropped down to about 500kbps…
I have experienced exactly this on Comcast. Suddenly, about two months ago, Netflix and Hulu became terrible to watch. I thought maybe it was my cable modem, so I upgraded it and still no luck. So I signed up for a VPN service and tested watching Netflix and Hulu both on the VPN and off. Sure enough, when on the VPN, I get the highest quality picture. When I disconnected the VPN, Netflix dropped down to about 500kbps…
An excellent test. If a VPN makes something faster, despite the fact that it adds overhead to the process , that seems like proof that it's being throttled.
Oh dear. Looks like the work left for Google Fiber isn't done yet. Hoping they'll make a run in New York (or at least upstate where I intend to move), but that's a long shot. I wonder how much independent ISPs could make if they stick to a small list of customers, but take up the "We Don't Throttle" stance.
Google Fiber is the worst idea ever. You know this company makes the vast majority of its income through advertising and collecting data about you, right? I understand that it's a great service for a great price, but the question is how long that remains sustainable. Right now they're sitting on such a pile of money that it doesn't matter whether they provide internet access in a few cities at a super cheap price. Th…
Of course, Google is collecting information about me. As is every other ISP (Verizon and Comcast hijack domain misspellings to redirect to their search pages), which is why VPNs and Tor are so popular right now.
[1] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/google...
Slightly off topic: I'm very lucky to live in the Netherlands if I compare the average speeds, even with the mediocre ISPs, with the rest of the countries where Netflix is active. See: http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/netherlands
I'm on Verizon FiOS here at home, residential service, and they all downloaded at ~20Mb/s, which is the line speed I'm paying for.
Anecdotally, I watch Netflix every night and haven't noticed a buffering/quality issue. I'll have to try the download test again later.