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There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

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Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#31

Post by skywhopper »

ddorian43 wrote: post #6
ItendToDisagree wrote: post #4

"But they built the last mile so they should be able to do whatever they want with it..." /sarcasm You know that comment is coming to this discussion at some point. Wish there was a good answer to this. Making internet connectivity a 'utility' has its downsides and upsides. It really is becoming a pressing issue though (and not just because of netflix being slowed).

weren't they payed with tax money to build the infrastructure?

Varies by municipality, but pretty much everywhere the "last mile" is a local monopoly, granted by the town, county, or city with the rights to do so. And so long as that's the case there's no real competition and thus no way for Internet users to route around these abusive practices of their ISPs.

Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#32

Post by JRobertson »

ForHackernews wrote: post #14
nas wrote: post #5

I wonder if publishing these metrics would go a long way to solving the problem. I know I'd must prefer to sign up with an ISP that doesn't throttle traffic I care about. I guess the big problem with that idea is that in many areas of North America there is very little competition in the ISP marketplace. If the government was going to do something, I'd prefer it concentrate on increasing competition. Ideally, every h…

Google is making performance metrics for YouTube public to help people when choosing an ISP (in places where there is a choice): http://www.ntca.org/new-edge/video/google-to-rate-isps-based...

Direct link to the Google Reports site: http://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/#how_video_gets...

Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#33

Post by codezero »

coffeedrinker wrote: post #29
j_m_b wrote: post #19

As a comcast customer, I've noticed that if I am having a problem with streaming video that if I go to speedtest.net, the video streams fine after the initial ping test from speedtest.net. It will be fine for a few moments (seconds to minutes), but will slow down or stutter again eventually. A fresh visit to speedtest.net again corrects the problem. I have a hunch that a visit to speedtest.net will disable traffic sh…

Netflix is unwatchable during prime time where I live. However, I have also noted that on two separate occasions when I began examining the Frontier FIOS site, I received a personal knock on my door from my local Comcast representative. Wondering if there was a connection to my search for another provider and the person at my door, I asked her if she was talking to everyone in the neighborhood or just me. It was just…

And maybe stop monitoring your personal searches, right?

Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#34

Post by blueblob »

Buttons840 wrote: post #28
blueblob wrote: post #2

Make the cable companies common carriers! https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/restore-net-neutra...

I see that petition has already meet the required signature count. I haven't followed the state of petitions.whitehouse.gov; do we expect them to actually comment on this petition?

I am not sure. There seems to be evidence that they do not respond to a few petitions, even when they meet the 100K signatures (at least immediately)[1]. Since [1]'s release, it appears that they have responded to a few of the petitions mentioned, and if you look at the site itself[2] (assuming "popular" is actually sorting by the number of signatures) there are only 15 unanswered petitions that meet the 100K requirement (though they changed the limit a few times and some may have met the original requirement). I suspect that they only respond to petitions that are in the mutual interest of the public and the politicians themselves but I have no evidence to support it.

[1] http://www.nextgov.com/emerging-tech/2014/01/white-house-owe... [2] https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petitions/popular/0/2/0

Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#35

Post by corysama »

j_m_b wrote: post #19

As a comcast customer, I've noticed that if I am having a problem with streaming video that if I go to speedtest.net, the video streams fine after the initial ping test from speedtest.net. It will be fine for a few moments (seconds to minutes), but will slow down or stutter again eventually. A fresh visit to speedtest.net again corrects the problem. I have a hunch that a visit to speedtest.net will disable traffic sh…

I can't find it now, but I have read an article about a guy who wrote a script to ping speedtest once/minute. It made a clear, measurable difference in his download rate from other sites as long as he kept the script running.

Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#36

Post by Hoff »

j_m_b wrote: post #19

As a comcast customer, I've noticed that if I am having a problem with streaming video that if I go to speedtest.net, the video streams fine after the initial ping test from speedtest.net. It will be fine for a few moments (seconds to minutes), but will slow down or stutter again eventually. A fresh visit to speedtest.net again corrects the problem. I have a hunch that a visit to speedtest.net will disable traffic sh…

Try some alternative performance-testing sites, and see if there's a difference with those; if there might be different QoS rules in play for specific web sites.

The speedof.me site is one I've occasionally used, and that also avoids the need for Adobe Flash.

Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#37

Post by AJ007 »

No one has pointed out that this is bad for the providers throttling traffic.

If Time Warner, Comcast, and AT&T want their names to be associated with budget brands then its ok. Customers accept poor quality when the price is really low and there is no lock in (pre-paid mobile phone service.) Good luck getting those people to purchase premium services from you years in to the future.

On Hacker News we complain a lot about things most people don't care about like privacy and security. Most big companies can disregard those issues with minimal visible impact to their business long term. Video streaming quality is different because its what basically all of your customers are doing. Anyone with an IQ over 70 knows something is wrong, and you can't excuse it away.

Its possible that the peak bandwidth doesn't exist. In that case these ISPs are overselling their "inventory" much like airlines oversell seats. It could be early signs of infrastructure issues to investors.

Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#38

Post by FireBeyond »

nitrogen wrote: post #21
j_m_b wrote: post #19

As a comcast customer, I've noticed that if I am having a problem with streaming video that if I go to speedtest.net, the video streams fine after the initial ping test from speedtest.net. It will be fine for a few moments (seconds to minutes), but will slow down or stutter again eventually. A fresh visit to speedtest.net again corrects the problem. I have a hunch that a visit to speedtest.net will disable traffic sh…

In my area, Comcast runs its own Speedtest.net server to hide the fact that the closest peering point that leads back to the same state is a few thousand miles away and is insanely oversubscribed. If Speedtest had more integrity, ISP-owned servers would be deprioritized.

Not just that, Ookla /actively partners/ with the ISPs. Comcast's site is actually at speedtest.comcast.net.

There's a financial dis-incentive for them to do so.

Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#39

Post by kriswill »

If AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and other ISPs are intentionally limiting bandwidth to certain content providers, as the measurements seem to indicate, they may be actually doing us a favor. By doing this, they are causing people to discuss the issue and eventually lead to market changing trends or new regulations and potential legal hazards for ISPs that do this in the future.

If anything, Amazon is a smart company, there might be an opportunity here for last-mile internet delivery...Amazon Fiber Prime anyone?

Re: There’s something rotten in the state of online video streaming

#40

Post by josefresco »

AJ007 wrote: post #37

No one has pointed out that this is bad for the providers throttling traffic. If Time Warner, Comcast, and AT&T want their names to be associated with budget brands then its ok. Customers accept poor quality when the price is really low and there is no lock in (pre-paid mobile phone service.) Good luck getting those people to purchase premium services from you years in to the future. On Hacker News we complain a lot…

They're not overselling their inventory, their purposefully throttling data from competitors to either a) extort more money from them or b) promote their own competing offerings.

Most in the US have no other options for high speed Internet access other than their local cable monopoly which is about as an extreme "lock in" as you can get.

Sure they're pissing people off but there is no alternative unless the FCC steps in and forces them into an "open carrier" model or at least some model other than what we have now which clearly isn't working.

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