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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

#51

Post by warfangle »

josefresco wrote: post #40
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…

It really is moral hazard that the same entity providing you with streaming video via cable or similar can also throttle your access with impunity to competitors streaming video via web.

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

#52

Post by klipt »

skywhopper wrote: post #31
ddorian43 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What's funny is that now the incumbents have the monopoly (paid for using taxpayer money) they're pushing to prevent new competitors like Google fiber from working with the municipalities at all: http://consumerist.com/2014/01/30/kansas-legislature-wants-t...

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

#53

Post by pessimizer »

zokier wrote: post #44
jcampbell1 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people don't realize much of the bit torrent debate ended because bit torrent switched from TCP to µTP. The problem was bit torrent clients caused massive congestion by making hundreds of TCP connections. µTP is extremely congestion/network friendly. It backs off based on latency, so it doesn't fill every buffer on the network.

The BitTorrent discussion didn't end because of uTP. It ended because ISPs got bigger fish to fry. Fish with actual money, like Google/Youtube and Netflix.

Yup. In 2007, bittorrent was 25% of internet traffic. With streaming becoming the standard way to consume since, bittorrent has become a drop in the bucket.

At least torrenters only download content once...

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

#54

Post by drcube »

warfangle wrote: post #50
maratd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Time Warner, Comcast, and AT&T want their names to be associated with budget brands then its ok. It is definitely not OK. Time Warner is absolute garbage and has been for a very long time. Cablevision has an excellent network. I know this very well. Unfortunately, some towns contracted with Time Warner and some with Cablevision and you can't pick who you want as your provider ... unless you decide on where you l…

> unless you decide on where you live based on the available ISP. Interestingly, if I ever move out of my current neighborhood, this (along with apartment price) will dictate where I look. I'm pretty happy with Cablevision for now, though.

What happens when you pick a town with a good ISP, which then gets bought by GiantEvilCo a month after you move in?

I don't think voting with your feet and mortgages is a solution. Perhaps forgoing entirely? When Charter dicked me around in 08, I went back to dialup for over a year before DSL became available at my house. Screw 'em. I can still read HN and text-based websites at 56k.

Which isn't a whole lot slower than AT&T is giving me now. But at least they don't treat me like a subhuman ATM like Charter did.

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

#55

Post by kdragon »

JTon wrote: post #47
aroch wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Verizon got something like $10billion in cash to build FiOS out in New York...and never did

I've heard this before. How can they "get away" not building it, legally speaking? Makes no sense to me in this context

Because the bill that awarded them the funding was written in a way where there were no repercussions for not doing so.

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

#57

Post by goggles99 »

>While I was seeing my episode of The Good Wife falter at what appeared to be 1.9 Mbps, I was able to measure connection speeds of 28 Mbps to my house using a Speedtest.net test from Ookla. This is exactly the dichotomy that the M-Lab data is showing, and my example is not an isolated one; Comcast users have been complaining for months.

How do we know that it is not just the provider being sapped for bandwidth? I notice that speed tests I run in the mid-day and evening come back pretty much the same, but Netflix takes noticeably longer to buffer in the evening. I always assumed this was because their servers were much busier then.

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

#58

Post by xur17 »

goggles99 wrote: post #57

> While I was seeing my episode of The Good Wife falter at what appeared to be 1.9 Mbps, I was able to measure connection speeds of 28 Mbps to my house using a Speedtest.net test from Ookla. This is exactly the dichotomy that the M-Lab data is showing, and my example is not an isolated one; Comcast users have been complaining for months. How do we know that it is not just the provider being sapped for bandwidth? I no…

I'm guessing it's that link to Netflix from your provider that is busier at that time. I use a local provider for internet service, that despite offering crappy customer service, has given me consistent speeds, and no buffering issues with Netflix or Youtube at all.

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

#59

Post by Fasebook »

Fasebook wrote: post #46
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…

Nobody dares to speak to how bad this is for the traffic. The "infrastructure issues" were introduced a long time ago when it was decided that all data needs to go through egress points, and conform to arbitrary standards for metadata. Japan doesn't have this problem because their internet actually is decentralized, and their culture isn't at threat from users streaming their own video to as many people as they wish…

It's very common for video sites to distribute video via p2p like bittorrent so that the hosting site load is much much less.

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

#60

Post by nitrogen »

zokier wrote: post #43
FireBeyond wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course this is not all that dishonest. It is just a matter of what you want to measure. For last-mile speed measurement (which is what I personally use speedtest.net most for) using ISP provided local servers makes a lot of sense because it also removes most external factors from the measurement. And really there is no "central point of Internet" which to measure speed to/from.

When the last mile was usually the limiting factor, last mile speed was the most important thing to measure. Now that major ISPs like Comcast are either throttling streaming video or routing streaming video through highly suboptimal connections, we need more speed tests that indicate real-world performance.

That said, I think my mention of integrity in my previous comment was excessive.

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