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Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

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Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#31

The problem here is that Comcast and Verizon don't want to pay for the upstream bandwidth to the Netflix Open Connect CDN which means that as Netflix increases quality and gains additional subscribers, the time-weighted bitrate (TWBR, the metric they use to compare ISP performance) will continue to plummet. This isn't to say that all Comcast and Verizon customers will feel this pain, some markets have better performa…

Could there be an opportunity for small ISPs who peer well with Netflix?

Or does the fact that they usually operate using the Big Boys cables remove any advantages this may bring?

Instead of Comcast's TV + Phone + Internet,

I would be willing to buy Small ISPs NetFlix + AmazonPrime + Internet package if I knew I could get high quality streams without slowdowns.

Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#32

Hint: never use Comcast for residential service. Sign up for business service, even if you're just one person in an apartment. You get better support, less BS, and (likely) improved immunity to copyright-trolling law firms. They will still route about 10% of your packets via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, of course, but that's just the nature of the beast.

A sad thing is there used to be a YC Comcast Business deal which was pretty awesome, but somehow this got killed (it was done through a local office, but Comcast National apparently decided it didn't fuck the users enough to meet with normal Comcast standards.)

So a fair number of YC founders and offices have Comcast, and while you can relocate the service address, if you close the service, you can't get that deal again. And you can't upgrade it (I think I get 30/10?). Going from 30/10 with a static IP to the next tier of service (50/20) would basically 3-4x my cost.

Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#33
post #27

Hint: never use Comcast for residential service. Sign up for business service, even if you're just one person in an apartment. You get better support, less BS, and (likely) improved immunity to copyright-trolling law firms. They will still route about 10% of your packets via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, of course, but that's just the nature of the beast.

Be very wary of signing up for Comcast business service. They have an auto-renewal policy that renews your contract every year even though you thought you'd signed up for a single year (with the expectation of month-to-month). When you come to leave Comcast Business they will charge you 75% of the outstanding balance you have on the current year ($485 for 10 months in my case) and they'll fight tooth-and-nail to get…

I don't get it, what would happen if you simply hadn't paid the $485?

Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#34
post #22

Lesson: don't get your internet service from a company that also tries to sell you entertainment content. They're going to fuck you over both ways.

Yep. The disadvantage of consolidation in that industry is these big providers have a conflict of interest. In an ideal world, platform providers would be broken up and prevented from selling their own content. That goes for Google too.

Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#35
post #2

What if we started netneutrality.js? Something that shows a banner on sites for people using Verizon/Comcast. Perhaps that will raise more awareness for the issue?

Bro, do you even logic? These comments remind me of those fundamentalist pamphlets with Jesus riding a dinosaur.

The whole premise of network neutrality is that ISPs should be forced to provide the same capacity connection to each peer network. The government should smite them down if the favor any company over another.

That is exactly what Comcast is doing! They are staunchly providing equal treatment to everyone. Netflix is getting the same treatment as Google Play.

And then a mob of idiots marches out to say "But my Netflix is slooooow! Treat Netflix the same harder!" They will pretend to be shocked when nothing happens.

The simple fact is that quality of service costs money. If you want Netflix to be popular and fast, somebody will have to pay to light all those fiber channels and install all those core routers. Passing a law that says nobody can pay will make the Internet into a Soviet store: free nonexistent bread for everybody.

Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#36
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be very wary of signing up for Comcast business service. They have an auto-renewal policy that renews your contract every year even though you thought you'd signed up for a single year (with the expectation of month-to-month). When you come to leave Comcast Business they will charge you 75% of the outstanding balance you have on the current year ($485 for 10 months in my case) and they'll fight tooth-and-nail to get…

I don't get it, what would happen if you simply hadn't paid the $485?

Lawyers, I imagine.

Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use your own modem with Comcast business service (I do) but it took about two weeks of calling all the tech support numbers I could find until I finally got a tech who was able to do it. Not because it's hard to do, but because most of the people I talked to were lying or incompetent. The guy seemed a bit weirded out at how profusely I thanked him -- after all, all I'd done was tell him the model and MAC addr…

Thanks for this. I've been wondering, so tomorrow. I'm going to start the process.

It saddens me that I feel like every interaction with Comcast is a "process" at best and an outer circle of hell on average.

Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#38

Hint: never use Comcast for residential service. Sign up for business service, even if you're just one person in an apartment. You get better support, less BS, and (likely) improved immunity to copyright-trolling law firms. They will still route about 10% of your packets via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, of course, but that's just the nature of the beast.

Last week we try to install comcast business in our church. They would not give us a wireless router unless we accepted her installation of a publics hot spot too. This is against the church policy because it will allow someone watching porn in the sanctuary with no knowledge for us. They would not relent.

We end up putting our own wireless router. Speed is ok, but I didn't like that comcast pushed her policies to the clients disregarding the client policy. It felt like a bully.

Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#39
post #27

Hint: never use Comcast for residential service. Sign up for business service, even if you're just one person in an apartment. You get better support, less BS, and (likely) improved immunity to copyright-trolling law firms. They will still route about 10% of your packets via the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, of course, but that's just the nature of the beast.

Be very wary of signing up for Comcast business service. They have an auto-renewal policy that renews your contract every year even though you thought you'd signed up for a single year (with the expectation of month-to-month). When you come to leave Comcast Business they will charge you 75% of the outstanding balance you have on the current year ($485 for 10 months in my case) and they'll fight tooth-and-nail to get…

I had a 50/10 Comcast Business account that was active in the south bay area from 2009 until last year.

The terms were an auto-renewing 1-year contract, but I could (and did) kill it at any time on 60 days' notice.

I don't recall doing any negotiation on this point when I signed up at all.

Re: Netflix performance on Verizon and Comcast has been dropping for months

#40
Part of this is seasonal traffic trends. Here in the North East when the weather starts getting hostile around November we see a big uptick in bandwidth usage among our customers. Utilization tends to peak in January and starts breaking as soon as the weather warms up. You can see a less dramatic dip on this chart from the same period last year. With the long stretches of cold weather all over the US this year I suspect ISPs all over the country got hit hard. It's also the season for many millions of new devices to get unwrapped and turned on.
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