Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Video Quality Report

google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 175 posts

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#161

Post by ajtaylor »

tnkd wrote: post #160
jsz0 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The big difference is that each player is already paying for bandwidth at their end We are really only paying for bandwidth to/from our providers. Everything in-between is best effort, nebulous peering arrangements, etc. > But, ISPs charge their customers for 'unlimited' bandwidth I doubt you can find a single residential Internet provider who advertises unlimited bandwidth at this point. The marketing for 'unlimit…

Interestingly, in Australia we have had Data Caps for a significant amount of time (2002 I believe was when Telstra introduced the 3gb Cable Cap). I know it's not US based, but looking at ISP's and their offerings elsewhere, there are options available. For example I have an Unlimited ADSL2+ connection from TPG (www.tpg.com.au). The trend locally seems to be ISP's offering more data and more value for money (Unlimite…

I'm also with TPG and can't fathom having a cap, much less the typically tiny ones offered. Recently I noticed that Optus is now offering an unlimited account for a reasonable price. I've heard anecdotally from people working there that it would be cheaper for Optus to do away with the caps because of the internal overhead that tracking and accounting requires.

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#162

Post by lstamour »

arebop wrote: post #155
_mulder_ wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devils advocate here, but has anyone fully considered the impact on ISPs that this massive increase in demand is having on them. Especially the hated Cable companies who are seeing customers turn their backs on their own TV products whilst shouting and demanding more and more bandwidth so they can watch (and pay instead) NetFlix et al. NetFlix and YouTube do not pay the ISPs anything. ISPs are not some c…

Yeah, how much would it cost to lay new fiber and all the necessary equipment to support 1Gbps/house? Less than [ https://www.google.com/search?q=google+fiber+profitable ] $70/month/house [ https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/plans/ ] it turns out. Now, admittedly wiring up all the suburbs and rural areas might cost more, but the incumbent players are really not so beleaguered [ http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s…

Funny story about that 1gbps needing fiber. In fact, a DOCSIS 3.1 modem at 24x8 will easily hit 1-1.5gbps with half the investment necessary as it would to roll out today under DOCSIS 3.0. So expect to magically see cable start competing with Google Fiber if it actually takes off! ;-)

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#163

Post by zurn »

_mulder_ wrote: post #142
JohnTHaller wrote: post #119

Now that it's fully legal for ISPs to throttle Netflix, Google, et al (thanks, Verizon) and extort money from them in return for giving customers the bandwidth they pay for, I think it's time for all the major players to track performance on the networks and call out the throttlers with a message right over the video stream on their website and in-app (Android, iOS, Xbox, etc). SO, when you use TWC and are getting on…

Just to play devils advocate here, but has anyone fully considered the impact on ISPs that this massive increase in demand is having on them. Especially the hated Cable companies who are seeing customers turn their backs on their own TV products whilst shouting and demanding more and more bandwidth so they can watch (and pay instead) NetFlix et al. NetFlix and YouTube do not pay the ISPs anything. ISPs are not some c…

Any increase in average utilization is an insignificant cost compared to the elephant in the room: Broadband speeds have been essentially stagnant for 10+ years if you look at tech development vs what gets deployed. The ISPs have been reaping the savings that faster backbone technology brings and not passing them on to customers, while failing to deploy improvements in last mile connectivity tech.

Actually the tech would have gotten better much faster if its development hadn't stalled due to low demand. If you plot a Moore's law type from the 90's, we should be getting 10 gigabits at home by now.

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#164

Post by ddeck »

ANTSANTS wrote: post #157
philsnow wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use TomatoUSB on my home router, which includes dnsmasq (under Advanced / DHCP/DNS, there's a textarea for "Dnsmasq custom configuration"). I have a line in there: server=/netflix.com/75.75.75.75 which tells dnsmasq to use my ISP's dns (75.75.75.75) instead of my default (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), only when resolving domains that look like netflix.com. I don't actually know whether this is an anchored regex or what, ma…

Kinda off-topic, but why do you use Google's DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)? Unless I'm missing something, by doing so you are basically giving them a record of every domain you access. I don't really trust my ISP either, but why share that information with anyone else (especially a company with great interest in data mining everyone)?

Assuming you don't believe they are lying:

We built Google Public DNS to make the web faster and to retain as little information about usage as we could, while still being able to detect and fix problems. Google Public DNS does not permanently store personally identifiable information.[1]

More details about exactly what is logged at [1]. As for why, speed and security are the main benefits touted [2].

[1] https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy

[2] https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/intro

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#165

Post by tene »

nsxwolf wrote: post #65
wmf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People talked about Internet "pipes" for many years, but somehow Stevens was a moron for saying "tubes".

He wasn't a moron for saying "tubes". We was a moron for the extended, stammering, rambling and incomprehensible context he used that word in.

The rest all seems reasonable to me, but you think he's a moron for stammering? I have a noticeable problem with stammering myself, and so do a few of the cleverest people I know. Stammering is an involuntary speech disorder, not a sign of low intelligence. That's simply not accurate.

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#166

Post by philsnow »

ANTSANTS wrote: post #157
philsnow wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use TomatoUSB on my home router, which includes dnsmasq (under Advanced / DHCP/DNS, there's a textarea for "Dnsmasq custom configuration"). I have a line in there: server=/netflix.com/75.75.75.75 which tells dnsmasq to use my ISP's dns (75.75.75.75) instead of my default (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), only when resolving domains that look like netflix.com. I don't actually know whether this is an anchored regex or what, ma…

Kinda off-topic, but why do you use Google's DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)? Unless I'm missing something, by doing so you are basically giving them a record of every domain you access. I don't really trust my ISP either, but why share that information with anyone else (especially a company with great interest in data mining everyone)?

Despite being a (bit of a) privacy enthusiast, I still use Google's DNS servers, for a few reasons:

1. I use chrome. If I didn't use Google DNS, they'd be able to track 90-99% of my internet usage just by watching what domains I visit in chrome. The remaining portion is e.g. irc, usenet, xmpp, ssh, etc, that doesn't go through chrome. I could use firefox or opera or w3m or telnet or whatever, but I like chrome.

2. I became disinterested in using comcast's dns because of previous internet-breaking shenanigans like http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/domain-helper-se... .

3. I work at YouTube (owned by Google), so I get to see the internal temperament and discussions regarding privacy, data safety, PII, and so on. I'm comfortable letting Google have this data.

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#167

Post by Someone »

arebop wrote: post #155
_mulder_ wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devils advocate here, but has anyone fully considered the impact on ISPs that this massive increase in demand is having on them. Especially the hated Cable companies who are seeing customers turn their backs on their own TV products whilst shouting and demanding more and more bandwidth so they can watch (and pay instead) NetFlix et al. NetFlix and YouTube do not pay the ISPs anything. ISPs are not some c…

Yeah, how much would it cost to lay new fiber and all the necessary equipment to support 1Gbps/house? Less than [ https://www.google.com/search?q=google+fiber+profitable ] $70/month/house [ https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/plans/ ] it turns out. Now, admittedly wiring up all the suburbs and rural areas might cost more, but the incumbent players are really not so beleaguered [ http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s…

It's not (only) that 1Gbps to the home, it also that fat pipe per street, the even fatter pipe per neighborhood, etc.

Especially the latter pipes need to get a lot fatter, the more people use that 1Gbps bandwidth.

Look at it this way: roads to houses haven't increased in bandwidth in the past century or so, but investments in highways have. Why? People started using 'their' bandwidth. They don't walk to work, but use a car that takes more room, and also travel over larger distances.

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#168

Post by philsnow »

cosmie wrote: post #158
philsnow wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use TomatoUSB on my home router, which includes dnsmasq (under Advanced / DHCP/DNS, there's a textarea for "Dnsmasq custom configuration"). I have a line in there: server=/netflix.com/75.75.75.75 which tells dnsmasq to use my ISP's dns (75.75.75.75) instead of my default (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), only when resolving domains that look like netflix.com. I don't actually know whether this is an anchored regex or what, ma…

> I use TomatoUSB on my home router, which includes dnsmasq (under Advanced / DHCP/DNS, there's a textarea for "Dnsmasq custom configuration"). I have a line in there: server=/netflix.com/75.75.75.75 > which tells dnsmasq to use my ISP's dns (75.75.75.75) instead of my default (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), only when resolving domains that look like netflix.com. You are my hero, good sir! You've just inadvertently provided t…

To be fair, I'm just repeating something I saw on HN before. Here, I dug up the original post, give that person your upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6393829

Also, please consider sending the author / maintainer of dnsmasq (Simon Kelley, simon@thekelleys.org.uk) a thank-you email. Same for the maintainer of your router's after-market firmware, if you use such a thing.

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#169

Post by username223 »

higherpurpose wrote: post #83
earlz wrote: post #3

Good. I swear youtube is throttled by Time Warner Cable for me. I stream Netflix, Hulu, etc and never have problems with them. I can confirm that I'm getting my speeds of 20MBit/s down, and yet almost every video on YouTube buffers. If I use youtube-dl to download the video, I can confirm that my actual connection speed is somewhere around 60KB/s. If I then use youtube-dl on my VPS with the same video, I get somewher…

They probably do it, but Google is at fault, too. Their new DASH thing has made the experience so much poorer. They never should've done it to begin with, and I don't think whatever savings in bandwidth they might have from it are worth the compromise. Youtube was perfect before, because it allowed you to cache videos, and go back on the videos whenever you wanted, with no need for reloading or whatever. DASH made it…

I wouldn't know. YouTube is actually not so bad now if you block Flash, save the videos via the HTML5 interface, and watch them at your leisure.

Re: Google Video Quality Report

#170

Post by weazl »

> We pick the shortest, most direct route.

Eh, no. I'm sure they try but more often than not my YouTube is streaming from Amsterdam according to http://redirector.c.youtube.com/report_mapping, I live in Stockholm and have a 250 MBit connection. So instead of blazing fast speeds I get buffering like I'm on a modem.

I've found no way of reporting this issue, my ISP did not know either. I worked around the issue myself with hundreds of lines like this "74.125.163.38 r1---sn-5hn7ym76.googlevideo.com r1.sn-5hn7ym76.googlevideo.com" in my router hosts file. This finally made videos buffer pretty much instantly.

Post reply on HN