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USA ISP Speed Index

ispspeedindex.netflix.com

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Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#61
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the exact same experience in Houston with Comcast + Netflix at slightly faster speeds. Eventually I dropped Netflix because it was unusable everywhere except my phone. Oddly I don't have the same issues with Amazon Prime, YouTube, or MLB/MiLB streaming. Given that Prime is also a direct competitor to Comcast streaming I'm not entirely convinced this experience with Netflix is the result of some deliberate pl…

You'd be wrong. About 2 years ago, Netflix switched to using Level3 as their primary ISP. The peering between Comcast and Level3 became saturated, and Comcast declined to increase bandwidth at the peering point without being paid, and also declined to install netflix's CDN boxes somewhere on their network without being paid. The question of "who pays who" is kinda complicated between ISPs, payments are rather high, a…

They also hate competition from netflix more than from the others you mention, it's a more complete replacement for their video offerings.

So they've never actually browsed Netflix's offering then, huh? Because it's hardly stellar or offers much in the way big-ticket items that compete with anything Comcast shows in their on-demand or via cable channels.

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list of speedtest.net servers is public and I don't doubt that Comcast uses it to drive traffic shaping decisions. Speed tests are meaningless except to establish an upper bound on last mile speed. They are not representative of bandwidth to real services like Netflix, YouTube, Dropbox, Steam, etc.

I can't argue with that. I just checked actual scp speed to and from ec2 and I'm getting slower downloads then uploads right now. At 7PM my time. 6.3mbps up, 4.5mbps down. speedtest.net shows those exact speeds now as well. That's nice, 80% of bandwidth going away in a few hours :-)

Doesn't the 20-25Mbps speedtest focus on "speed boost" where Comcast gooses the speeds for initial connections (so web page loads are faster, but sustained downloads are slower)?

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#64
Forgive me if i am not reading this correctly, but surely we need to know what bandwidth netflix is streaming at?

For example Virgin in the UK offers 20mbps+ on their fibre network for most customers, so this is telling me that netflix is able to stream at a maximum bitrate (of assumably 3mbps)?

What this is not telling me is that Virgin's average network speed.

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#65
All I can say is "Wow".

Out here in the flyover states, complaining about Frontier's terrible service is right up there with deer hunting and watching old episodes of "Hee Haw".

Now we see AT&T and Verizon are doing even worse than Frontier and somehow a cable provider is getting flattened by DSL. What's up?

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#66
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually have an amazing ISP (start.ca, uses Rogers' cable network, but with their own peering infrastructure behind it) I always hear about people saying "I can't play YouTube videos!" or like the comments above this "Netflix keeps buffering!". I've had absolutely zero issues like that. But, I'm starting to think that people's issues with their home internet comes down to their network setup. I have the fast Asus…

Yeah. I agree. I was with start.ca Rogers cable on the 150/10 plan and at that point you really need gigabit or 802.11ac to feel the speed of your home internet. Luckily I've both, and switched back to Rogers to have a go with their 250/20 plan. I sometimes feel like I'm the only one on HN satisfied with my ISP. Even if I'm paying too much for it ($125.99/mth), consistent downloads of 270-320mbps and an uplink of 20m…

My guess is many people on HN are happy with their ISP but you never hear from them :-)

I have 100/100 from xs4all.nl with no bandwidth cap whatsoever :-) (55€ / month and it includes spotify premium)

Re: USA ISP Speed Index

#67
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be wrong. About 2 years ago, Netflix switched to using Level3 as their primary ISP. The peering between Comcast and Level3 became saturated, and Comcast declined to increase bandwidth at the peering point without being paid, and also declined to install netflix's CDN boxes somewhere on their network without being paid. The question of "who pays who" is kinda complicated between ISPs, payments are rather high, a…

They also hate competition from netflix more than from the others you mention, it's a more complete replacement for their video offerings. So they've never actually browsed Netflix's offering then, huh? Because it's hardly stellar or offers much in the way big-ticket items that compete with anything Comcast shows in their on-demand or via cable channels.

This list of things telco monopolies see as competition is nicely summarized by the blue part of this picture :

http://toddbell.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Earthrise.jpg

And they're getting really suspicious about the grey parts in the bottom too. Better safe than sorry, right ?

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