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Poor streaming downloading and uploading
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Old 14-03-2012, 23:36   #16
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

And what about those have no problems at all?

My point is that, whilst this is certainly a problem, no-one on either side of the argument knows exactly how big a problem it is. But, due to the "negativity bias" I mentioned earlier it is far more likely that someone with a problem will come onto a forum (or wherever) to complain about than anyone is ever likely to come onto a forum (or whatever) just to say that don't have any problems with their services.

Which, of course, makes any problem seem bigger than it actually is.
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Old 15-03-2012, 00:17   #17
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

in this instance I think even a few people experiencing this problem means it warrants further investigation and maybe indictative or a larger problem. I class this problem as one of the more serious ones on par with the shub's wireless performance with regards to the frequency of posts. Even if 70% of people like myself are happy with their service, youtube is such an important service for families and something VM actively advertise as being unrestricted that they have got to make sure it works. When I know I can I download at 12mb/sec consistently there is no excuse why I piddly 50mb video buffers and can take 4 mins to fully stream.

The number of people reporting the issue may be disproportionate to the customer base but it still needs fixing. You have got to remember that most people dont know any better and unless they switch isp they'll assume that that is how youtube works and maybe it cant handle the throughput because it is a popular site, especially if they talk to their neighbour or friend who also experiences the same problem and is on a higher tier like myself.
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Old 15-03-2012, 01:08   #18
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

Quote:
Originally Posted by General Maximus View Post
in this instance I think even a few people experiencing this problem means it warrants further investigation and maybe indictative or a larger problem. I class this problem as one of the more serious ones on par with the shub's wireless performance with regards to the frequency of posts. Even if 70% of people like myself are happy with their service, youtube is such an important service for families and something VM actively advertise as being unrestricted that they have got to make sure it works. When I know I can I download at 12mb/sec consistently there is no excuse why I piddly 50mb video buffers and can take 4 mins to fully stream.

The number of people reporting the issue may be disproportionate to the customer base but it still needs fixing. You have got to remember that most people dont know any better and unless they switch isp they'll assume that that is how youtube works and maybe it cant handle the throughput because it is a popular site, especially if they talk to their neighbour or friend who also experiences the same problem and is on a higher tier like myself.

fully agree with your post and this sums up what i was trying to say previously.
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Old 15-03-2012, 03:24   #19
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

I know of at least 4 people with Virgin Media that have told me they have issues streaming and don't post on forums to complain. Why? Because they don't know about them and it's happened so long that they either think it's normal or chose to ignore it. One of my close friends is on the 10MB service and he has problems streaming which i've witnessed first hand.

My area is generally considered to be below average utilisation too, so it wouldn't appear to be contention from first glance.
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Old 15-03-2012, 11:15   #20
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

Quote:
Originally Posted by General Maximus View Post
in this instance I think even a few people experiencing this problem means it warrants further investigation and maybe indictative or a larger problem.
Absolutely. Any problem, no matter how few people it impacts, needs to be sorted. I never said otherwise.
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Old 15-03-2012, 11:18   #21
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

Quote:
Originally Posted by boroboi View Post
I know of at least 4 people with Virgin Media that have told me they have issues streaming and don't post on forums to complain. Why? Because they don't know about them and it's happened so long that they either think it's normal or chose to ignore it. One of my close friends is on the 10MB service and he has problems streaming which i've witnessed first hand.

My area is generally considered to be below average utilisation too, so it wouldn't appear to be contention from first glance.

Same.

Overloaded peering links by the sounds of things.
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Old 15-03-2012, 11:22   #22
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

I've had a few YouTube streaming issues recently, it's been buffering quite a bit on occasions yet normally it's perfect on my 6Mbps Sky unlimited BB connection
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Old 15-03-2012, 11:32   #23
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

proves my point quite nicely. It is a shame they cant get something simple like this fixed and provide a decent QoS instead of ramming speed upgrades down everyones throat.
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Old 15-03-2012, 12:10   #24
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

Remember last time I did a test when a Youtube video loaded six times faster on a BT 40mb than on VM 50mb?

Anyhow. Big fast connections and effective load balancing costs money. And 100Gbps technology isn't widespread yet, though I'd expect the likes of Youtube and VM to be the first companies to use it; so 100Gbps peering *should* be possible.
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Old 15-03-2012, 13:16   #25
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

i'd rather have a 30Mb connection that can load popular websites like youtube, 4od and iplayer without an issue than a 60Mb connection that keeps buffering every other second
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Old 15-03-2012, 13:27   #26
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

when using the VM dns servers youtube is quite poor for me, but is fine when using google dns.

However its not all cut and dried because if I use something like google dns to get better youtube then I get slower akamai servers.

What would be good is to use one dns server for youtube and another for akamai.
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Old 15-03-2012, 14:08   #27
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

What would be even better would be to use one DNS server for everything, and for it to not fail so hard at getting you the nearest server(s)

Can't say I've noticed the same difference, I've got Google DNS set up and streaming is still terrible, but then again I have a lot of local congestion too.
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Old 15-03-2012, 14:58   #28
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

last december VM paid £46077.19 to LINX for peering - that was for 5 10G ports

Thas compared to BT paying £46077.19 and facebook paying £85411.24 - havent got any bandwidth facts on those though
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Old 15-03-2012, 15:00   #29
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

Nice - good info!

Assuming it's all correct, 5x10G ports is... very little. I presume they have a lot of private peerings too that aren't usually paid for or disclosed publicly.
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Old 15-03-2012, 16:27   #30
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Re: Poor streaming downloading and uploading

Quote:
Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq View Post
What would be even better would be to use one DNS server for everything, and for it to not fail so hard at getting you the nearest server(s)

Can't say I've noticed the same difference, I've got Google DNS set up and streaming is still terrible, but then again I have a lot of local congestion too.
As far as I know only VM dns servers will give you VM akamai servers. Any non VM akamai servers are slow to me due to the not high quality of VMs transit links.
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