Netflix Pays Up, but Verizon Keeps On Throttling Traffic

Netflix runs at HD for me, and only recently SuperHD -- 85 megabit fiber. I don't know how much it matters that I'm within a mile (more like half of one) of their NoVA HQ. I actually have more issues with Prime Instant Video, not to discount/downplay Netflix issues for others.
 
JustinCorrigible said:
Netflix runs at HD for me, and only recently SuperHD -- 85 megabit fiber. I don't know how much it matters that I'm within a mile (more like half of one) of their NoVA HQ. I actually have more issues with Prime Instant Video, not to discount/downplay Netflix issues for others.
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I have Verizon, if that was not obvious.
 
Exavior said:
A lot of area have other companies that people ignore or don't know about. Most of the time you don't care about them as their service is fixed wireless (WISP) and only something like 5 - 10Mbps, or xDSL between 4 and 20Mbps.

The "little guy" can also be your local telephone company if they aren't one of the larger few. There are thousands of independent telephone companies out there. Hell the city of Orlando surprisingly gets phone service by a telephone company that only services that city and not one of the big guys. A lot of the companies with below 15,000 customers are watching their numbers drop more and more as people drop land lines and go with cell only or switch to cable, phone and internet bundles. And are hurting due to this change. Some of which are on the verge of having to close up. Which it is funny in a way to think that a city somewhere might have no actual land lines, everyone either uses cell phones or cable and that are the two choices.

That recording from the guy last week trying to cancel his Comcast service was because he was going to move to some other small cable company in San Francisco.

Kenworth - based on your profile I see that you are in Phoenix, Arizona. Just doing a quick look online I see that there is a Phoenix Internet. There might be others out there also, just one that I found trying to do a quick search.
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In my area there is only Comcast cable or CenturyLink DSL for consumers. The "little" guy is laying down fiber for new businesses only, and had to fight tooth and nail to get the right to do so from the local governement. There was collusion with the government here some 20-odd years ago that gave the copper infrastructure exclusivity agreements to Comcast for the city south of the river and TimeWarner for the city north of the river.
 
Exavior said:
Kenworth - based on your profile I see that you are in Phoenix, Arizona. Just doing a quick look online I see that there is a Phoenix Internet. There might be others out there also, just one that I found trying to do a quick search.
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I had never heard of them before, actually. Looking into it. I want to also point out that I have Cox and they always get lumped into the big ball of bad companies. I have never had any issues with them. Would I like faster internet for what I pay? Of course, but their bandwidth has never been an issue. When I lived in a small community north of where I live now, there was a small company called Zona that i gladly paid over Cox to help support. It didn't hurt they were a pretty good company to do business with. So my question was really for someone who isn't me because I am happy where I am at. I just don't like the horizon as Cox has been on the bidding table a few times and if they get snatched up I might be in that situation. Other than Cox in my neighborhood there is the phone company and I haven't heard anything good about them yet. So two options for me and I consider myself lucky that the one I chose isn't in the headlines for the reasons Verizon is.
 
Exavior said:
Would be nice but won't happen. People will bitch and moan about how they have no choices and about the actions of the larger companies. However they won't put their money into supporting the little guys.
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Like?

Where I am it is cablevision, hughesnet, or verizon DSL. Which one is the little guy? There's not even anyone selling wisp service in my neighborhood. Fortunatley cablevision isn't too bad.

One of the things people DO need to start doing, at least in NJ, is complaining to their cable franchise office, and getting their neighbors to do the same. They maintain an escrow account for the cable company. Thing the cable company doesn't think it owes you for, they might. Then they bill the cable company to fill up the escrow account, or there's problems with their franchise.
 
I think Netflix and Verizon both agree on the problem. Netflix is sending all of their traffic to Verizon subscribers over their transit provider, Level3. Level3 has a history of peering disputes with lots of ISPs and backbone providers. They charge the least of any transit provider, then try to squeeze as much data onto other networks as that network will allow.

Where Verizon and Level3 connect right now has a limited number of ports connected. For very little time and effort, Verizon could connect up more ports to Level3 and solve this issue. They don't want to be strong armed into taking more traffic into their network for free from Level3 than they think is fair.

Netflix on the other hand loves Level3, because they charge them a lot less than when Netflix paid Limelight, a CDN, who handled all these issues for them. What Netflix should be doing for their customers is finding out the best routes to stream video data to each of them. Maybe sending data to Verizon customers over Cogent plus AT&Ts network is uncongested. When Verizon customers use a VPN to jump to an alternate endpoint, that's what they are simulating.

Big Content Delivery Networks like Akamai or Limelight do this. They know how much each link costs them, how congested it is, which networks they are paying to have access to and where they have servers. They also charge their customers by the bandwidth they use, rather than trying to get by with free peering.

I think fundamentally people don't understand that when your Netflix client connects, Netflix gets to pick which server their video stream comes from. If you're on Comcast now, that might be a server sitting in a Comcast data center. Either Netflix hasn't built up the intelligence in their ability to choose those originating servers to properly balance the loads across links ( if a VPN fixes things, Netflix could choose that server themselves) or they just assume they can bludgeon ISPs into doing that work for them.

This assumed that Verizon is not specifically throttling Netflix traffic. I've read as much as I can about this issue and have never seen anyone show that they are actively filtering traffic. Verizon customers have trouble connecting to other Level3 based servers as well.
 
No shit, I could have told you this... I still have Unlimited Data on Verizon and tether my phone to my laptop to listen to music and watch Netflix all day (on a separate monitor while I am programming) and have noticed things slow down, even on Youtube I get the popup message asking if I want to find out WHY my service is being throttled... ugh makes me sick
 
Exavior said:
Would be nice but won't happen. People will bitch and moan about how they have no choices and about the actions of the larger companies. However they won't put their money into supporting the little guys.
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Who are these little guys you speak of?
 
if this info is right then wouldn't this help verizon with their throttling reasoning? i mean at 100% capacity on 6 connections and you get shit speeds, another four isn't gonna do much to alleviate it.

also, it seems AT&T is in the same game. my streaming has steadily gotten worse over a year. no i can't even hold a 720p stream. connect to my VPN and magically i'm hitting 3Mb/s. ain't competition great!

another note, verizon wireless has NO throttling in my tests. i can handle the 3Mb/s down easily. of course they won't throttle b/c so many people are on tiered data (i'm still unlimited) so those overage charges are looking nice to them.

i don't think there's any scenario where the customer will win. if they force the isp's to stop throttling we'll be seeing 90's style data tiers.
 
JNavy89GT said:
would running a VPN service help to get around that? A friend of mine thought so and said it was working better for him, back when Comcast was throttling. wonder if it would work for verizon
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Absolutely yes.

Just keep in mind though, as the general public has to resort to this tactic, the ISPs can simply throttle traffic to known VPN service addresses and then we'd be back in the whack-a-mole scenario.

I've been using one of the better-known paid VPN services for some time now and every day I expect Cocmast to begin throttling it.
 
I'm praying for Google Fiber so I can tell TWC to stick it where the sun don't shine and never, ever, EVEERRR go back.
 
Its probably all because Verizon wants to push RedBox streaming in place of Netflix, as I am sure they get some coin from that partnership.
 
I think you've nailed it. It's the peering agreements that are the issue. The No Agenda podcast has analyzed this extensively. They have gotten past the PR BS that all the "tech reporters" have run with and gotten info directly from network engineers and ISP owners like SonicNet as to how the data flows and how peering agreements work.

Netflix and Comcast came to an agreement that Comcast would host a Netflix-owned caching server inside their network, which stores the most popular items, which reduces the strain on the peering connection. Google and other companies do the same thing.
 
FiveFig said:
No shit, I could have told you this... I still have Unlimited Data on Verizon and tether my phone to my laptop to listen to music and watch Netflix all day (on a separate monitor while I am programming) and have noticed things slow down, even on Youtube I get the popup message asking if I want to find out WHY my service is being throttled... ugh makes me sick
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Abuses service, then cries about it.
 
DiabloRojo said:
Just keep in mind though, as the general public has to resort to this tactic, the ISPs can simply throttle traffic to known VPN service addresses and then we'd be back in the whack-a-mole scenario.
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There is no throttling, just congestion when traffic between a connection reaches 100% and there is no agreement in place between the two sides on what to do when such a scenario occurs.

If the VPN connection gets slow, then it'll be because the amount of traffic reaches the limit of what that connection is capable of. Most likely if these users are profitable, the VPN will negotiate with its transit provider, or directly with the ISP to increase the connection or utilize additional transit providers with spare capacity. All of these options will require payment from the VPN.
 
Ruoh said:
Abuses service, then cries about it.
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it's not abuse if you're paying the agreed-upon amount for the agreed-upon service, and not violating the terms. it's verizon's problem if they agreed to unlimited data without understanding what "unlimited" might mean. if they want to kick him off, they always can. it just might cost them if they are the ones breaking the contract.

mullet said:
VPN

/thread
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i dont actually use netflix, but i have been routing all traffic to my home and my phone through a VPN and am very happy with it. i actually get slightly faster speeds at speedtest.net through my VPN than straight from my ISP.

SLee said:
There is no throttling, just congestion when traffic between a connection reaches 100% and there is no agreement in place between the two sides on what to do when such a scenario occurs.

If the VPN connection gets slow, then it'll be because the amount of traffic reaches the limit of what that connection is capable of. Most likely if these users are profitable, the VPN will negotiate with its transit provider, or directly with the ISP to increase the connection or utilize additional transit providers with spare capacity. All of these options will require payment from the VPN.
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so you're saying we're safe from throttling as long as we use VPNs, we just might get actual bandwidth issues as more and more people use VPNs?
 
ekuest said:
it's not abuse if you're paying the agreed-upon amount for the agreed-upon service, and not violating the terms. it's verizon's problem if they agreed to unlimited data without understanding what "unlimited" might mean. if they want to kick him off, they always can. it just might cost them if they are the ones breaking the contract.
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Screw that noise, you're just splitting hairs. I'll bet he isn't paying for the tethering service either. Bullshit like that is what hosed "unlimited" service for the rest of us.
 
ekuest said:
so you're saying we're safe from throttling as long as we use VPNs, we just might get actual bandwidth issues as more and more people use VPNs?
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Pretty much, its like a back road near a highway that's gridlocked. If only a few people know about it, it'll probably be faster than the highway. But if too much people use it get slow as well.

Then it'll be up to the VPN to decide how to deal with the situation.
 
Ruoh said:
Screw that noise, you're just splitting hairs. I'll bet he isn't paying for the tethering service either. Bullshit like that is what hosed "unlimited" service for the rest of us.
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Splitting hairs?

un·lim·it·ed
ˌənˈlimitid
adjective
not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent.
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So how can someone split hairs and exceed "unlimited"? Seems pretty not split-hair-able by definition.


As the person you quoted said, as long as he was following terms and NOT breaking terms of service then it is Verizon's issue overselling/marketing. IF the user was not using Verizon's tethering service then they would probably be going against the terms of service.
 
dandirk said:
Splitting hairs?



So how can someone split hairs and exceed "unlimited"? Seems pretty not split-hair-able by definition.


As the person you quoted said, as long as he was following terms and NOT breaking terms of service then it is Verizon's issue overselling/marketing. IF the user was not using Verizon's tethering service then they would probably be going against the terms of service.
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Negative. You're making excuses. The unlimited service option came into it's own just as tethering being easily feasible... then asshats started using pdanet etc. to obfuscate where the data was actually coming from, so they didn't have to abide by the tethering agreements.

Regardless, grandfathered unlimited plans required paying for tethering, or it's a violation of the TOS. My original point still stands though... People tethering their desktops on this service screwed it for everyone else.
 
Yes, running a VPN CAN help you get around crap like this.

I'm stuck with AT&T DSL.

The "scratch" refresh of Netflix for me using my normal connection is atrocious (2-3 MINUTES).

I pop onto something like Vyper VPN. My scratch time goes down to 15 seconds and I'm able to maintain higher levels of video throughput.
 
Personally I call my ISP and waste of their time while I'm doing work around the house. Don't want to p ovide me with $0.50 cents worth of bandwidth I paid for? No problem, I'll call your support staff and talk about why I like dill relish more than sweet relish while I do work around the house like washing dishes. And mopping the floor. On speakerphone of course. I'll cost you $5 in support for cheating me out of $0.50 in bandwidth.
 
Sure, but I have to do it a few THOUSAND times before it becomes more cost-effective for them to actually upgrade their stupid fucking peering point (which is where they're choking at).
 
Chas said:
Sure, but I have to do it a few THOUSAND times before it becomes more cost-effective for them to actually upgrade their stupid fucking peering point (which is where they're choking at).
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Sure, a few things though.
A) It doesn't cost me anything extra money wise.
B) IT doesn't cost me anytime time wise.I jsut speed dial that shit and put it on speakerphone. When they answer, I just ramble on and describe what I had for dinner, etc. I just stay off topic

If enough people start calling them and only stop calling them when they upgrade their speed they'll change their fucking tune. If not, well, then I transferred "my" money from Verizon's pockets into the pockets of their phone employee, and given the choice I'd rather that employee have it than some fuckwad company that isn't delivering what they promise.
 
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