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I’ve recently changed my ISP and noticed that I no longer can watch video sites like YouTube in real time; I need to wait for buffering first. On both ISPs, my speed was same 5 megabits per second.
I’ve checked normal download of files, and torrents, and they all work fine. Also, checked other video sites, same problem. Used other PC, same problem.
bbaja42
Posted 2010-03-04T21:23:21.567
Reputation: 2 815
0
The easiest way would be to try calling their customer service and ask them. Most hard-wired internet providers in the first world don't care how much data or what type it is, within reason of course. If they do though, they are generally up-front about informing customers.
The next best way to test this is to check other video streaming sites, such as Vimeo, Revision3, and even Facebook to get a baseline. Perhaps even upload a test video of your own if you want to be scientific. After that, you should use a VPN to access those sites. Make sure the VPN encrypts your traffic. This will make all the data that goes over the wire look like gibberish, and it would all look the same, with no noticeable difference between streaming videos, or anything else. When on the VPN, how does your streaming look? Granted, a VPN adds an extra few hops for your data to go through, but if the ISP is filtering based on the IP or the content of the Data, you will be able to notice significantly better streaming!
DarthCaniac
Posted 2010-03-04T21:23:21.567
Reputation: 159
For what it's worth, I've worked for four different ISPs in the past decade, and none of them throttled any particular type of data. You're probably just dealing with latency or an oversold DSLAM. Are you sure you're getting your throughput? Did you run any tracerts? – goblinbox – 2010-03-04T22:49:33.407
I think bbaja42 wants to know how to figure out if throttling is happening. It certainly has been known to happen, for example a few years ago with Comcast. Also, we can't assume the questioner is in the US. – Paul Holden – 2010-03-05T00:00:43.907
Paul makes an excellent point--a quick glance at bbaja42's profile shows that this asker does not live in the US. – Emory Bell – 2010-03-05T00:04:29.420
yep, i live in croatia; europe – bbaja42 – 2010-03-05T09:54:29.933
tracert of youtube http://pastebin.com/M68zKgpB i don't see what's the point of this tracert; but I hope it helps in solving problem
– bbaja42 – 2010-03-05T10:09:05.520Your tracert doesn't look bad. I wouldnt worry too much. I have 35Mbps down and I can't watch YouTube in real-time, yet I have no problem saturating my speed on other services. Im gonna say its a youtube issue. – Juice – 2010-03-05T14:32:49.293
like I said, it's not just youtube; i've same issues with megavideo, vidreal.com and some other videosites – bbaja42 – 2010-03-05T15:36:54.577
I suppose the only recourse is to call your ISP and very gently ask for 3rd tier support. Once you get someone in engineering on the phone, ask if they're throttling video. (They will probably say that they're not and suggest that you reconfigure your gateway device. Or the issue could be badly configured cache servers.) – goblinbox – 2010-03-05T20:52:43.660
Please also note that streaming video uses UDP, which is a connectionless protocol that offers no flow control or error correction. UDP is used rather than TCP because it's faster, but lack of flow control can be problematic under certain conditions. – goblinbox – 2010-11-29T10:40:50.753