jizzrag85
Well-Known Member
That's weird, Netflix is pretty top notch. Glad it works for you, wished it worked for me. Maybe it'll be better during buffs season because I will re-enroll just for PAC 12
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- Thread starter Bison
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That's weird, Netflix is pretty top notch. Glad it works for you, wished it worked for me. Maybe it'll be better during buffs season because I will re-enroll just for PAC 12
Take your macbook to someone else's wifi and try it there. If it doesnt have a problem at a different location then Id be suspicious of something with your home network.
Take an incremental approach to diagnosing the problem. If MBP worked at your friends house when you come home hard wire it directly to your modem and test there. Then try hard wired thru the router. Then over wifi.
My dad had some troubles with his network. Part of it was wired and part of it was wifi. Ultimately we found a bad switch. Once we removed it everything started working again.
If you want all the live sports, you have to be with a service provider, or suffer through the awful streaming quality. Cutting the cord as a legit option for everything isn't ready yet, but it will be soon.
How soon?
This is where partial ownership by ESPN props up the SEC and B10 networks. I'm sure they are taking very little or even any extra money for getting those two included in these OTT packages, but at least it gets them the distribution that can drive advertising revenue.
The Pac 12 may have the better long road play, but it is hurting, not helping, in the short term.
Big Ten is partnered with Fox, fwiw. SEC isn't so much partnered with ESPN as licensed... ESPN owns the entire network but pays a big nut every year for those rights.
Fair enough, but the point stands - the OTT delivery systems care way more about getting Fox and Espn than they do about the B10 and SEC networks.
Yep. It's looking more and more like Pac-12 is going to be looking at Twitter streaming as its platform. Partial rollout this year.
Keep in mind that the "problem with your home network" may not actually be in your home. Your local neighborhood ISPs switch may have poor routing to "x provider's" service.
Netflix, as an example, has invested a lot of money in their infrastructure and worked with the various ISPs to ensure that they always have good connections to, say Comcast's network. Sling, not so much.
Netflix, as an example, has invested a lot of money in their infrastructure and worked with the various ISPs to ensure that they always have good connections to, say Comcast's network. Sling, not so much.
I'm about to cancel my Spectrum cable TV and go with Sling Blue (which doesn't include ESPN). I'll add Orange and sports for football/basketball season. Hulu looks like a better option for me, but no Pac 12 network is a deal breaker. Hopefully Pac 12 gets broader distribution among streaming services.
Pac-12 should be looking at all streaming options to distribute content. Make it an add-on package for x dollars a month and split the revenue with the platform.
Haha, to respond to your question, obviously I don't know. I just look at how far "cord cutting" has come in a relatively short period of time, with all the available alternatives like Netflix, PS Vue, Hulu TV, Sling TV, YouTube TV (?), Facebook and Twitter streaming, a la carte streaming subscriptions for premium channels like HBO, Showtime, etc. and the massive amounts of lost subscriptions to cable/dish providers every month, and believe it's only going to take a little bit longer for these services to have the $$ and infrastructure to have the "kinks" worked out.
Deleted member 807
Guest
Netflix has invested a lot of money in their legal department and have invested a lot of time leveraging the peer-to-peer arrangements of their suppliers. Netflix doesn't have a distribution infrastructure. They rely on their customer's ISPs networks.
It might be semantics, but of course they are leveraging the ISPs. They have spent a ton of money optimizing their connections to those ISPs to ensure a good experience for their customers where possible.
Netflix is way ahead of everyone else. They just partnered with Longmont's fiber optic isp Nextlight. Netflix installed local servers in Longmont's Nextlight data center. They store all the popular content on those servers and update them during slow hours so when we Longmonters stream netflix it's only coming from a mile or two away, all on fiber optic. Your whole network is only as good as the weakest link.
jizzrag85
Well-Known Member
Fair enough. But I have all the devices and speed there and sling just doesn't work well for me. I'll still get it for football season because I refuse Comcast.
Deleted member 807
Guest
I see what you mean about semantics. You say "investing in their infrastructure. I say "investing in contracts with vendors that contain specific service level agreements."
It comes down to what is meant by "infrastructure." We'd agree that Netflix has a successful business model based on good content variety, a good outsourced distribution network, and good price.
Netflix's weaknesses/threats are an absence of live content plus reliance upon net neutrality and peer-to-peer interconnection pricing.
For a sort of layperson's description of some of the dynamics of connections and deals between ISPs and content providers, here's a good article about Netflix's deal with Comcast :
http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-comcast-deal-explained-2014-2
http://www.businessinsider.com/netflix-comcast-deal-explained-2014-2
Deleted member 807
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That is a good article. The squabbles between Netflix and ISPs are spilling over into the courts. The Verizon spat is but one example.
I still don't fully understand your side of the argument. If I remember correctly netflix should pay more to send their traffic. I feel like they are already making money on both sides. Someone charges netflix for trunk lines into their datacenters (most likely 2 or 3 providers) and someone else is charging consumers to have an internet connection in their house. It just seems that these companies are too scared to price accurately because the competitiveness of the market so they want to hide behind laws to abolish net neutrality. Can you image if you want to send a package to someone and you get charged shipping and they again charge the recipient again to receive the package? That would be absurd.
Deleted member 807
Guest
I don't think we have a disagreement on net neutrality. Do we?
The point I'm making is on the network architecture and the peer-to-peer interconnection regime that Netflix relies upon to supply video to their customers.
Netflix is paying various vendors like Cogent to connect to Netflix servers and broadcast their content to the IP backbone. Cogent sells data facilities from Netflix servers to the Cogent distribution network. This could be a fixed Ethernet facility that is flat rated. Bigger pipes cost more than smaller ones.
Cogent hands off that traffic to ISPs for them to terminate the traffic to Netflix customers. The ISPs don't bill Cogent and they don't bill Netflix to terminate Netflix's traffic. The ISPs don't bill Netflix anything.
The principle behind peering is that there should be an equal amount of originating traffic as there is terminating traffic. Peer networks don't charge each other to terminate traffic based on the original assumption that the same amount of facilities are needed to send and receive traffic.
Netflix traffic is asymmetrical. A customer's request for a movie is not even a megabyte. The movie download, however will probably be several gigabytes. The download from Cogent/Netflix is much larger than the upload to Cogent/Netflix. I've seen reports that as much as a third to half of all internet traffic is video content from Netflix to their customers.
The asymmetric nature of Netflix means that ISPs have to deploy more capital to support Netflix customers and bill ISP customers to cover network costs. Thus it costs an end user $80 for the ISP and $9 for Netflix.
The end user who doesn't use Netflix is partially subsidizing the end users who do. ISPs do charge more for faster speeds. But they don't charge any premiums to end users of Netflix content.
Where Netflix takes off the gloves and fights dirty is when they direct Cogent or their other peering partner to terminate Netflix traffic on lower capacity facilities, even when there are larger facilities available. Then when data speeds are an issue, Netflix blames the ISP for not having adequate facilities. This tactic has been allegedly used to publish suspect network quality metrics with the intention of forcing ISP customers to demand more network investments.
The flip side is the ISPs selling all you can eat services to customers, then intentionally reducing the priority of Netflix traffic, forcing Netflix to enter in to an agreement with them to "have priority" or at least parity with other customer content requests.
This works both ways.
@Clean Undies
is the peering agreements a relic of deregulation of AT&T in the 80s? Where long distance carriers would offer free switching of telephone traffic? Are these peer agreements regulated in the fact that you could charge on volume and not content? So for example if Cogent offloads twice as much as they carry, then can they be charged by other backbone providers?
is the peering agreements a relic of deregulation of AT&T in the 80s? Where long distance carriers would offer free switching of telephone traffic? Are these peer agreements regulated in the fact that you could charge on volume and not content? So for example if Cogent offloads twice as much as they carry, then can they be charged by other backbone providers?
Deleted member 807
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Net Neutrality is what you are referring to here. Not peering.
Truth be known, networks are always prioritizing traffic. The government just forged a FirstNet agreement that prioritizes first responder traffic above any other traffic type. There's general consensus that ambulances, fire departments, and police traffic serve more of a greater good than Matt's porn and Dio's video gaming. Your call to 911 and communication between first responders will get priority. The porn and video will still get there, but it will be a few milliseconds after the emergency call. Your e-mail and text messages are near the back of the line. It might take a few shakes of a lambs tail to get that message across the internet after I hit "send".
Hopefully emails that contain viruses or transmissions that are part of a DoS attack don't get delivered at all.
All these types of prioritization are necessary to meet public needs, resolve congestion, protect the network.
Network traffic is somewhat predictable, but a weather event, or big public event, or some disaster might generate a spike in traffic volumes that don't otherwise exist. The networks are engineered to deliver traffic on a priority basis. The FCC and public are generally okay with this type of prioritization.
The policy gets more contentious around data throttling. Carriers will throttle users who use bit torrents and/or otherwise exceed more standard traffic patterns. The throttling might be triggered at a fixed number like 300-500 gig/month. Or it might occur when there is congestion. High data users are "encouraged" to upgrade to services that are engineered for their traffic behaviors. The industry allows for consumers to be charged more for faster speeds with more data and charge less for slower speeds and less data.
The use of 1-800 numbers are well known to telephone users. The receiving party picks up the long distance tab for the customer.
The internet equivalent of 800 numbers has been contentious. It is not allowable for Amazon or Microsoft or Netflix to pay for your internet in exchange for the ability to control your browser, sent you pop-ups, and otherwise shape your internet experience.
However T-mobile can give you unlimited streaming when you use Pandora. Similarly AT&T can let you stream Directv without impacting your data plan. Meanwhile Amazon Prime or Netflix might count against your plan, have low resolution, or latency. If Netflix or Amazon agree to pay for or partially subsidize consumer data plans, and partner with networks to optomize network design, they are able to do so at a price. Is this behavior also subject to net neutrality? This is one of the current debates.
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