TV over the internet

[Rex A. Butcher]

Hi there,

During the Olympics, we watched quite a lot of live broadcasting from the BBC, via the internet and quite a lot via the BBC iPlayer. It was pretty darned good, as was the quality that came over the internet.

In the last two days, I have tried to watch another few programs on Channel4, and every few minutes, the screen freezes and a message appears that basically tells me, 'Insufficient Broadband speed detected. Blah, Blah, Blah.'

Presumably this is something that I can do nothing about? But why would the BBC work perfectly but this other channel?

Thanks

Rex

[cdroman]

Are you close to your bandwidth limit for the month? If so your IP may be doing a bit of bandwidth throttling. Could also be some congestion etc. in your area at the time.

[Rex A. Butcher]

Thanks for your reply. Regarding your former suggestion, I may be but....... In the past, my ISP have informed me that I am close and threaten to bill me when I go over. As for congestion, I am with BT and although they are rolling out super fast BB (not scheduled in my area for a long time yet,) nothing they do seems to make a difference to my connection speed. I should be getting up to 10mbs but usually only get closer to 4mbs.

Rex

[fink]

It wouldn't be unusual for the path between you and one server to have different speeds/congestion than the path to another server. Next time you try to view a program on CH4 and get a message about low bandwidth try watching another program on BBC to see if the situation still exists.

If BBC streams ok then the problem is not you or your ISP's but somewhere else between you and CH4 at which point there wouldn't be a lot you could do except perhaps experiment using a high quality proxy server or a VPN to change the path.

[Rex A. Butcher]

Thanks. Personally, I think the issue was with the signal, whoever it got to me rather than my computer. During the Olympics, when I assume that the BBC and iPlayer where somewhat busy, I almost never had a problem, or not like this Ch4 message.

The day we watched this program, I would not expect the lines to be as busy. It's no big deal as we don't watch much TV over the internet. But it does raise another question.

I own a flat which we rent out. The tenant recently asked me if he could cancel the BT phone/BB landline contract as he felt that his BB was slow. He has changed to another ISP and says that it is faster. But why would it be faster? OK, the new ISP has equipment in the BT exchange but the signal to and from the exchange is still using BT lines.

Rex

[Rex A. Butcher]

Apologies for the multiple posting. My comment about VDr taking forever; because the progress bar was doing zilch after 45 seconds, I hit stop and 'Submit Reply' a second and then third time. It was only forth attempt that the progress bar actually appeared, but during that time, my replies had been both submitted and accepted.

Rex

[fink]

I've had those multiple post issues lately too. I'll get rid of the extras.

It can be very difficult to trace slowdowns like that but if you were to do a traceroute to servers supplying the data you'd see that the route taken is usually very different except for the last few hops at your end of the journey. You may also see the points where data is being delayed.

Even with one ISP using the same local lines and equipment as another ISP the servers and routers used to get to the same ultimate destination will usually be different since the main backbones and routers used by individual ISP's vary greatly.

Also, doing a traceroute to the same destination with the same ISP a day or even hours later can be different due to automatic traffic routing implemented to distribute data streams evenly throughout a network.

[Rex A. Butcher]

Thanks. Guess it is no big deal and since there is little that I can do about it, .......!

Rex