[133677] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Nathan Angelacos)
Wed Dec 15 17:34:29 2010
Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:34:50 -0800
From: Nathan Angelacos <nangel@tetrasec.net>
To: nanog@nanog.org
In-Reply-To: <22800.1292451182@localhost>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On 12/15/10 14:13, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:51:05 EST, Mikel Waxler said:
>
>> The reality is that most customers do not make uncapped connections. File
>> servers cap bandwidth per user and certain services, like gaming or
>> streaming media have a maximum rate. As long as the average data rate
>> allocated per customer is close to the usage then customers will not notice
>> the difference. Does it matter if it takes 10 seconds or 15 seconds to
>> download a 5 minute youtube clip?
>
> The problem starts when that the choke point is congested enough that the
> question isn't "10 seconds or 15", it's "4 mins 30 or 5 mins 30 for that 5
> minute clip". Buffer underruns are incredibly annoying.
>
Or, from personal experience:
The movie stops because the buffer was exhausted, Netflix informs you
"Your network connection has changed", shows a progress bar while it
buffers /at a lower bitrate/.
Then you get to watch the rest of the movie like it was 1995.
