The Frustrations Of Rural Internet AND Netflix

[Industrial Toys]

I know this varies greatly in different regions.

We come to rely on reliable Internet, and it's just such a hit and miss thing.

Is this typical for rural wireless service or is every situation, location and provider different?

I have kicked my terrestrial wireless provider (Explornet) to the curb come next week, in favor of another provider that has gotten close enough. I am tired of Explornet overselling their resources (IMO) and the BS that comes from calling tech support.

A few weeks ago I was on the phone with a very friendly (female) tech from out EAST (Canada) for an hour. She had me try all manner of tests and resets. AT the end of it, she admitted that they do throttle their traffic and give the least priority to streaming services. I was blown away! Social media, that doesn't even require real time management gets first priority!

Does anyone else have these issues?

Tonight, Google works instantly, but NETFLIX take forever just to toggle between menus. Never mind watching anything. And this is via Apple TV, and I am most curious how negatively that effects the whole situation.

Thanks

 

[RNeumann]

Yes this is a common issue worldwide. It’s called net neutrality in the USA

Net neutrality - Wikipedia

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Congratulations if you have a fast enough connection to stream video, ever. I'm lucky if I can load TBN, and it's text based.

 

[marchanna]

Where about are you located? I知 in Pictou County NS.

Right now, I have TNC wireless and Bell LTE with a cradle point network switch and yagi antenna to make sure I have functioning internet all the time. I think there will be some better solutions coming within the next year or so.

 

[jeff9366]

Problems are seasonal too. Right now the whole world is shopping for holiday gifts via the internet.

 

[marchanna]

TNC wireless told me the foliage on the trees in summer blocks the signal.

We have worse service in summer than winter.

The Bell LTE works very well, but it is expensive. $150/mo for 100GB. The TNC wireless is about $90/mo unlimited, but sometimes it just doesn稚 work at all, and the upload speeds are comparable to dialup.

 

[TractorGuy]

I have read it is common for providers to throttle speeds to prevent or degrade streaming. This is why Netflix came out with their own speedtest. When my service had their stream saver activated I would get 15-20 Mbps at speedtest.net but it would throttle to 5 Mbps at Netfix's fast.com. Either speed will stream high def so I was okay. I was able to turn that feature off since I have unlimited and now the speed tests are the same from either site. Your results may vary.

Before that I had DSL and was throttled to 1.5 Mbps on a good day for everything. The last price increase for that service was the proverbial straw.

 

[RNeumann]

I have read it is common for providers to throttle speeds to prevent or degrade streaming. This is why Netflix came out with their own speedtest. When my service had their stream saver activated I would get 15-20 Mbps at speedtest.net but it would throttle to 5 Mbps at Netfix's fast.com. Either speed will stream high def so I was okay. I was able to turn that feature off since I have unlimited and now the speed tests are the same from either site. Your results may vary.

Before that I had DSL and was throttled to 1.5 Mbps on a good day for everything. The last price increase for that service was the proverbial straw.

They throttle overall speed depending on your contract price. The more serious or underhanded issue is throttling speed based on the content or source- that’s the issue with net neutrality.

 

[dmccarty]

...
Tonight, Google works instantly, but NETFLIX take forever just to toggle between menus. Never mind watching anything. And this is via Apple TV, and I am most curious how negatively that effects the whole situation.

Thanks

We have 1.5 mbps DSL which has reliability issues. We can have the network slow down greatly and it is all traffic. This happens frequently. We have noticed that Netflix can slow down while other traffic is ok but I think this is because of Netflix because the kids will stream on their phones and still have problems. Having said that, we have only had issues with Netflix a couple of times.

Later,
Dan

 

[TractorGuy]

They throttle overall speed depending on your contract price. The more serious or underhanded issue is throttling speed based on the content or source- that’s the issue with net neutrality.

This was my point.