Enraged Verizon FiOS Customer Seemingly Demonstrates Netflix Throttling

MojoKid (1002251) writes The ongoing battle between Netflix and ISPs that can't seem to handle the streaming video service's traffic, boiled over to an infuriating level for Colin Nederkoon, a startup CEO who resides in New York City. Rather than accept excuses and finger pointing from either side, Nederkoon did a little investigating into why he was receiving such slow Netflix streams on his Verizon FiOS connection. What he discovered is that there appears to be a clear culprit. Nederkoon pays for Internet service that promises 75Mbps downstream and 35Mbps upstream through his FiOS connection. However, his Netflix video streams were limping along at just 375kbps (0.375mbps), equivalent to 0.5 percent of the speed he's paying for. On a hunch, he decided to connect to a VPN service, which in theory should actually make things slower since it's adding extra hops. Speeds didn't get slower, they got much faster. After connecting to VyprVPN, his Netflix connection suddenly jumped to 3000kbps, the fastest the streaming service allows and around 10 times faster than when connecting directly with Verizon. Verizon may have a different explanation as to why Nederkoon's Netflix streams suddenly sped up, but in the meantime, it would appear that throttling shenanigans are taking place. It seems that by using a VPN, Verizon simply doesn't know which packets to throttle, hence the gross disparity in speed.

Comments

Thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Now they'll just throttle VPN traffic too.

Re:Thanks

[Casualposter]

SO when you pay for that service it says something like "up to 75mbps" which in reality means that the speed test and google's home page could see that much speed and everyone else will look like dial up from the 1990's.

It would be much better if the services had to advertise their average speed across the most popular sites. That way if they throttle Netflix to .375mpbs, they have to inform customers that while they are paying $125/month for "blazing fast speed" they are actually getting blazingly fast dial up speeds.

Re:Thanks

[mysidia]

SO when you pay for that service it says something like "up to 75mbps" which in reality means that the speed test and google's home page could see that much speed and everyone else will look like dial up from the 1990's.

I have a suggestion.... Web browsers should take some measurements and display prominently in a visible status bar or other location.... average TCP throughput --- And Estimated average bandwidth;

Both a "this site" value, a "this browser session" value, and (Optionally) if the user decides to share their numbers, Community average bandwidth for this site, Community average bandwidth for this ISP, and Community average for this site on this ISP.

If Community average for this site on this ISP is more than a standard deviation below Community average for this site,

Then a little warning exclamation point should appear to the right of the browser bar. On mouseover, and for a few seconds after loading the page, a little warning bubble should appear for a few seconds. "Your internet service provider seems to have below average performance in loading this page."

Could be a different route involved for the VPN

[Anonymous Coward]

It is also possible the the VPN packets are transiting a different upstream peer from Verizon and bypassing the peering bottleneck at issue. Assuming that Verizon is performing inspection of packets and throttling only Netflix packets is quite a leap.

Re:Could be a different route involved for the VPN

[pla]

It is also possible the the VPN packets are transiting a different upstream peer from Verizon and bypassing the peering bottleneck at issue. Assuming that Verizon is performing inspection of packets and throttling only Netflix packets is quite a leap.

Failing to have peerage agreements in place to honor your downstream sales commitments is a form of throttling - Or, I would daresay, a form of outright fraud.

If I offer to sell you "unlimited" beers from my fridge for $50 a month, but I only resupply it at a rate of one six-pack per week, I have intentionally cheated you. That basic relationship doesn't magically change because of some hand-waving technobabble about peerage agreements and network congestion.

(Yes, I know those don't strictly count as technobabble, and what they really mean - But they effectively reduce to Verizon having zero interest in upgrading its infrastructure to support its commitments to their customers as long as the FCC and FTC will allow them to outright lie)

Alternative explanation

[IamTheRealMike]

Routing traffic via the VPN changes the path the traffic flows over, possibly avoiding routes that are saturated and (who knows) pending upgrade.

It's tempting to imagine the internet as a giant blob of fungible bandwidth, but in reality it's just a big mess of cables some of which are higher capacity than others. Assuming malice is fun, but there isn't enough data here to say one way or another.

Re: Alternative explanation

[MrL0G1C]

You obviously missed the article where Netflix supplies a tower-pc sized box with all of netflix on it to ISPs for free:

Netflix Boxes