Speed test, streaming great in the morning terrible at night.

[KeithC]

I've been having terrible trouble trying to stream HD movies via Vudu in the evenings. It started probably first week of June. That is how I came across testmy.net.

I have had my cable provider on the phone and out and talked to Vudu support for hours and hours.

Testing yesterday morning here at 7:30am and this morning I get right up there close to my 15meg speed and Vudu's own speed test gets same results.

Looking at my test results over days I see the good in the morning and at 5:30 in the evening as bad as below 2meg and unable to stream in HD without constant buffering.

Cable company says they are only responsible for getting me the speed here. Their own speed test always shows good of course. I can run theirs and get 13meg and run testmy.net and get the 1.4meg.

I told them on the phone yesterday evening that their speed test has nothing to do with my "real world" result and ability to stream a movie. Testmy.net and Vudu's of course coincide with how things really are.

Do I have any hope for getting things back to where they used to be? What can I request of them that might get something done or is it really just "out there" things are congested and nothing can be done?

I use Fidelity cable. Besides a wireless company or DSL they are the only things available for "high speed".

Also, if Vudu is streaming bad and testmy is bad then of course Amazon movie streaming and Netflix streaming is bad so it is not a Vudu only problem. I just prefer them when things are working right.

As a rule though when things aren't working right Netflix will usually play the best out of the 3 although it will blink and go from really good picture to pretty bad picture on and off during the movie.

[Pgoodwin1]

My ISP (Time Warner Roadrunner) is very inconsistent with bandwidth too. Mine's usually very fast in the morning and slower at night during prime viewing times. Also, I think the video source (Netflix, Vudu etc) servers often get "surprised" with high volume demands and they display that they are adjusting to your network speeds when it's really a speed problem at their end. I believe that since we're still fairly early in the streaming HD video technology curve, the whole system is marginal. Heck, I still have the same cable modem that Time Warner gave me about 6 years ago, and their baseline Roadrunner Internet package only "guarantees" 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps Upload. Their SpeedTest always shows green, when my truer speeds here on TMN are mor like 8 and 0.8.

Their pricing for the faster service is ludicrous

[KeithC]

It's just before 11:00am here now and my TMN speed is now only about 4meg. Dropped on average about 8meg in 3 hours and it's not prime time now! I don't get it.

[Pgoodwin1]

That sounds pretty bad. If you call the problem in to them (ISP) several times, they might actually put you on a more serious list. Time Warner does that; they'll finally escalate a problem.

[CA3LE]

Hi Keith, welcome to TestMy.net!

Has Fidelity Cable checked your signal levels on your modem?

You're seeing first hand the BS that a lot of providers are putting their customers through. "Look, your speeds just fine on OUR speed test." --- don't take their word for it. You know there's a problem... you can feel it otherwise you wouldn't be here. Their benchmark has undoubtedly eliminated the Internet route. Stupid. All the websites you visit have that variable... why should your connection speed test be any different. It's not called a "check your connection under the best possible circumstances speed test" -- right? Also, I would bet that it's a macromedia flash based test, right? Check out this thread related to flash based speed tests, ookla tests in particular.

​A third party opinion is necessary, so you're in the right place. I have no reason to doctor your results and when you test here you're being routed in the same way as if you visited any popular website. I believe this makes my speed test a more accurate representation of your real speed.

After the summer I'm going to build my API which will give anyone with a website the ability to create their own custom, brandable speed test. I'm hoping that a lot of providers will use this but I think that many of them save a ton of money on service calls doing it the way they do now... I guess once I release my alternative we'll see who cares about their customers and who cares about their bottom line.

... if you figure out the problem, let us know what it was

[KeithC]

Thanks! I know how their speed test doesn't correspond to my real world streaming needs for sure. I've told them that and they just don't have an answer. How my speed on TMN can drop so much in a matter of a few hours is hard to believe. Now it's below 2mbps as of last test and seconds later their test gives me 11.53mbps! Not to mention trying to stream a movie now is a useless undertaking even with their results showing plenty of speed to stream an HD movie.

[TriRan]

Aside from making sure the signal levels your receiving are at the appropriate place the only other thing you can do is keep complaining to them it is most likely an issue with their peering and they most likely already know about it I would keep complaining it could be something as simple as a bad amplifier on your node it can't hurt to complain right?