Does anyone else have trouble streaming HD YouTube videos during the evening?

[dtm321]

Oh, Verizon. How I love you, how I hate you:

 

 

 

[ivandesantis]

I have"trouble"at ANY time my ISP is "delivering" outrageously slow download speeds...this happens each and every day...my ISP is @Xplornet...unfortunately I live in the "sticks" and have no other option:.YET......for this I pay $71 per month; based on a promise of "UP TO" 5Mbps down...I have NEVER even been (consistently) close to this number...Xplornet thinks "up to" covers their ass and allows this SCAM; however a COURT OF LAW requires that a service be "REASONABLE" regardless of language in contract...Xnet "service" has never been reasonable...I'm keeping a record of my "speeds" and will file suit for non performance...get my $$ back and PUNITIVE damages going to charity(animal rescue)

[Sean]

It appears that either your connection to YouTube is being throttled in some way or it's a congested server.

 

As YouTube uses a different codec in Chrome than Firefox, I would suggest testing Firefox (or Internet Explorer) with a few HD videos.  Chrome uses the VP9 codec, where as Internet Explorer and Firefox both use the H264 codec, so YouTube will likely fetch the videos off a different server. 

 

Another possibility is HTTPS based connections being throttled.  One simple test to check is download a large file from a HTTPS connection see what throughput you get.  One example is the standalone Chrome browser package which is served from a HTTPS connection:

 

https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/index.html?standalone=1

 

Based on your above speed test, you should get a similar speed to what I got:

 

 

If this downloads very slowly at the time YouTube is having trouble playing in HD, then it's very likely HTTPS based traffic is being throttled on your ISP.  Otherwise, if you're just having trouble playing YouTube in HD, it's possible YouTube is trying to play from a congested server or along a congested path to it.

[Pgoodwin1]

see if your speeds here on TMN are slower during the same hours. mine typically are slower by 10-20% between dinner time and 11 PM or so. it's a little worse than it was a year ago when i got on the 50 mbps down and 5 mbps up plan at Time Warner. i've noticed that it's still pretty fast in the morning up until 11 AM or so. from 11 AM to 11 PM it's spotty. one minute it's full speed, the next minute it's way down (sometimes to 60-70% of max. there must be a lot of people streaming video

[dtm321]

Hey everyone, I'm really sorry for my late response. I was unable to use a computer for the past week for reasons unrelated to Verizon.

 

It appears that either your connection to YouTube is being throttled in some way or it's a congested server.

 

As YouTube uses a different codec in Chrome than Firefox, I would suggest testing Firefox (or Internet Explorer) with a few HD videos.  Chrome uses the VP9 codec, where as Internet Explorer and Firefox both use the H264 codec, so YouTube will likely fetch the videos off a different server. 

 

Another possibility is HTTPS based connections being throttled.  One simple test to check is download a large file from a HTTPS connection see what throughput you get.  One example is the standalone Chrome browser package which is served from a HTTPS connection:

 

https://www.google.com/chrome/browser/desktop/index.html?standalone=1

 

Based on your above speed test, you should get a similar speed to what I got:

 

 https download.png

 

If this downloads very slowly at the time YouTube is having trouble playing in HD, then it's very likely HTTPS based traffic is being throttled on your ISP.  Otherwise, if you're just having trouble playing YouTube in HD, it's possible YouTube is trying to play from a congested server or along a congested path to it.

 

 

see if your speeds here on TMN are slower during the same hours. mine typically are slower by 10-20% between dinner time and 11 PM or so. it's a little worse than it was a year ago when i got on the 50 mbps down and 5 mbps up plan at Time Warner. i've noticed that it's still pretty fast in the morning up until 11 AM or so. from 11 AM to 11 PM it's spotty. one minute it's full speed, the next minute it's way down (sometimes to 60-70% of max. there must be a lot of people streaming video

 

I don't think that this a result of network congestion. As my TMN results (https://testmy.net/compID/8826561511) indicate, my bandwidth is generally consistent during the evening hours.

 

editorsean, I followed your link and downloaded the Google Chrome installer. As you can see in the image below, I reached a download speed of about 25 Mbps (the dip in bandwidth was caused by traffic from other users on my network, as the Networx graph shows a consistent flow of data). Verizon isn't shaping HTTPS.

 

 

I will try using a different browser, but I believe that my YouTube issues are the result of throttling by Verizon. Verizon isn't the best ISP when it comes to net neutrality-in fact, I experienced this problem several weeks ago, but was able to watch HD Youtube videos when I connected to a VPN server. I complained to the FCC, but now, the problem has resurfaced. Google's statistics indicate that other Verizon FiOS customers in the area are also facing subpar YouTube performance:

 

 

In comparison, this is the YouTube performance of the other major ISP, Cablevision:

 

 

[mudmanc4]

Yup , experienced this myself, better this week. Plenty of memory / CPU cycles available, no strange local network congestion either. 

 

When you find a clue, post up.