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Comment by earlz | Hacker News Reader

Good. I swear youtube is throttled by Time Warner Cable for me. I stream Netflix, Hulu, etc and never have problems with them. I can confirm that I'm getting my speeds of 20MBit/s down, and yet almost every video on YouTube buffers. If I use youtube-dl to download the video, I can confirm that my actual connection speed is somewhere around 60KB/s. If I then use youtube-dl on my VPS with the same video, I get somewhere between 2MB/s and 8MB/s.

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Yup. This article is a not so subtle jab at this and trying to educate consumers that their poor video experience isn't Google's fault. Both Google and Netflix are raising the bar here, customer demand/complaints are providing the necessary energy and the ISPs are maneuvering to get more money out of someone.

Are you by any chance using non-TWC DNS servers? I had this same frustrating problem on Comcast, and it turned out that their CDN works by using DNS to direct you to local servers; by using the Google 8.8.8.8 etc I wasn't getting that.

Even still, though, I run into certain Youtube videos that absolutely refuse to ever fully load -- it's always non-popular ones, and it's like they cache miss and just never get surfaced for me to watch the whole way through.

Have had the same experience on Comcast.

I am using different nameservers, but I've tried switching to the default nameservers and nothing appeared to change at the time, maybe I'll have to try it again

> it turned out that their CDN works by using DNS to direct you to local servers

Are these servers' IPs static? Can they be hardcoded in your hosts file?

I use TomatoUSB on my home router, which includes dnsmasq (under Advanced / DHCP/DNS, there's a textarea for "Dnsmasq custom configuration"). I have a line in there:

    server=/netflix.com/75.75.75.75

which tells dnsmasq to use my ISP's dns (75.75.75.75) instead of my default (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), only when resolving domains that look like netflix.com.

I don't actually know whether this is an anchored regex or what, maybe I'm spuriously using my ISP's dns for foonetflix.combar.info, but I don't really care.

All devices that use DHCP use the router (and thus the custom dnsmasq config) for dns by default. It improved my ability to stream netflix at the time, though I didn't measure it. TomatoUSB has neat-looking graphs, maybe I should run a test.

Edit as to your question:

> Are these servers' IPs static? Can they be hardcoded in your hosts file?

I suspect they use AWS for at least some layer in between you and the bits you want (if not the actual CDN, the server pool that generates the token that you need to get the bits from the CDN), so I don't think there would be a set of IP addresses to hard-code.

Kinda off-topic, but why do you use Google's DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)? Unless I'm missing something, by doing so you are basically giving them a record of every domain you access. I don't really trust my ISP either, but why share that information with anyone else (especially a company with great interest in data mining everyone)?

Assuming you don't believe they are lying:

We built Google Public DNS to make the web faster and to retain as little information about usage as we could, while still being able to detect and fix problems. Google Public DNS does not permanently store personally identifiable information.[1]

More details about exactly what is logged at [1]. As for why, speed and security are the main benefits touted [2].

[1] https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/privacy

[2] https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/intro

Despite being a (bit of a) privacy enthusiast, I still use Google's DNS servers, for a few reasons:

1. I use chrome. If I didn't use Google DNS, they'd be able to track 90-99% of my internet usage just by watching what domains I visit in chrome. The remaining portion is e.g. irc, usenet, xmpp, ssh, etc, that doesn't go through chrome. I could use firefox or opera or w3m or telnet or whatever, but I like chrome.

2. I became disinterested in using comcast's dns because of previous internet-breaking shenanigans like http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-voices/domain-helper-se... .

3. I work at YouTube (owned by Google), so I get to see the internal temperament and discussions regarding privacy, data safety, PII, and so on. I'm comfortable letting Google have this data.

  > I use TomatoUSB on my home router, which includes dnsmasq (under Advanced / DHCP/DNS, there's a textarea for "Dnsmasq custom configuration"). I have a line in there:

      server=/netflix.com/75.75.75.75

  > which tells dnsmasq to use my ISP's dns (75.75.75.75) instead of my default (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), only when resolving domains that look like netflix.com.

You are my hero, good sir! You've just inadvertently provided the solution I didn't know existed to fix my Netflix and Hulu issues.

To be fair, I'm just repeating something I saw on HN before. Here, I dug up the original post, give that person your upvotes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6393829

Also, please consider sending the author / maintainer of dnsmasq (Simon Kelley, simon@thekelleys.org.uk) a thank-you email. Same for the maintainer of your router's after-market firmware, if you use such a thing.

I found the same thing. I reports it to TW and (unsurprisingly) they refused to admi anything. Switched my DNS to OpenDNS and YouTube works perfectly.

I have TWC and have had a lot of success in speeding up Youtube by blocking access to the caching servers that TWC uses.

If I block 206.111.0.0/16, I can stream at full speed.

See: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/13kmvd/have_time...

I tried blocking some of the relevant IP ranges, but it seemed like it wouldn't fallback or something. Instead of getting perfect streaming quality, I would not be able to load the youtube video at all

They probably do it, but Google is at fault, too. Their new DASH thing has made the experience so much poorer. They never should've done it to begin with, and I don't think whatever savings in bandwidth they might have from it are worth the compromise.

Youtube was perfect before, because it allowed you to cache videos, and go back on the videos whenever you wanted, with no need for reloading or whatever. DASH made it a much worse experience, at it only caches like a few seconds at most in front of the streaming, and it won't even allow you to go back in the video without reloading it again.

All of that is required by their advertising business model. The more YouTube emulates the pre-VCR TV world, the more they can charge for time and visibility.

> because it allowed you to cache videos,

Youtube has to pay for that bandwidth usage even if you dont watch the cached video later.

> go back in the video whenever you wanted without reloading

That's even more bandwidth that they have to pay for unnecessarily.

I wouldn't know. YouTube is actually not so bad now if you block Flash, save the videos via the HTML5 interface, and watch them at your leisure.

Same thing happened to me with AT&T in Tulsa with their fastest offering (I think it was 24/3 at the time). All speed tests, downloads, uploads were almost always the advertised speeds, but I couldn't watch Netflix or HBO GO, or Hulu. I could, but it was unbearable. To the point of kicking over magazine stands and throwing Nintendo controllers at the TV.

When I called support about this they claimed it was my setup. A Time Capsule connected to their modem/router. Whatever.

I switched to Cox (100/25) and get better than advertised speeds in all downloads, uploads, and speed tests, and have not had a single issue with buffering on any service. I have even been choosing the 1080p option on YouTube without any buffering.

The only problem I have now is whenever my Time Capsule is directly connected to my Motorola modem it causes the modem to restart, so I had to use a slower, older Linksys in-between the two until I figure out what's the cause of that.

Similar prob with AT&T in SoCal, bad Netflix, Youtube, and actually, almost all large file transfers of any kind, including linux isos, apple dmgs & system updates, etc. Switched to an independent ISP carried over the same AT&T DSL lines and I could actually get the advertised bandwidth consistently.

I suspect the only reason DSL is accessible by third-party ISP is that it carries some regulatory access rules with it because only U-Verse can get to the higher tiers of bandwidth.

My broadband choices are lower speeds with third-party DSL 6Mbps, or higher speeds with AT&T U-Verse, or TWC both of which seem to selectively throttle competing video services like YouTube or Netflix.

Same here! Youtube is faster for me from China through a VPN connection than in the US via Time Warner.

I think Comcast is doing the same thing here in Colorado. Lately, I've been seeing quality drop in videos where it shouldn't. Running speed tests or downloading from newsgroups I'm hitting 60mbps.

Same here for Comcast in Seattle. From 6-8pm I can't stream youtube on anything more than 360p or it buffers constantly.

Other video streaming services seem to stream fine (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video) and speedtest.net reports 56Mbps down, it's just youtube that suffers.

Ditto here re Comcast, but in Mountain View. I am a stone throw away from YouTube HQ and still get bad performance. Tried the 8.8.8.8 DNS and not much different. Comcast is definitely squeezing the pipes!

You'll be happy to know that Comcast's Denver ibone switching/routing has been over capacity for many months at this point...Same goes for their Oregon switches (which service SV and the PNW seaboard)

http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/results/usa/graph Looking at comcast over the last two months looks like there is some data to confirm your notes about their backbone having issues. They are on a steady decline.

I'm really surprised nobody's mentioned peering/transit in this thread. Ars has a good set of write-ups on this topic, the latest being http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/why-yo...

Whether it's the fault of (1) the residential ISPs for letting their ports run so hot, or (2) the transit providers for trying to stiff them on pricing for additional capacity, or (3) the content provider for choosing a cheap upstream who is known to engage in this activity is up for debate!

As someone else noted on another thread, it's remarkable how often the name 'Cogent' comes up in these kinds of issues...

AFAIK ISPs have special hardware from/for these big streaming services to efficiently handle the traffic. Every-so-often that peering/mirroring equipment cannot support the demand and they have to upgrade the capacity.

^this. Same with Netflix though for me. Where are you based? I'm in Austin, Tx.

Any of the speed tests online will report 30mbps/5mbps, but I'm unable to stream HD on Youtube or Netflix during peak times.

I'm in Cleveland, OH. Like I said, never have problems with other services like Netflix or even streaming videos by vimeo or skydrive, just Youtube. It's so frustrating I've considered setting up a network-wide VPN for my home network to get around it

Same for me on Time Warner in Austin. I can't wait for Google Fiber to roll into town.

At peak times it isn't out of the question that the video service itself is a bit under the weather. I've had some troubles with Amazon at peak time, and it's always been with fresh content, such as yesterday's television show that just became available on Amazon four hours ago. It wasn't obviously my network, as switching over to Netflix worked just fine at full quality. (That's not a proof it's not still somehow network related, but it strongly suggests it wasn't my ISP.)

I'd be happy if my TWC in Austin would just stay up. I've had many techs out and the service goes down daily for sometimes hours at a time. ugh...

I wonder if proxying just those sites through a $5/month Digital Ocean server would work...

Worked for me when I had streaming problems with AT&T, but AWS micro was the cheapest at the time.

I feel like Verizon Fios does the same. I have 50 down and YouTube is painful most times

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