Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style

Wed Dec 15 22:44:58 UTC 2010

Again, I was not commenting on the state of comcast's pipe. God knows I want it bigger. I was saying that some of the assumptions upon which he made based points were false.

------Original Message------
From: Nathan Angelacos
To: nanog at nanog.org
Subject: Re: Some truth about Comcast - WikiLeaks style
Sent: Dec 15, 2010 5:34 PM

On 12/15/10 14:13, Valdis.Kletnieks at vt.edu wrote:
> On Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:51:05 EST, Mikel Waxler said:
>
>> The reality is that most customers do not make uncapped connections. File
>> servers cap bandwidth per user and certain services, like gaming or
>> streaming media have a maximum rate. As long as the average data rate
>> allocated per customer is close to the usage then customers will not notice
>> the difference. Does it matter if it takes 10 seconds or 15 seconds to
>> download a 5 minute youtube clip?
>
> The problem starts when that the choke point is congested enough that the
> question isn't "10 seconds or 15", it's "4 mins 30 or 5 mins 30 for that 5
> minute clip". Buffer underruns are incredibly annoying.
>
Or, from personal experience:

The movie stops because the buffer was exhausted, Netflix informs you 
"Your network connection has changed", shows a progress bar while it 
buffers /at a lower bitrate/.

Then you get to watch the rest of the movie like it was 1995.

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