Which ISP would be reliable enough for video streaming?

Is your ISP reliable enough for video streaming?
Are you able watch a 1 hour TV programme or an on-demand film via your ISP and expect to watch it through without interruption?

We get Virgin Media in Stevenage, but their service just isn't reliable enough to watch TV programmes or streaming videos online. We'd like to move to another ISP but the headline download speeds offer no clue about how reliable their service is. BT offer plenty of bandwidth but is it free from interruptions? We'd stay with Virgin Media if they could reliably deliver 5-10% of the peak speed, but they can't seem to manage even that!

Please don't suggest calling VM's customer service - I can't understand them most of the time!

Any helpful advice would be very much appreciated.
Thanks.

Any/None! Depends on your connection speed from exchange. If it is sufficient then any else none.

I have no trouble streaming for hours on an EE connection @ 19-20 Meg. Same will go for any BTw based ISP.

I'd be shocked and dismayed at any ISP that couldn't deliver a video stream if the actual connection speed was adequate. I assume (I hope!) you're a VM ADSL customer if you're having problems. What speed is your connection?

We're a Virgin cable customer, not ADSL. I gather from VM forums that we're not the only ones with reliability problems, even if I ignore people who really have a WiFi problem.

Virgin replaced our single channel Ambit modem with a multi-channel superhub four months ago but that didn't seem to make much difference to the reliability. Modem metrics (SNRs, errors etc) look OK.

Typical daily ping graph from 2 days ago is here (I hope):
My Broadband Ping

Virgin's last suggestion was upgrading to 30MB, while tying us in with a new contract! Now why would I want to do that?

Stevenage is quite a big place.....If you are in SG1 then you are right next to the exchange and any ADSL supplier will give you iwhat you want. I am in SG2 and ADSL was rubbish, (~3.2 Mbps). I went with Sky fiibre and sync, permanently, at 39999/10000 Kbps. No problems at all with multiple streaming.

Edited by deleted (Wed 16-Jul-14 17:43:10)

In reply to a post by Baritone:

Virgin's last suggestion was upgrading to 30MB, while tying us in with a new contract! Now why would I want to do that?

Possibly you're on the legacy 10Mbps product which I think uses DOCSIS 2 protocol over the cable coax, and the newer speeds use the DOCSIS 3 protocol.

VM should know, its their network, but its possible that in your area DOCSIS 2 is oversubscribed, and DOCSIS 3 is fine - but you would need VM to confirm this before signing any contract.

VM has problems in regional ways, so they might be fine here in Hampshire, and awful in Stevenage. Switching to an FTTC provider would be a good move if you want higher speeds and consistency. It often costs a bit more than VM though.

BT Infinity 2 here (Sidmouth, Devon).

Down 30Mbps, Up 12Mbps. Do see contention at times, dropping to 15Mbps occasionally.

Can have two people streaming wirelessly at the same time without jittering.

Hope this helps a little.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Any/None! Depends on your connection speed from exchange. If it is sufficient then any else none.

This is the issue !
There seems no way of telling in advance whether the ISPs connections beyond your exchange will cope with peak demands.
And with fibre contracts being over 12 months a real dilema in choosing an ISP for performance.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Possibly you're on the legacy 10Mbps product which I think uses DOCSIS 2 protocol over the cable coax, and the newer speeds use the DOCSIS 3 protocol.

The guy has a Superhub, he's using DOCSIS 3.

Are you hammering the upload on that connection at times, uploading content?

Good question!
We're not knowingly saturating the upload channel. We don't upload much at all except for Dropbox file syncs, and that rarely involves large files/folders, so that's always completed before we walk away from a computer. More to the point, we usually watch videos together and then the only computer that's active is the one we use as a media player, and that doesn't use Dropbox.

Anyway, wouldn't the router (WGR614) do some traffic management to ensure one device didn't hog all the bandwidth?

I can watch videos online for hours on end no issues with the following ISPs. I use netflix, iplayer, itv player, 4od and occasionally putlocker

Sky Fibre connection: works fine with 3+ people all streaming at once
BT ADSL connection - around 8Mbps sync speed, can stream fine on netflix with 2 of us using it.
TalkTalk - my friend has 4Mbps connection (so quite slow) but always is streaming netflix in the living room on their HDTV. It usually loads in HD as well.

I would say virtually all providers will be fine as long as you're getting 5Mbps or above.

Streaming doesn't need a crazy headline speed just a reliable connection.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Streaming doesn't need a crazy headline speed just a reliable connection.

By reliable people usually mean doesn't disconnect. I think you mean _stable_ connection.

So VM might be great for downloads with top speeds of 150Mbps but the data rate wanders up and down during the download from 5Mbps to 150Mbps to 10Mbps to 80Mbps to 3Mbps etc.

what video needs is stability, even if slower, so a constant stream at 15Mbps that doesn't wander.

This is what the TBB speed tester is trying to show, unlike the others (e.g. speedtest.net).

EXACTLY what I was meaning. You hit the nail on the head.

Netflix has even streamed fine for me for multiple hours on a 1.5Mbps connection. Albeit not the worlds most amazing quality but still worked fine. Was quite blocky but no buffering beyond the original buffer.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

what video needs is stability, even if slower, so a constant stream at 15Mbps that doesn't wander.

Watching a TV station sure, however all my playback streaming media seems to keep filling and draining buffer; data flow is bursty, not constant.

My experience is that streaming media is bursty on a fast connection. E.g. when using a fibre connection it will buffer lots at once, then stop, then lots.

On a slower connection e.g. a 1.5Mbps connection it just constantly buffers and doesn't do the bursting.

So if a connections quick enough you observe the bursting. OTHERWISE it is just a continual buffering. It doesn't burst at all on slower connections in my experience.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Watching a TV station sure, however all my playback streaming media seems to keep filling and draining buffer; data flow is bursty, not constant.

That sounds as if you're watching the output of the codec, which will be bursty, given the way MPEG works, full frame then sets of changes then another full frame, then changes etc.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Watching a TV station sure, however all my playback streaming media seems to keep filling and draining buffer; data flow is bursty, not constant.

That sounds as if you're watching the output of the codec, which will be bursty, given the way MPEG works, full frame then sets of changes then another full frame, then changes etc.

Am aware of I P and B frames. Was watching throughput on network adaptor.

Different streaming services behave differently is the answer.

Live streaming is more prone to buffering issues or frame skips

Netflix generally scales nicely between what bitrate is possible