NetFlix UK & Zen Internet

Are Zen throttling Netflix UK Instant Streaming?

I joined the 30day UK Netflix trial and in anticipation of increased streaming upped my Zen BB service to Zen Pro (100GB per month).

For two weeks, the Netflix service has been excellent, easily playing HD films in HD mode with no buffering delays during the film. For the last two days however, SD streams are smeary and HD films are not playing in HD mode. According to SpeedTest.net I have a solid 7.35 Mbps connection from Zen.

So my question is why has the Instant Streaming suddenly become so bad as to be virtually unwatchable? Are Zen throttling Netflix, or are Netflix throttling me, having decided that I have streamed enough for free.

Same problem here. The other day I watched a film in HD. (15 meg connection here). Now HD isn't coming through and the quality looks more like sub DVD quality.

Busy pipes? Sunday is known as the busiest day.

You know, it's for this reason that I wonder why they (NetFlix that is) don't offer a similar service to BBC iPlayer where you can download movies, store them locally, then have 7 days to watch them locally without any fear of buffering issues. All this could be DRM managed to prevent copying.

It would certainly suite the likes of me who have a low tariff period between 2am and 6am - it would be possible to transfer these high-bitrate streams during those hours so as not to eat into my monthly usage allowance too much.

Streaming in principle is great, but if the infrastructure of the ISP can't handle it during peak times (and I'm pointing the finger at BT exchanges here, not necessarily at the ISP), the whole NetFlix gimmick becomes a bit futile really.

Hi,

Zen don't do any throttling - so it's not due to any action from us. I've only used SD streams on Netflix myself this weekend but they worked without problems and were good quality (well, as good quality as you might expect Army of the Damned to be ).

ta,
Phil.

Shhhh

Richard Tang and I have a 'bet' from 2007 whether all TV services would be delivered over IP or not, within 5 years.

Well I left it an hour and tried again and it was back to normal. I was able to watch "Fighting" in HD happily buffering and playing back at 3.6 Mbps; and looking excellent quality on my Dell L702x (xps17) lappy.

Rumours on line are that NetFlix do throttle streaming bandwidth of users they deem to be using too much bandwidth on their "unlimited streaming" package. So I will have to keep an eye on them.

I only became concerned because at the time when the NetFlix streaming quality had become so poor, the SpeedTest website confimred there was nothing basically wrong with my BB connection - as I was able to download solidly at 7.35 Mbps.

In reply to a post by SkyFire:

Hi,

Zen don't do any throttling - so it's not due to any action from us. I've only used SD streams on Netflix myself this weekend but they worked without problems and were good quality (well, as good quality as you might expect Army of the Damned to be ).

ta,
Phil.

It's a quality flick!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THV1KkPXIxQ

And yep, it streamed perfectly on Netflix - no throttling happening at Zen's end.

In reply to a post by alewis:

Shhhh

Richard Tang and I have a 'bet' from 2007 whether all TV services would be delivered over IP or not, within 5 years.

And of course owning an ISP he bet that they would be so its probably time to get that money ready.

I loved being with Zen but found them too costly in the end.
Mr Tang needs to really update their services a little!