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!

Can't speak for Zen - but the rise in allowance from 25GB to 50GB on Active was mainly down to the cost savings of moving from IPStream to WBC. So unless there are other wholesale reductions in price probably not much margin for cutting price or adding more allowance.

Unless you take the gamble of increasing allowance and most customers not using it.

As you can see from my sig I've used quite a few ISPs and Zen blow them all away in terms of technical quality of the service and the support behind it.

I'd not use anyone else for my Internet connection now and I don't recommend anyone else either.

I would like to see them take on an LLU provider so that it gives customers an option in areas where BT fall short.

Edited by techguy (Wed 15-Feb-12 14:17:52)

I realise this doesn't help, but I've never had any issue with Netflix (or anything else) on Sky's Broadband service. I'm still amazed by how good it is considering it costs next to nothing.

HD Streams need a solid 4-5 mbps I *think* on Netflix.

As Sky have now removed the requirement to have Sky TV I don't think it'll stay that way for long TBH.

The P2P crowd swarm to unlimited ISPs that are cheap, the networks get congested and the companies turn to traffic management as if they keep adding capacity they will go out of business and the P2P users then complain that they can't download torrents at line speed because they have little understanding of how networks operate.

BT also meter the traffic flowing over an ADSL circuit in the downstream direction (from the ISP to the end user) and charge the ISP for this, Sky and the like own the equipment in the exchange so don't chage the user for it although they do meter it to detect contraventions of a network abuse policy, I think they may well start charing in the not too distant future.

Edited by techguy (Sun 26-Feb-12 15:48:01)

In reply to a post by techguy:

As Sky have now removed the requirement to have Sky TV I don't think it'll stay that way for long TBH.

The P2P crowd swarm to unlimited ISPs that are cheap, the networks get congested and the companies turn to traffic management as if they keep adding capacity they will go out of business and the P2P users then complain that they can't download torrents at line speed because they have little understanding of how networks operate.

People have said that of BE since they launched so that's clearly nonsense. The BE service is still pretty good, still does not have traffic shaping, bandwidth limits or anything else and is still competitively priced.

Sky have removed the requirement to use Sky BB for Anytime+ services, which will also keep sky broadband network usage down since other providers will be shifting those packets. Either way I doubt very much we'll be seeing a problem at Sky anytime soon - they have much bigger revenue streams than "ISP only" setups.

You have been able to have Sky Broadband without Sky TV for a long time, so I'm not sure where you got that idea - they've just started promoting it more recently - ultimately they want BB into TV customers and a large percentage will (or have).

BT also meter the traffic flowing over an ADSL circuit in the downstream direction (from the ISP to the end user) and charge the ISP for this, Sky and the like own the equipment in the exchange so don't chage the user for it although they do meter it to detect contraventions of a network abuse policy, I think they may well start charing in the not too distant future.