Re: War between Netflix and Verizon FIOS? Who will win?
Hubrisnxs
Legend

Focus on your own statement.


(Verizon FIOS) I get minutes of buffering, low picture quality, and a terrible experience. Then using the same ISP (Verizon FIOS) I can instantly move to a different service and get a perfectly fine experience.

 That screams where the issue is. 

Unless you believe in conspiracy theories, and if so then you have to at least provide motivation that would be unique to netflix and not any of their competitors.   Why would netflix be singled out  

and yelling "because they are big" doesn't count

money is money, and VERIZON is not in the business of throwing away money, so why not get it from all of them instead of one? (meaning netflix, hulu, hbo go vudu amazon prime, youtube etc)

it just doesn't pass the smell test, IOW that dog don't hunt

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Re: War between Netflix and Verizon FIOS? Who will win?
Hubrisnxs
Legend

Here's a relatively well written article detailing some of the issues as told By Verizon.

What would be helpful is if Verizon and Netflix both provided their raw data for review, as to date, Verizon's the only one who has come close to doing that.

Netflix has offered NO such information, other than an "assertion"

Good news is that both companies are working on it.   I am sure we all wish it was faster.


Why is Netflix Buffering? Dispelling the Congestion MythDavid Young

A few weeks ago, Verizon received an email from a customer in Los Angeles asking why he was not getting a good experience watching Netflix on his 75 Mbps FiOS connection. He was understandably confused by some of the misleading public accounts that inaccurately suggest widespread congestion that could affect Netflix traffic on Verizon’s network. Worse still were claims that Verizon is deliberately “throttling” Netflix traffic. This customer wanted to know what was going on and why his performance wasn’t what he hoped. We, too, wanted to get to the bottom of the problem.

Review Shows No Congestion on Verizon Network

After receiving the letter, our network operations team studied the network connection for this customer for the week preceding the date that he emailed us. They measured the utilization – or the percentage of total capacity used – at every link in the Verizon network – from the customer to the edge of our network, where we receive Netflix traffic – to determine where, if at all, congestion was occurring.

This review confirmed again what I’ve explained before (here and here😞 there was no congestion anywhere within the Verizon network. There was, however, congestion at the interconnection link to the edge of our network (the border router) used by the transit providers chosen by Netflix to deliver video traffic to Verizon’s network.

While the links chosen by Netflix were congested (congestion occurs when use approaches or reaches 100% capacity during peak usage periods), the links from other transit providers (carrying non-Netflix traffic) to Verizon’s network did not experience congestion and were performing fine. The maximum amount of capacity used (or peak utilization) over the links between these other networks and Verizon’s network ranged from 10% to 80% (with an average peak utilization of 44%).

Below is a chart that illustrates the connections; we also note the peak utilization on key links on Verizon’s network as Netflix traffic travelled to our FiOS customer in L.A.

Click to view full size

So Netflix Could Cut Buffering By Making Simple Adjustments?

One might wonder why Netflix and its transit providers were the only ones that ran into congestion issues. What it boils down to is this: these other transit and content providers took steps to ensure that there was adequate capacity for their traffic to enter our network. In some cases, these are settlement-free peering arrangements, where the relative traffic flows between an IP network provider and us remain roughly equal, and both parties invest in sufficient facilities to match these roughly equal flows. That is the traditional basis for such deals. In other cases there may be traffic imbalances, but the networks or content providers have entered into paid arrangements with us to ensure connections and capacity to meet their needs for their out-of-balance traffic.

That has not recently been the case with Netflix and the networks carrying its traffic. Netflix sends out an unprecedented amount of traffic. Sandvine recently noted that Netflix now accounts for more than one-third of all North American downstream traffic during peak hours. For whatever reason (perhaps to cut costs and improve its profitability), Netflix did not make arrangements to deliver this massive amount of traffic through connections that can handle it.

Instead, Netflix chose to attempt to deliver that traffic to Verizon through a few third-party transit providers with limited capacity over connections specifically to be used only for balanced traffic flows. Netflix knew better. Netflix is responsible for either using connections that can carry the volume of traffic it is sending, or working out arrangements with its suppliers so they can handle the volumes. As we’ve made clear before, we regularly negotiate reasonable commercial arrangements with transit providers or content providers to ensure a level of capacity that accommodates their volume of traffic. Such arrangements have been common practice for content delivery networks in the Internet ecosystem for many years, and Netflix is fully capable of taking the necessary and customary steps to ensure that its connections match its traffic volumes.

We’re Not Satisfied Until Our Customers Are

Even though there is no congestion on our network, we’re not satisfied if our customers are not. We fully understand that many of our customers want a great streaming experience with Netflix, and we want that too. Therefore, we are working aggressively with Netflix to establish new, direct connections from Netflix to Verizon’s network. This doesn’t “prioritize” Netflix traffic in any way, but it ensures that their traffic gets on our network through direct connections—not middleman networks—that are up to the task.

The benefit of these direct connections will be two-fold. First, Verizon customers who use Netflix will have a significantly improved experience as Netflix traffic flows over non-congested links. Early tests indicate that this is the case. The other benefit will be that the congestion that we are seeing today on those links between these middleman networks and our L.A. border router will likely go away once the huge volume of Netflix traffic is routed more efficiently. This will improve performance for any other traffic that is currently being affected over those connections.

As always, Verizon is focused on providing its customers with the best Internet experience possible. We appreciate their patience as we work with Netflix to ensure our shared customers have an improved viewing experience as soon as possible.


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Re: War between Netflix and Verizon FIOS? Who will win?
TennisFreak
Enthusiast - Level 3

Hmmm and its merely coincidence that Netflix worked just fine on Verizon FIOS until February of this year and ever since it has worked like crap?

You do know what happened in February dont you?

I think you are being overly naive that Verizon has no hand in this OR you work for Verizon and are here to try and put out flames.

Edit: Also I'd like to point out that you posting an article written by a Verizon employee has no merit as Verizon is going to blame anyone but themselves.

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Re: War between Netflix and Verizon FIOS? Who will win?
Hubrisnxs
Legend

It's actually no coincedence at all, 

Industry analyst Dan Rayburn Charted this a few months ago

He wrote


You will notice that when Netflix was using third party CDN providers Akamai, Level 3 and Limelight for 100% of their video delivery, there were no quality issues. Just look at their speed ratings from 2012. The reason for this is that those CDNs already have their servers connected to ISPs like Comcast and have put in place all the necessary links, both free and paid, to guarantee, via an SLA, that they can deliver Netflix’s video. So for all the people who say that Comcast forced Netflix into paying or is strong arming them, that is not true. Netflix has multiple options in the market for delivering good quality video, but Netflix chose to build their own CDN and change their delivery strategy because they want to have more control over it and save money. Netflix’s streaming quality is based on business decisions, that’s it.


The problem isn't Netflix themselves,  It's the providers that they chose.   When they were all level 3 limelight and akamai, things ran smooth as a babies bottom.   They ditch the premium CDN's and go to Cogent and things start going bad?       Cogent is an industry player who is NOTORIOUS for problems exactly like this.   The netflix issue isn't new, It's the same rodeo.   

At least Verizon is stepping up to the plate and addressing the real issue, where netflix is astonishingly silent when it comes to anything that REMOTELY looks like hard data.  you have to admit that is FISHY.

You also have to wonder if what you are saying is true, then isn't that HIGHLY ILLEGAL?  and why isn't Netflix seeking Legal remedies. 

Not just highly illegal but like AMAZINGLY illegal if it were true.   Why did they opt to simply change providers and get rid of the sub par CDN's and go straight to Verizon?


BTW I love Tennis too

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Re: War between Netflix and Verizon FIOS? Who will win?
bbinnard
Contributor - Level 3

hubrisnxs:

Thanks for that interesting post & chart - it is helpful to see what the real network configuration is in my area (Los Angeles) and what the link utilizations actually are.  I also think this chart is interesting:

image

This is a slightly annotated (by me) chart showing overall Netflix/ISP speeds for major ISPs from Nov 2012 to June 2014. I've pointed out that FIOS started out at the top of the chart but is now 5th from the bottom. As anyone can see, there has been a fairly consistent decrease in Netflix/FIOS throughput during this entire period, even though some other ISPs have increased their throughput speeds.

For people wanting to see the chart themselves and play with dates etc. here is the link for it:

http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/results/usa/graph?field_date_value%5Bmin%5D%5Byear%5D=2012&field_da...

The chart takes a short time to load, but it will load OK. You can click on the various ISP's to see where they are, change the dates, include minor ISPs, etc.

All of this data is illuminating for sure, but it does not explain, excuse, or resolve the bottom line issue:

1. We pay Netflix to provide the HD content we want. Netflix is doing this.

2. We pay Verizon to deliver said content in a manner suitable for normal viewing. Verizon is not doing this.

The underlying technology used by Verizon FIOS is the best that is generally available; no one questions this. The problems we are having with Netflix have nothing to do with technology, they have to do with money. My sense has always been that money problems are the easiest ones to solve - so I'd like to know why this is taking so long, why no one other than the users of this forum seems to care or be paying attention, and when we can expect to start getting what we are (and have been) paying for.

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Re: War between Netflix and Verizon FIOS? Who will win?
TennisFreak
Enthusiast - Level 3

hubrisnxs

Glad to see another tennis fan on here 🙂  Wimbledon was great this year, kinda sad Fed didnt pull off a win.

On topic:

"You also have to wonder if what you are saying is true, then isn't that HIGHLY ILLEGAL?  and why isn't Netflix seeking Legal remedies."

That was precisely my point.  It was ILLEGAL until February of this year when the net neutrality laws were revoked.  Now its not ILLEGAL to limit a specific providers traffic.  So in my (and many others) eyes it is much more than coincidence that Netflix service via FIOS was more than adequate until February of this year.

I watched Mad Men and How I met your mother last night on Netflix and we only experienced a couple of slowdowns of a few minutes. 
Picture quality was still terrible and what I would consider to be below standard definition TV.  Mad Men was so bad that in scenes with background people they looked like lego block people.

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Re: War between Netflix and Verizon FIOS? Who will win?
GGA1
Enthusiast - Level 2

Starting about two weeks ago the fastest speed I can now get with Fios+Netflix is 480SD. Previously I could get 5800 SuperHD without problem. Even the 480SD is a problem, sometimes the best I get is 240SD. I have not changed anything in my system.

Amazon streams at 25M, the internet at 50M. It is only Netflix that is a problem. which only began two weeks ago. I have powered down all units and use wired ethernet. I have tried two different Sony streamers.

I think Verizon is throttling my local Netflix connection. I am in Topanga CA 90290, just outside Los Angeles.

At 240SD Netflix is unwatcheable.

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Re: War between Netflix and Verizon FIOS? Who will win?
PJL
Master - Level 3

@GGA wrote:

Starting about two weeks ago the fastest speed I can now get with Fios+Netflix is 480SD. Previously I could get 5800 SuperHD without problem. Even the 480SD is a problem, sometimes the best I get is 240SD. I have not changed anything in my system.

Amazon streams at 25M, the internet at 50M. It is only Netflix that is a problem. which only began two weeks ago. I have powered down all units and use wired ethernet. I have tried two different Sony streamers.

I think Verizon is throttling my local Netflix connection. I am in Topanga CA 90290, just outside Los Angeles.

At 240SD Netflix is unwatcheable.


FYI I'm also in the LA market (as you are) so my connection to Netflix likely goes to the same peering points as yours for the connection to Netflix's content ISPs and eventually Netflix.  I sometimes (but not often, although more often than a few weeks ago) get 1080p streaming via my Sony Blu-ray player, although I usually get better rates using my Chromecast device and the Windows 8 app or IE 11. 

Netflix estalishes the stream back to you based on the client you're using.  It assigns the stream to a particular server which may be different than other clients.  And the route back to you may be via different content provider ISPs that Netflix uses.  I see streams coming from either NTT or Telia and the streaming rates are different for each when measured in the same time frame.

I don't think Verizon is throttling the Netflix connection.  I think Netflix is shaping it based on the client you're using and the route to your client.  I think they're doing this at lower levels than before to preclude saturating the peering points into the Verizon network which reduces the chances of buffering.

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