Hulu does not play well all the time and seems to be worse in the evenings.
D-mac2
Newbie

Something not mentioned by anyone that I saw from the few subjects I looked at here concerning throttling and the sort is bandwidth. Sure, the speeds seem to be fine, but I have recently become aware of bandwidth being the problem with most TVs playing video content. We recently had a router that had issues and would give us plenty of internet service, but none of our TVs would play video, period. The person I spoke to at Verizon informed me that TVs tend to required more bandwidth than other devices. We had our Verizon router replaced and that seemed to fix the problem, but it was only a temporary fix for a few days. We can still watch videos for the most part, but for some reason, Hulu does not want to play very well. We have always had some issues with it dropping out, giving errors that say check internet connection, etc. This certainly appears to be a bandwidth issue. Does anyone know if Hulu requires more bandwidth than other providers, or if Verizon limits bandwidth during high-usage times of the day?

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Re: Hulu does not play well all the time and seems to be worse in the evenings.
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

Verizon doesn't limit bandwidth, but if you are on DSL Service, you may be fighting congestion. On FiOS it's possible you are seeing congestion, but more probable that it is with Wi-Fi rather than the actual connection.

If you have a day where you plan not to be home, set up a PC to run an automatic speed test starting from the afternoon and ending sometime in the evening, when you're typically no longer trying to stream. Run it every 15 minutes for the needed duration (basically 15 minutes or 4 runs an hour for 8 hours, 32 runs total)...

https://testmy.net/auto

Run both download and upload, and see if there is a pattern or trend you can spot. Make sure to change your Speed Test server using the selector at the top right of the page to something nearby to you. Also make sure during the day when Hulu works good, that you are also seeing the speed you pay for. For example if you have "Up to 7Mbps" service, make sure you're getting above 6.2Mbps on the download and above 640kbps on the upload. Also, most importantly - for the auto test to work, make sure you disable the sleep mode temporarily on your computer.

There are some things we can try if your connection is performing as it should at all hours of the day.

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Re: Hulu does not play well all the time and seems to be worse in the evenings.
dexman
Community Leader
Community Leader

Does this location have Verizon DSL or FiOS service? (This particular board is for DSL questions).

Re: Hulu does not play well all the time and seems to be worse in the evenings.
dslr595148
Community Leader
Community Leader

@dexman wrote:

Does this location have Verizon DSL or FiOS service? (This particular board is for DSL questions).


+1.

As with DSL, we will need to know the brand and model of the OP's modem.

And FIOS does not use modems.

Also to the OP, what is the brand and model of your NAT router?

For example: Linksys E4200

Only if DIY NAT router, then the name and version of it.

For example of a DIY NAT router name = pfsense.

Re: Hulu does not play well all the time and seems to be worse in the evenings.
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

Verizon doesn't limit bandwidth, but if you are on DSL Service, you may be fighting congestion. On FiOS it's possible you are seeing congestion, but more probable that it is with Wi-Fi rather than the actual connection.

If you have a day where you plan not to be home, set up a PC to run an automatic speed test starting from the afternoon and ending sometime in the evening, when you're typically no longer trying to stream. Run it every 15 minutes for the needed duration (basically 15 minutes or 4 runs an hour for 8 hours, 32 runs total)...

https://testmy.net/auto

Run both download and upload, and see if there is a pattern or trend you can spot. Make sure to change your Speed Test server using the selector at the top right of the page to something nearby to you. Also make sure during the day when Hulu works good, that you are also seeing the speed you pay for. For example if you have "Up to 7Mbps" service, make sure you're getting above 6.2Mbps on the download and above 640kbps on the upload. Also, most importantly - for the auto test to work, make sure you disable the sleep mode temporarily on your computer.

There are some things we can try if your connection is performing as it should at all hours of the day.