I've been seeing more and more reports of unwatchable (official) sports streams on the board over the last few months.

If anyone is experiencing stuttering with ESPN, Fox Sports Go, or even Netflix, and they also have a VPN, I would suggest that they try connecting to their VPN (using the closest US based VPN endpoint that they have available, such as Chicago or New York), and try their stream again. Likewise, this will get you around local blackouts. If you don't have one, PIA is a reputable service (I have no connection and receive no benefit for saying so).

Though I have a 50mbit fiber connection, there are some services that commonly remain unwatchable on my hardwired devices, no matter what bitrate/quality I select. When I turn on my VPN, I get seamless playback with any bitrate.

That's all you need to know for a likely fix of your streaming issues. If you care to know why this is happening in the first place, read on, but be warned about the wall of text. No one made you read it.

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So why does this help, particularly when most VPN's are limited to 3mbit download speeds or less, and your ISP plan promises 8-33X faster overall speeds? Because your VPN traffic is encrypted. Under normal circumstances, your ISP can see when you are connected to major video streaming services (and any other site). It cannot see that you are using ESPN when you are connected to your VPN - that traffic is encrypted, so it knows only that you are connected to a VPN. They can't tell if you are streaming the basketball game, playing Madden on Playstation, or browsing ebay. For that reason, your traffic stays unmolested.

Despite net neutrality not yet being officially dismantled, ISP's commonly dabble in its analogues. They have for years, and I've seen it happen more in the last six months. When caught, ISP's claim either that they are conducting "network testing", or that they are "throttling certain networks to preserve the experience of the larger group of users". Verizon and Comcast are cited the most often, but aren't alone. Comcast even settled a class action suit a few years ago over the practice.

Though Comcast settled, the behavior is not even strictly illegal. For the moment it's just bad publicity. Under net neutrality rules, they merely cannot explicitly charge anyone to route traffic differently between particular sites or services. If net neutrality is abandoned, a world of opportunities opens up for them. Top speeds for streaming sports can be auctioned between ESPN, Fox sports and Turner. As the end user you could also be asked to pay for faster speeds to one of those services, fees that would not have be shared with the content provider. The ISP's own services, such as Comcast Sports Net, could be given those higher speeds either for less money, for free. YouTube could be rendered unusable, but ComcastTube would remain fast and free.

This is one reason that you want net neutrality. You paid for your internet connection, and you should get the advertised speeds. You don't even have many options if you don't like your ISP, and want to vote with your wallet. The VPN trick would be unlikely to solve the problem long term, as throttling VPN traffic based on throughput to the known VPN IP's would be just as easy to enable.

There are other reasons lack of neutrality would be harmful, such as the impact on startups that might otherwise be able to attract enough traffic to challenge the user dominance of a service company like Facebook, Twitter, or Netflix. Could their business survive if simply making their site accessible became a large slice of their budget? Could an established site like Dropbox buy up all the 'preferred bandwidth for cloud storage', or merely price it out of reach of startup user storage companies by bidding up the price against Box and Google Drive?

Like everything else in the world, this issue has been politicized, so if you are aware that your party's platform says that net neutrality is bad, or that we shouldn't worry about it, that the invisible hand of the market will solve this as it does any other problem, then you should know that I don't expect you to tear down your worldview over this, because we both know that's not happening. If you want to carry on hating ESPN, feel free. You just need to know that it's very likely not them that are keeping you from watching the UC stream, nor is it Fox when the world series is unwatchable on FSGo. Try a VPN. If that helps, then you'll have your answer.

Do with this information what you will. I'm just trying to help you watch the Cats.

I can also vouch for PIA (Private Internet Access). It's probably as reputable as any VPN on the Internet.

Good write up.

I still find it odd that, when watching Sling TV via my Roku Steaming Stick, only the ESPN channels seem to stutter and lock up, but when I go to the Watch ESPN app on my Roku stick, I have absolutely no issue. Is it ESPN throttling their own feed for Sling to drive people to cable or their own app?

(11-14-2017 01:13 AM)crex043 Wrote:  Is it ESPN throttling their own feed for Sling to drive people to cable or their own app?

I have limited experience with roku, only used at parents place and some rental houses. But I could suggest that might be in play here.

First, Roku hardware is often on the light side of adequate. They were among the first to offer the stream in a box/stick platforms, and deserve credit for that. But they lagged behind the specs of FireTV, AppleTV, etc. Adequate for most things, but sports is more difficult to stream than a lot of other media. Lots of motion to render, and refresh rate has to be good or you're going to notice. Something like Scooby Doo or a talking head is watchable with lower bitrate/quality.

slingtv is something I tried when streaming was still getting going. I used their HD system, and hated it. Lots of disconnects, lots of lag. I couldn't expect to watch it for an hour without needing to reconnect or restart the app/program. There's no longer really any need for it - if you have cable to sling, then you can directly use verizon/comcast mobile apps or a browser to stream all channels. Or the channel's own app/website. These can be google cast to a tv, or you can use a an hdmi cable in a laptop. Some phones/tablets can mirror their screen with a video out cable.

Last point would be that wifi is always going to be imperfect. Too many thing can impact its signal, from your neighbor's router wandering wifi channels (there are only 11) to someone microwaving their leftovers. When possible hardwire the streaming device.

FireTV boxes can do 4k for some things, so they have plenty of hardware power, they have Ethernet ports, and it has all the popular streaming services. Chromecast is built into many new tv's, and while they usually prompt you for wifi networks, they have Ethernet ports that can be used instead.

*edit - forgot to say, espn has no impact on classic sling devices - sling works by encoding the video signal coming from your cable box. There should be no difference between espn and local cable access programming. Unless this is their spinoff, not directly controlling you cable box version of the sling service. I think I remember something about them going in that direction. I don't see them lasting much longer, tech has moved on.

Problem with this is that I use the 2016 Roku Streaming Stick (the higher power version of the previous iteration). The Sling TV app works just fine when watching other channels. This includes Fox Sports Ohio which also shows sports and the occasional sporting event on TBS or TNT. ESPN is the only channel with live programming on Sling that stutters or drops out, and it seems to drop out ONLY during live sports events. And, again, when I switch over to the ESPN app on the same Roku device, things usually work okay.

Same device, sporting events on other channels work fine, other apps work fine, and it works fine for recorded events on ESPN. That says to me that ESPN is throttling their feed and that there is nothing wrong with my device.

(11-14-2017 02:49 AM)EffinBJ Wrote:  

(11-14-2017 01:13 AM)crex043 Wrote:  Is it ESPN throttling their own feed for Sling to drive people to cable or their own app?

I have limited experience with roku, only used at parents place and some rental houses. But I could suggest that might be in play here.

First, Roku hardware is often on the light side of adequate. They were among the first to offer the stream in a box/stick platforms, and deserve credit for that. But they lagged behind the specs of FireTV, AppleTV, etc. Adequate for most things, but sports is more difficult to stream than a lot of other media. Lots of motion to render, and refresh rate has to be good or you're going to notice. Something like Scooby Doo or a talking head is watchable with lower bitrate/quality.

slingtv is something I tried when streaming was still getting going. I used their HD system, and hated it. Lots of disconnects, lots of lag. I couldn't expect to watch it for an hour without needing to reconnect or restart the app/program. There's no longer really any need for it - if you have cable to sling, then you can directly use verizon/comcast mobile apps or a browser to stream all channels. Or the channel's own app/website. These can be google cast to a tv, or you can use a an hdmi cable in a laptop. Some phones/tablets can mirror their screen with a video out cable.

Last point would be that wifi is always going to be imperfect. Too many thing can impact its signal, from your neighbor's router wandering wifi channels (there are only 11) to someone microwaving their leftovers. When possible hardwire the streaming device.

FireTV boxes can do 4k for some things, so they have plenty of hardware power, they have Ethernet ports, and it has all the popular streaming services. Chromecast is built into many new tv's, and while they usually prompt you for wifi networks, they have Ethernet ports that can be used instead.

*edit - forgot to say, espn has no impact on classic sling devices - sling works by encoding the video signal coming from your cable box. There should be no difference between espn and local cable access programming. Unless this is their spinoff, not directly controlling you cable box version of the sling service. I think I remember something about them going in that direction. I don't see them lasting much longer, tech has moved on.

Thanks so much for these posts. I️ have a couple apple TVs and a fire stick. But i just ran a few hundred feet of cat6 and am looking forward to putting my old cabling skills to the test and getting my devices hardwired. The only times I️ have a problem is around 8-9 pm. It seems like my service drops to around ten mps. Any reason for this? Will it happen to my hardware also? Also if you don’t mind can you elaborate a bit on the WiFi channels, of which you said there are only 11? Is there anything that can be done to “change channels” if that is what’s causing my slowdowns?

Btw the stream on my Apple TV over WiFi was great last night until my wife and daughter both started streaming on other devices.

Thanks.

How do you run a VPN through a Fire TV/Roku/Whatever else?

(11-14-2017 08:09 AM)Z-Fly Wrote:  How do you run a VPN through a Fire TV/Roku/Whatever else?

I am not familiar with Fire TV/Roku type stuff, but you could always set up the VPN connection on your router so that EVERYTHING connected to your router will be using the VPN, without installing or configuring anything on the devices.

Not all routers are capable of setting up a VPN connection, though. You would have to do some research on your own router, or possibly buy a new one with VPN capability.

I just got one of the new Roku's (The little box, not the stick) and it has been flawless on any of the Apps that we run and we do it all through wireless, not even plugged in directly like my Blu-Ray player that we use for Netflix. I'm hoping I can use the free trial of that CBS Sports Live or whatever it is that the UC games in the Cayman Islands will be on to stream it.

Pretty sure the Sling references are to "Sling TV" and not the remote viewing "Sling Box". The Sling box has been pretty much obsoleted by the Xfinity and Spectrum type services. I use Sling TV on my Roku as well as my Android devices and for the most part it's a great service but occassionnally it has it's own set of problems unrelated to the service I'm viewing. It's well worth the 20 bucks a month to not have to subscribe to a cable package to get ESPN/ESPN2/ESPN3 as well as the Watch ESPN app.

As far as WIFI channel conflicts go, there are Android and I assume IOS apps out there that will display all of the WIFI signals that may be interfering at your location (search for WIFI analyzer in your app store of choice) and set your WAP to a channel that stays away from the ambient noise. That should help.

You mentioned that providers are somehow throttling or otherwise de-prioritizing streams, I'm going to say that I doubt that this is the case. The FCC allows providers to "manage" traffic that can impact their service to others but does not allow them to prioritize one service above another. For instance, that are prohibited from shaping HULU traffic while allowing their own streaming service to flow unimpeded. Larger streaming providers will install caching equipment at a carrier POP (at no cost to the provider) that greatly improves on streaming quality for their end users (Netflix Open Connect and Google Global Cache are 2 pretty good examples) and that's why these services can seem to be much better than others.

(11-14-2017 02:49 AM)EffinBJ Wrote:  

(11-14-2017 01:13 AM)crex043 Wrote:  Is it ESPN throttling their own feed for Sling to drive people to cable or their own app?

*edit - forgot to say, espn has no impact on classic sling devices - sling works by encoding the video signal coming from your cable box. There should be no difference between espn and local cable access programming. Unless this is their spinoff, not directly controlling you cable box version of the sling service. I think I remember something about them going in that direction. I don't see them lasting much longer, tech has moved on.

Tunnel Bear is a great VPN.

I understand the article to say using them to manage traffic is good, but at the same time Netflix blocks most VPN traffic so they’re not helping their own cause.

(11-14-2017 09:36 AM)Cat_Litter Wrote:  You mentioned that providers are somehow throttling or otherwise de-prioritizing streams, I'm going to say that I doubt that this is the case. The FCC allows providers to "manage" traffic that can impact their service to others but does not allow them to prioritize one service above another. For instance, that are prohibited from shaping HULU traffic while allowing their own streaming service to flow unimpeded. Larger streaming providers will install caching equipment at a carrier POP (at no cost to the provider) that greatly improves on streaming quality for their end users (Netflix Open Connect and Google Global Cache are 2 pretty good examples) and that's why these services can seem to be much better than others.

Thanks for filling me in on Sling, makes sense that they got away from transcoding. As to the streaming infrastructure being colocated, you're absolutely correct about the POP and all that entails. I've seen more use of AWS from these services as well. And Disney (ESPN) is surprisingly strong with their streaming services. I have no doubt they will pull off their Netflix competitor.

I think the VPN "fix" would be proof that there is traffic shaping (throttling) going on. We're not talking about routing issues when it's this sort of pronounced effect on any bitrate. Level 3 (one of the major internet backbone companies) called out the major ISP's with forensic proof. Verizon was caught again in July throttling Netflix. And Netflix is already paying Verizon millions in fees, as though net neutrality were dead, because Verizon asked them to. Netflix is very pro net neutrality, but felt they had no choice. Their business depends on the quality of their users experience. And then they throttled them anyway.

You know your stuff, cat_litter

Just switch to another provider.

Oh wait...