The Frustrations Of Rural Internet AND Netflix

[Industrial Toys]

I know this varies greatly in different regions.

We come to rely on reliable Internet, and it's just such a hit and miss thing.

Is this typical for rural wireless service or is every situation, location and provider different?

I have kicked my terrestrial wireless provider (Explornet) to the curb come next week, in favor of another provider that has gotten close enough. I am tired of Explornet overselling their resources (IMO) and the BS that comes from calling tech support.

A few weeks ago I was on the phone with a very friendly (female) tech from out EAST (Canada) for an hour. She had me try all manner of tests and resets. AT the end of it, she admitted that they do throttle their traffic and give the least priority to streaming services. I was blown away! Social media, that doesn't even require real time management gets first priority!

Does anyone else have these issues?

Tonight, Google works instantly, but NETFLIX take forever just to toggle between menus. Never mind watching anything. And this is via Apple TV, and I am most curious how negatively that effects the whole situation.

Thanks

 

[RNeumann]

Yes this is a common issue worldwide. It’s called net neutrality in the USA

Net neutrality - Wikipedia

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Congratulations if you have a fast enough connection to stream video, ever. I'm lucky if I can load TBN, and it's text based.

 

[marchanna]

Where about are you located? I知 in Pictou County NS.

Right now, I have TNC wireless and Bell LTE with a cradle point network switch and yagi antenna to make sure I have functioning internet all the time. I think there will be some better solutions coming within the next year or so.

 

[jeff9366]

Problems are seasonal too. Right now the whole world is shopping for holiday gifts via the internet.

 

[marchanna]

TNC wireless told me the foliage on the trees in summer blocks the signal.

We have worse service in summer than winter.

The Bell LTE works very well, but it is expensive. $150/mo for 100GB. The TNC wireless is about $90/mo unlimited, but sometimes it just doesn稚 work at all, and the upload speeds are comparable to dialup.

 

[TractorGuy]

I have read it is common for providers to throttle speeds to prevent or degrade streaming. This is why Netflix came out with their own speedtest. When my service had their stream saver activated I would get 15-20 Mbps at speedtest.net but it would throttle to 5 Mbps at Netfix's fast.com. Either speed will stream high def so I was okay. I was able to turn that feature off since I have unlimited and now the speed tests are the same from either site. Your results may vary.

Before that I had DSL and was throttled to 1.5 Mbps on a good day for everything. The last price increase for that service was the proverbial straw.

 

[RNeumann]

I have read it is common for providers to throttle speeds to prevent or degrade streaming. This is why Netflix came out with their own speedtest. When my service had their stream saver activated I would get 15-20 Mbps at speedtest.net but it would throttle to 5 Mbps at Netfix's fast.com. Either speed will stream high def so I was okay. I was able to turn that feature off since I have unlimited and now the speed tests are the same from either site. Your results may vary.

Before that I had DSL and was throttled to 1.5 Mbps on a good day for everything. The last price increase for that service was the proverbial straw.

They throttle overall speed depending on your contract price. The more serious or underhanded issue is throttling speed based on the content or source- that’s the issue with net neutrality.

 

[dmccarty]

...
Tonight, Google works instantly, but NETFLIX take forever just to toggle between menus. Never mind watching anything. And this is via Apple TV, and I am most curious how negatively that effects the whole situation.

Thanks

We have 1.5 mbps DSL which has reliability issues. We can have the network slow down greatly and it is all traffic. This happens frequently. We have noticed that Netflix can slow down while other traffic is ok but I think this is because of Netflix because the kids will stream on their phones and still have problems. Having said that, we have only had issues with Netflix a couple of times.

Later,
Dan

 

[TractorGuy]

They throttle overall speed depending on your contract price. The more serious or underhanded issue is throttling speed based on the content or source- that’s the issue with net neutrality.

This was my point.

 

[bigdeano]

The satellite internet providers are now going to unlimited data plans. Exceed just put up a new satellite with huge capacity. Another even bigger one is scheduled for 2019. I have 1Mb DSL now. The only other option is satellite here. I'm going to switch when my contract is up.

 

[Code54]

We currently have Frontier DSL internet as cable is not available at our house - we pay for 10mbps down, get 8 down, and only 1mg up (that is way too slow). Up the road they have cable and get 50mbps down. Was up in Pittsburgh this week working and they are advertising 1GB down on some system. We wouldn't know what to do if we could have "good" internet!!

 

[oosik]

I have no access to land line anything. My phone is a cell that has two bar service - sometimes. My TV is Dish and my internet provider is HughesNet. Both my satellite providers(Dish & Hughes) work very well about 95 to 98 percent of the time. Weather is what will knock them out.

I don't get involved in streaming video so speed is not a big issue for me. Likewise - I could not care less about my phone service.

 

[bunyip]

Not USA but I'm sure a universal problem, we get about 24mbps down and 4.5mbps up and notice that on weekdays it plummets between 0730 and 0900, ergo, the time between when kids get up and school starts, same rules apply between 1530 and 2000.
Generally during these kids peak times we drop to about 16mbps and 3mbps but I am told if I pay another $10 per month I can go to 'turbo' which will double my speed.
As everything works for me I shall keep my $10.00.
We live about 2km out of town and are wirelessly connected, those in town are on copper or fibre.
We have no problems with Netflix so are reasonably happy with the service but with the newer high speed connection there is only one provider but dozens of retailers all offering different deals, with ADSL there were 3 providers and again many retailers.

 

[TheMan419]

The satellite internet providers are now going to unlimited data plans. Exceed just put up a new satellite with huge capacity. Another even bigger one is scheduled for 2019. I have 1Mb DSL now. The only other option is satellite here. I'm going to switch when my contract is up.

Can you point me in the direction of an unlimited sat plan? Been looking at my options.

 

[dmccarty]

We currently have Frontier DSL internet as cable is not available at our house - we pay for 10mbps down, get 8 down, and only 1mg up (that is way too slow). Up the road they have cable and get 50mbps down. Was up in Pittsburgh this week working and they are advertising 1GB down on some system. We wouldn't know what to do if we could have "good" internet!!

We would be jumping up and down happy if we could get 8 mbps down and 1 mbps down. What is sooooo frustrating is that the new subdivision behind us gets that speed but we are stuck with 1.5 service. More frustrating is that the house with faster service is only 500-600 feet away. Farther from town where our service comes from but closer to the faster box. CenturyLink will not upgrade the line and there is no cable so we are stuck. Satellite won't work due to time lag.

So YOU do have good internet. Be thankful! :laughing::laughing::laughing:

When we lived in the city we did have cable and we would see the network slow down at certain times of day but especially if we had snow/ice storms which caused people to work from home.

Later,
Dan

 

[Code54]

We would be jumping up and down happy if we could get 8 mbps down and 1 mbps down. What is sooooo frustrating is that the new subdivision behind us gets that speed but we are stuck with 1.5 service. More frustrating is that the house with faster service is only 500-600 feet away. Farther from town where our service comes from but closer to the faster box. CenturyLink will not upgrade the line and there is no cable so we are stuck. Satellite won't work due to time lag.

So YOU do have good internet. Be thankful! :laughing::laughing::laughing:

When we lived in the city we did have cable and we would see the network slow down at certain times of day but especially if we had snow/ice storms which caused people to work from home.

Later,
Dan

Kind of makes you wonder what happened to all the millions of dollars that was being invested to make sure everyone in the US has "high Speed" internet......

 

[bunyip]

Kind of makes you wonder what happened to all the millions of dollars that was being invested to make sure everyone in the US has "high Speed" internet......

We got that promise too and they haven't delivered to a lot of areas, must be relatives

 

[marchanna]

Same thing here. The Gov gave millions to Bell Canada to improve rural internet and nothing changed.

 

[rekees4300]

Can you point me in the direction of an unlimited sat plan? Been looking at my options.

Be wary of satellite plans. The word "unlimited" which has different meanings to different companies. IMO satellite should only be considered when nothing else or dial up is available. Had Hughesnet for 2 years and they suck. Switched to Verizon 4G LTE and recommend it. They cover 99% of Indiana.