On February 8, 2018 at 11:44, buzz said...
While I'm not a fan of the cable companies, we do need to have some respect for the physics. As more and more customers are streaming movies with an "all you can eat" package, the ISP's facilities are being stressed. There is a big difference between delivering peaky traffic such as web pages, emails, social junk, and delivering steady HD video streams. There can be choke points between the NETFLIX server, major distribution nodes to the ISP, the ISP's facility, and the last mile to the customer.
A speed test result is a crude figure of merit for this sort of drama because the path for the speed test is likely different from the movie path.
But there is a way to test speed when streaming Netflix- it's shown at the lower part of the link but not all devices support it.
When I hear complaints about buffering and speed, I start by asking about the time of day- if it's near the time when most people come home from work/school, I tell them to try later and explain why that time is worst. I also do speed tests while streaming- if it shows a bottleneck, I pause the stream and try again.
[Link: help.netflix.com]
