Question Suspecting 4k video throttling through AT&T DSL

[Golgatha]

I am having problems streaming UHD video on Vudu through my Roku Streaming Stick and XBox One S game console, and also seeing significant throughput decreases and ping increases when accessing Netflix servers. Whenever my network connects to Netflix servers through fast.com or I try and stream UHD video through Vudu (HDX seems to work fine), my entire connection sees a throughput decrease of about 50-75% (from ~80Mbps to around 20-40Mbps) and ping increases from ~20ms to 50-60ms across the entire Internet connection as monitored in real time on my desktop or laptop.


The Roku stick is getting a solid 30-40Mbps connection wirelessly, and my XBox One S is hard wired and getting the full 80+ Mbps when running their respective Internet connection tests while not doing any streaming. From my desktop computer, I can run a speed test on fast.com (owned by Netflix), wait for the connection to cease by monitoring my Ethernet connection through the Windows task manager, and watch in real time as my speedtest.net throughput directly to AT&T's servers gets cut as mentioned above. Is there some traffic shaping going on when accessing streaming video through AT&T, as this only seems to happen when using streaming video services (Steam and other gaming clients, file downloads, Google Drive, etc. all work at full speed)? Regardless of the reason, I'm unable to reliably stream video at higher bitrates (I should only need 25Mbps or so per stream), so any assistance I can get with this issue would be appreciated if there's something I'm missing here.

 

[Golgatha]

So, streaming from Vudu works through my VPN (Netflix is blocked on my VPN, so I can't test it). Without the VPN on, I can hit fast.com (Netflix servers) and immediately my ping rises on the connection, then settles back down, restoring the connection, within minutes. Here's the trace route. The middle one is after connecting to fast.com.


Tracing route to fast.com [104.67.71.24]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 19 ms 25 ms 19 ms 75-13-12-1.lightspeed.kscymo.sbcglobal.net [75.13.12.1]
3 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms 75.14.172.1
4 32 ms 38 ms 30 ms 12.122.116.246
5 34 ms 38 ms 39 ms sl9mo22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.28.38]
6 34 ms 33 ms 34 ms cgcil22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.2.177]
7 31 ms 37 ms 37 ms 12.123.159.105
8 31 ms 31 ms 35 ms 12.120.35.122
9 42 ms 42 ms 42 ms 12.120.85.114
10 30 ms 31 ms 31 ms a104-67-71-24.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com [104.67.71.24]

Trace complete.



Tracing route to fast.com [104.67.71.24]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms 1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 81 ms 81 ms 82 ms 75-13-12-1.lightspeed.kscymo.sbcglobal.net [75.13.12.1]
3 71 ms 49 ms 52 ms 75.14.172.1
4 59 ms 60 ms 61 ms 12.122.116.246
5 79 ms 85 ms 85 ms sl9mo22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.28.38]
6 79 ms 77 ms 101 ms cgcil22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.2.177]
7 98 ms 68 ms 77 ms 12.123.159.105
8 31 ms 32 ms 31 ms 12.120.35.122
9 46 ms 45 ms 44 ms 12.120.85.114
10 31 ms 30 ms 31 ms a104-67-71-24.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com [104.67.71.24]

Trace complete.



Tracing route to fast.com [104.67.71.24]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.1.254
2 18 ms 29 ms 22 ms 75-13-12-1.lightspeed.kscymo.sbcglobal.net [75.13.12.1]
3 18 ms 18 ms 18 ms 75.14.172.1
4 33 ms 36 ms 38 ms 12.122.116.246
5 35 ms 37 ms 38 ms sl9mo22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.28.38]
6 31 ms 33 ms 33 ms cgcil22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.2.177]
7 33 ms 36 ms 36 ms 12.123.159.105
8 32 ms 31 ms 31 ms 12.120.35.122
9 46 ms 39 ms 47 ms 12.120.85.114
10 30 ms 30 ms 30 ms a104-67-71-24.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com [104.67.71.24]

Trace complete.

 

[Golgatha]

Here's the trace route through the VPN to fast.com (104.67.71.24). It's definitely hopping through the same AT&T owned servers, but without the bandwidth slowdown and throughput losses.


C:\Users\Server>tracert 104.67.71.24

Tracing route to a104-67-71-24.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com [104.67.71.24]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 28 ms 28 ms 29 ms 10.56.10.1
2 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms ip-254-232-239-173.texas.us.northamericancoax.com [173.239.232.254]
3 29 ms 29 ms 28 ms server1.itechosting.net [104.200.142.68]
4 29 ms 29 ms 29 ms ae0-306.cr5-dal3.ip4.gtt.net [69.31.63.129]
5 30 ms 30 ms 29 ms et-0-0-49.cr10-dal3.ip4.gtt.net [213.254.230.210]
6 36 ms 32 ms 34 ms as7018.dal33.ip4.gtt.net [199.229.231.26]
7 54 ms 61 ms 53 ms dlstx22crs.ip.att.net [12.123.16.78]
8 56 ms 52 ms 61 ms 12.122.2.2
9 60 ms 60 ms 60 ms sl9mo22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.2.218]
10 56 ms 57 ms 56 ms cgcil22crs.ip.att.net [12.122.2.177]
11 56 ms 61 ms 60 ms 12.123.159.105
12 54 ms 53 ms 53 ms 12.120.35.122
13 74 ms 71 ms 65 ms 12.120.85.114
14 53 ms 53 ms 53 ms a104-67-71-24.deploy.static.akamaitechnologies.com [104.67.71.24]

Trace complete.

 

[serpretetsky]

Is it possible your local router is doing some traffic shaping?

 

[SamirD]

Those traceroutes prove the throttling to me.

 

[Golgatha]

Is it possible your local router is doing some traffic shaping?

QOS isn't configurable on AT&T's equipment. So no, at least not by me.

 

[killster1]

this is why i just download all my UHD and not stream it then when the other people in the house need to watch you dont have to stream it 4 diff times.. (some kinda hella big cache on the router would help but not solve) most the UHD are very large files.

 

[Golgatha]

this is why i just download all my UHD and not stream it then when the other people in the house need to watch you dont have to stream it 4 diff times.. (some kinda hella big cache on the router would help but not solve) most the UHD are very large files.

It would be lovely to setup a Vudu dlna client on my network and cache all my movies to there. I'd buy a NAS device if that were possible for sure.

 

[mnewsham]

this is why i just download all my UHD and not stream it then when the other people in the house need to watch you dont have to stream it 4 diff times.. (some kinda hella big cache on the router would help but not solve) most the UHD are very large files.

To be fair, there is a big difference in UHD streaming bitrate and what you'd download in UHD.

UHD remuxes are ~50-70GB. Just as an example, Detective Pikachu in UHD remux is right around 50GB for 1 hour and 44 minutes run time. The UHD streams from netflix on the other hand range from ~3.5-7GB per hour, so an average 2 hour film would be ~6-14GB. Even assuming the high end of 14GB for a 2 hour film, thats DRASTICALLY smaller than the video bitrate you'd get on a real UHD bluray.

 

[Phaetos]

Interesting thread. Since you use PIA, as I do, I did some testing here. I’m on Comcast Gig service using an iPad Pro(2017). Hitting Speedtest , I get around 400-525(even with wife on WiFi and YouTube streaming going on. I turn on PIA and it DROPS massively to around 125-150. So I hopped over to fast.com. Without PIA, about the same as Speedtest. With PIA, massive drops to around 100. So if I change test servers since my outside world address is reporting as another state now, it gets worse.
So is Comcast throttling VPN connections? Doesn’t make sense.

 

[killster1]

Interesting thread. Since you use PIA, as I do, I did some testing here. I’m on Comcast Gig service using an iPad Pro(2017). Hitting Speedtest , I get around 400-525(even with wife on WiFi and YouTube streaming going on. I turn on PIA and it DROPS massively to around 125-150. So I hopped over to fast.com. Without PIA, about the same as Speedtest. With PIA, massive drops to around 100. So if I change test servers since my outside world address is reporting as another state now, it gets worse.
So is Comcast throttling VPN connections? Doesn’t make sense.

maybe you choose a slow server

 

[Golgatha]

Interesting thread. Since you use PIA, as I do, I did some testing here. I’m on Comcast Gig service using an iPad Pro(2017). Hitting Speedtest , I get around 400-525(even with wife on WiFi and YouTube streaming going on. I turn on PIA and it DROPS massively to around 125-150. So I hopped over to fast.com. Without PIA, about the same as Speedtest. With PIA, massive drops to around 100. So if I change test servers since my outside world address is reporting as another state now, it gets worse.
So is Comcast throttling VPN connections? Doesn’t make sense.

I've been on PIA for a long time now. The bandwidth available on their servers is about what you're testing at. I think the (arguably) best VPN, ExpressVPN has about 250 as a best case scenario. Unless there's a need to use my VPN, I keep it off for this reason.

 

[WackyWRZ]

I've noticed the same with PIA speeds depending on the server and time of day. Also depends on the encryption settings / strength you're using as that adds overhead too.