Spark Sport: Rugby World Cup 2019

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978 posts

Ultimate Geek

#2324783 25-Sep-2019 19:24

freitasm:

Also, being in the ISP world you would know WiFi can be utter garbage on any ISP - the ISP can control the connection but has no oversight of how WiFi is configured, interference, other networks, etc.

And you make a valid point. And I wouldn't be surprised if a good portion of those complaining on social media about SS coverage is down to people streaming over wifi to like a garage/man cave that is impacting their signal because the router is a good distance away but its still sparks fault that their stream is choppy and buffering

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Lizard Networks

#2324809 25-Sep-2019 20:08

Dial111:

freitasm:

Also, being in the ISP world you would know WiFi can be utter garbage on any ISP - the ISP can control the connection but has no oversight of how WiFi is configured, interference, other networks, etc.

And you make a valid point. And I wouldn't be surprised if a good portion of those complaining on social media about SS coverage is down to people streaming over wifi to like a garage/man cave that is impacting their signal because the router is a good distance away but its still sparks fault that their stream is choppy and buffering

Which is exactly why spark sport have been urging folk to try early.

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Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

jaybeedee

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#2324913 25-Sep-2019 21:47

hio77:

My partners flat has one of the Trustpower connections, and i must say the wifi on it is utter garbage in my experience.

Yes, well I dumped the Netcomm modem supplied by Trustpower and am getting much better performance (esp 5ghz) on the ex-spark Huawei modem.

kharris

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#2324915 25-Sep-2019 22:06

jaybeedee:

hio77:

My partners flat has one of the Trustpower connections, and i must say the wifi on it is utter garbage in my experience.

Yes, well I dumped the Netcomm modem supplied by Trustpower and am getting much better performance (esp 5ghz) on the ex-spark Huawei modem.

Why did you have to use a different modem?

Surely you can use 5ghz on their supplied modem? There would be much less interference.

Come to think of it why isn’t 5Ghz configured by default?

Kirk

hio77

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Lizard Networks

#2324916 25-Sep-2019 22:07

kharris:

jaybeedee:

hio77:

My partners flat has one of the Trustpower connections, and i must say the wifi on it is utter garbage in my experience.

Yes, well I dumped the Netcomm modem supplied by Trustpower and am getting much better performance (esp 5ghz) on the ex-spark Huawei modem.

Why did you have to use a different modem?

Surely you can use 5ghz on their supplied modem? There would be much less interference.

Come to think of it why isn’t 5Ghz configured by default?

those netcoms are from the era when bandsteering wasnt such a thing..

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

kharris

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#2324919 25-Sep-2019 22:24

Surely they have a 5Ghz band even without band steering. Surely you can setup an SSID on each band and connect the TV to the 5Ghz band.

The TV doesn’t move so wouldn’t need to swap bands.

Kirk

LH44

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#2324947 26-Sep-2019 04:32

I noticed a vast improvement on my stream after I changed my wifi from 2.5Ghz to 5Ghz and assigned an un-congested channel. I noticed a few bit rate drops when I was on 2.5Ghz. Also something that gets overlooked is how important latency is to live streaming.

Plenty of people working very hard behind the scenes to provide a flawless experience, Like many have mentioned the next AB's game will be the big test!

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tdgeek

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#2324975 26-Sep-2019 07:26

LH44:

I noticed a vast improvement on my stream after I changed my wifi from 2.5Ghz to 5Ghz and assigned an un-congested channel. I noticed a few bit rate drops when I was on 2.5Ghz. Also something that gets overlooked is how important latency is to live streaming.

Plenty of people working very hard behind the scenes to provide a flawless experience, Like many have mentioned the next AB's game will be the big test!

Good one. One more end user issue removed, well done. Still a few to go!

tdgeek

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#2324977 26-Sep-2019 07:30

Given what we know, that the issue is now fixed, and it wasnt NZ broadband capability, and assume its all good from here, what are the opinions on how Spark Sport will come out of this?

The media has had a wide range, from failure, they will never recover, to a more positive note for the future

networkn

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#2325017 26-Sep-2019 09:07

I'd say it has far less to do with opinion and a lot more to do with economic viability. Spark shareholders won't be impressed that the flagship product wasn't recieved that well and took what looks to be a pretty significant loss. Appetite for risk is going to play the biggest part. Do they invest considerably more (on rights) on an uncertain uptake? Sky has said they will go to the mat to purchase rights for sport, which means Spark will have to match or beat them, whilst being able to convince rights holders they can deliver it in the first place. Spark Sport has very little I'm interested in past the RWC, and so my subscription will lapse immediately afterward. I'd imagine a lot of people will be the same. It's also a matter of who has the sports I want to watch. Rugby for me is number one, after that, it's Squash which no-one in NZ does decent coverage of, but even then, it's touch and go that I would pay $20 a month (and I believe that it's introductory prices that will increase) when I can pay $100 a year to PSA Squash for what is likely to be more compherehensive coverage.

So far I'd rate the delivery a C+ at best. The app lacks basic functionality like search, sort, account management and I can only jump around in a stream from my couch in 30 second increments.

They could easily improve all of this pretty quickly, but it's whether they have the sports that will attract paying customers and if investors will support a decision to spend MANY millions in obtaining those rights.

To give credit where it's due, the picture is comparable to Sky, better in some ways, worse in others. The key benefit to me, is the seamless way I can move from room to room and device to device.

I think a lot more people decided they could live without live broadcast and accepted an hours delay to watch for free. I don't have numbers to compare to the previous world cup.

Don't forget, they also have to overcome the infrastructure challenges that caused them to hand the commerical rights to Sky. Without some seriously big sports, businesses will not commit the money to put in infrastructure. Spark stuffed that up royally by underestimating the costs to businesses for it and didn't get themselves commercially ready in time to allow businesses to implement. Credit to them for handing the rights to Sky or things could have been so much worse.

Dingbatt

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#2325020 26-Sep-2019 09:10

You won’t see a headline:

Breaking News!

“Spark Sport works without a hitch. All customers happy.”

that’s for sure. For the same reason that the NZHerald’s headline about Jetstar pulling out of the regions referenced AirNZ “pouncing”. The media hates corporates (except their own), apart from when they want their advertising. Even if there had been no streaming problems last weekend, the media would have sought out someone in the back blocks who struggles to get cellphone reception just to get a complaint about missing out on the footy.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

Sounddude

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#2325021 26-Sep-2019 09:11

networkn:

Don't forget, they also have to overcome the infrastructure challenges that caused them to hand the commerical rights to Sky. Without some seriously big sports, businesess will not commit the money to put in infrastructure. Spark stuffed that up royally by underestimating the costs to businesses for it and didn't get themselves commercially ready in time to allow businesses to implement. Credit to them for handing the rights to Sky or things could have been so much worse.

Spark didn't hand the rights to Sky. Spark are just using Sky as the broadcast provider for commercial offerings.

networkn

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#2325023 26-Sep-2019 09:12

Sounddude:

networkn:

Don't forget, they also have to overcome the infrastructure challenges that caused them to hand the commerical rights to Sky. Without some seriously big sports, businesess will not commit the money to put in infrastructure. Spark stuffed that up royally by underestimating the costs to businesses for it and didn't get themselves commercially ready in time to allow businesses to implement. Credit to them for handing the rights to Sky or things could have been so much worse.

Spark didn't hand the rights to Sky. Spark are just using Sky as the broadcast provider for commercial offerings.

That's really a point without a difference. Commercial sites are using Sky to view not Spark.

Yogi02

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Master Geek

#2325025 26-Sep-2019 09:13

tdgeek:

Given what we know, that the issue is now fixed, and it wasnt NZ broadband capability, and assume its all good from here, what are the opinions on how Spark Sport will come out of this?

The media has had a wide range, from failure, they will never recover, to a more positive note for the future

Of the pool games, The AB's v SA was the only one I would likely have watched.

Combined with a decent SA population in NZ I cant see it being tested to that level until the Quarter Finals.

I am predicting no issues at all for the next 2 AB games.

Sounddude

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#2325028 26-Sep-2019 09:18

networkn:

That's really a point without a difference. Commercial sites are using Sky to view not Spark.

Its a huge difference.

Spark still own the rights. The customers are paying Spark.

Spark is paying Sky to deliver the broadcast to the customers.

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