walt12: This product really is sub-standard. There are a number of people on this forum flat out making excuses for an inferior product. There is no way they would be defending it if this was another piece of technology kit. Coliseum really need to sort it out.
The challenge with this product is there are a lot of variables. I have no doubt some are getting better experiences than others and this could quite likely be due to their location / ISP and the nearest server being used. While there are a number of Akamai servers around the country, not every end user will be guaranteed to get an adequate rate for the game even if their speedtest is fine (which should be done as a first check if issues). There could be problems with seeding of the these caches or excessive loading. I would have hoped that the PLP help desk could provide guidance as to whether there are known limitations (e.g. like they had reportedly mentioned on Twitter about Sunday mornings) but they might not have that visibility. This forum might be able to help see a pattern if users can identify their ISP, access and display technology and location but I suspect there are too few complaints to build a useful picture.
If there is a difference in performance between live and on demand there might be a further issue that live games (at least the one I checked for the iPad) are now using AES-128 bit encryption whereas the others are not. I would have hoped that a new Nexus wouldn't have had any issues but there has been mention here that when DRM is added the video performance of Flash players on PCs can suffer. This could be hard to debug if only on live games and there are question marks over whether the stream is coming in fast enough.
For the users who have paid their money and not getting the experience they expect I think it is justifiable to call this an inferior product for them. PLP have put their faith in CDN delivery and it seems for some it might not be up to the task. The problem at this stage is we don't know where the problems are for each user with buffering problems and while users on this forum might be able to fire up Wireshark on their PCs, when using tablets it gets a lot harder, especially when the only feedback the app gives is a spinning circle.
Provided PLP listen and are prepared to refund if it doesn't work in some cases then I don't think it is fair to expect them to provide this service to every reach of the Internet. They are not in the game of providing the servers but are buying a service from another provider, NeuLion, who happens to rely on Akamai here in NZ and probably has wider technology options in the US (e.g. their other CDN partners I have seen used from here for the PLP service of Limelight and Level3 don't seem to have a presence in NZ - this backup stream needs to come from offshore).
Judging by the latest addition by Kim587, that particular game might have had an extra set of problems. I would hope that PLP can openly state when there have been service delivery failings so that a more accurate picture of what the "normal" service is like can be determined.
Is it a sub-standard product? "Yes" for some customers and "no" for others.
