Strange download speeds for Netflix et al

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Strange download speeds for Netflix et al

sloburn

70 posts

Master Geek

#171268 11-Apr-2015 19:01

Hey folks, i'm on VDSL currently with Spark.

So I started the free month trial with Netflix and noticed that the quality is rubbish, it's throttling it down to really low res. Tried to ping www.netflix.com and it times out.

Ran a speed test on speedtest.net and no dramas, 12ms ping, 45 down, 9 up.

Ran a speed test through testmy.net and it comes back as 1Mbps down and 3.5 up.

Downloading from steam, torrents etc has no issues, usually 3-5 MBps.

Basically I have never had reason to complain about my connection until now when Netflix appears to have a horrible speed issue.

Any thoughts, experiences?

Cheers

gehenna

8495 posts

Uber Geek

Moderator

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1281190 11-Apr-2015 19:04

http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=151&topicid=171253

sloburn

70 posts

Master Geek

#1281194 11-Apr-2015 19:17

Ah right, so the gist of it is that Spark is having trouble with Netflix?

Is testmy.net a useful site for us or is it inaccurate?

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#1281210 11-Apr-2015 19:59

I've always found testmy.net to be pretty useless, to be honest. It consistently gives me far lower speeds than I get from any other tests, or from real world usage. For example, I just ran a test from them, that claimed I got only 2Mbps to their Melbourne test location. Yet immediately before it I was getting about 76Mbps from an AWS instance in Sydney, and nearly the same to another hosted service in Melbourne.

sloburn

70 posts

Master Geek

#1281233 11-Apr-2015 21:25

Ah ok thanks, that answers that one. What about the ping response? Surely a timeout is unusual? Or is this also common to the current issues with Spark and Netflix?

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#1281238 11-Apr-2015 21:35

sloburn: Ah ok thanks, that answers that one. What about the ping response? Surely a timeout is unusual? Or is this also common to the current issues with Spark and Netflix?

netflix.com doesn't respond to ICMP.

sloburn

70 posts

Master Geek

#1281313 12-Apr-2015 08:49

Ah I see.

Interestingly this morning I do a speed test on testmy.net and i'm getting 21.6 Mbps. Something definitely changed, i'm guessing traffic is a lot less on a Sunday morning but crazy that there's that much of a difference.

Jase2985

13457 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Lifetime subscriber

#1281322 12-Apr-2015 09:35

what test my server are you using?

why not just use speed test and use an international server, i find these are more accurate on the speed front.