Contact traffic shaping?

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toyoto

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Wannabe Geek

#324637 6-May-2026 20:57

I am currently with contact 500/100 and I suspect they are doing traffic shaping or throttling (not too sure what it is exactly)

I'm having a lot of trouble with iptv and stremio (with torbox) during peak times even though speedtest are minimum 250 download.

Current hardware is a unifi gateway with a grandstream AP GWN7610, using a firestick 4k max over wifi and a Google streamer 4k over ethernet

I opted out of cgnat and that didn't help

I'm thinking of moving to quic but wondering if there's anything else I could try first.

I'm in north auckland if that makes any difference

Thanks for reading this

michaelmurfy

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#3488277 6-May-2026 21:06

You'll find that no ISP's in NZ do any traffic shaping or throttling these days. It's really a thing of the past.

Michael Murphy | https://murfy.nz
Referral Links: Quic Broadband (use R122101E7CV7Q for free setup)

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toyoto

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Wannabe Geek

#3488279 6-May-2026 21:11

Thanks for the reply.

Would it help to change the dns? Currently the primary is the router gateway and the secondary is 14.1.33.1

MichaelNZ

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#3488296 6-May-2026 22:11

We don't limit users bandwidth and I doubt anyone else does. The cost / benefit doesn't stack up.

This isn't to say some people won't experience slow speeds depending on network capacity (more likely an issue for international) and whats happening at the other end.

But intentional hard packet limiting on UFB isn't a thing I can ever remember seeing.

KiwiSurfer

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#3488370 7-May-2026 10:47

If you have mobile with sufficent data to hot spot off or family/friends you can visit to try their different provider, try that and see if you have the same issues.

Could just be their side is the problem and not your RSP.

However I find your comment that you get min 250 odd. You should always get 500+ to local speedtest servers 24/7 assuming you have no other traffic and a correctly configured router. Are you running anything else on your network that may be quietly using a lot of bandwidth. I think the Unifi allows you to see in real time the amount of traffic passing through, have a look and see if it's what you expect.

abhi09

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Wannabe Geek

#3504949 20-Jun-2026 22:11

I’m experiencing what sounds like the same issue on Contact fibre!

I'm on a 500/100 connection as well. I tested the same IPTV service across an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield and Mac, all connected by Ethernet. The streams buffered heavily on Contact, but worked perfectly over mobile data and on a friend's 2degrees broadband connection using the same login and stream. I haven't opted out of CG-NAT, and it doesn't sound like that would help anyway.

So far I’ve tried:

Changing DNS to Cloudflare - no improvement
Replacing the router with another router - no improvement
Testing multiple devices and IPTV apps - same buffering issue
Routing through two overseas Tailscale exit nodes - no meaningful improvement; however, this could be due to the poor download speeds I get while on Tailscale, so this can be discarded
Connecting through Proton VPN to a New Zealand server - completely smooth, including 4K UHD streams

I have no issues with Stremio, however. All 4K files play fine.

It does appear like Contact's having some trouble with their routes, or maybe they're throttling/traffic-shaping and is probably not the best ISP for watching IPTV?

michaelmurfy

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#3504952 20-Jun-2026 22:55

abhi09: It does appear like Contact's having some trouble with their routes, or maybe they're throttling/traffic-shaping and is probably not the best ISP for watching IPTV?

There is no traffic shaping on Contact or any other ISP as per my previous post. That is very much not a thing these days.

They also use Devoli, like many other providers. Devoli actually is a pretty good ISP.

Perhaps provide some further information eg, IP addresses you're having problems with?