YouTube streaming/downloads is throttled on Act Broadband

Anyone else experiencing serious issues with YouTube in Bangalore? I can't get through a simple 720p video without constant buffering. Often the quality drops to 144p or simply fails to buffer. Happening since December 1st and only with youtube and not other streaming websites causing me to wonder if ACT is throttling youtube on their end. Or it might be an issue with the google servers. I've tried various DNS providers, no luck.

Edit: I have ZERO problems while using a VPN and everything's smooth. I've tried both India and US vpn servers and they stream fine.

It's probably a peering issue between Google's ISP and whoever is providing ACT's international gateway (probably Tata, BT or Verizon) or ACT's national backbone provider. When bandwidth exchange is not equal at the peering point, the party consuming more has to pay else the other party starts throttling. Happens all the time all over the world. Should get resolved between the companies in time. File a complaint to put additional pressure on them.

No throttling at Chennai yet. Was able to playback multiple 1080p videos without any buffering.

EDIT: Chennai and Mumbai have large submarine cable landing points which are owned by international ISPs. So Chennai traffic won't ride on the national backbone at all when the server is located overseas. Whereas Bangalore traffic necessarily has to ride on a backbone owned by BSNL or Airtel to reach one of the international gateways at Chennai or Mumbai. My guess is it's a peering dispute between ACT and one of their national bandwidth providers.

Zaphod said:

It's probably a peering issue between Google's ISP and whoever is providing ACT's international gateway (probably Tata, BT or Verizon) or ACT's national backbone provider. When bandwidth exchange is not equal at the peering point, the party consuming more has to pay else the other party starts throttling. Happens all the time all over the world. Should get resolved between the companies in time. File a complaint to put additional pressure on them.

No throttling at Chennai yet. Was able to playback multiple 1080p videos without any buffering.

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Thanks. I just want to be absolutely sure if it is an issue with ACT before taking it up with them. I dread calling their customer care, it usually takes me better part of an hour trying to reach their number and make them understand what the issue is- and the end of it all, their sage advice would be to restart my router. Finally they'll register a complaint and send over a guy after a day or two, someone who does not have the faintest clue how a network works, he'll toy around for some time and then proceed to call another guy to whom I'll have to explain the whole ordeal once again. They'll politely promise to look into it and get back to you soon and within a few minutes you receive an sms saying the complaint has been closed and I finally just give up.

Click the link below to read all about a major peering dispute between Verizon, Netflix and Level 3 when you have the time. Stuff like this happens with YouTube all over the world since they send tons of traffic to ISPs. 🙂

Why is Netflix buffering? Dispelling the congestion myth | About Verizon

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The new title is misleading. There's a good chance that YouTube's ISP is at fault here and not ACT or its partners.

@Jay you should tweet at Google India as well. They have a lot of influence in these inter ISP matters.

New title ok? 🙂

Yes. 🙂

Jay said:

Anyone else experiencing serious issues with YouTube in Bangalore? I can't get through a simple 720p video without constant buffering. Often the quality drops to 144p or simply fails to buffer. Happening since December 1st and only with youtube and not other streaming websites causing me to wonder if ACT is throttling youtube on their end. Or it might be an issue with the google servers. I've tried various DNS providers, no luck.

Edit: I have ZERO problems while using a VPN and everything's smooth. I've tried both India and US vpn servers and they stream fine.

Click to expand...

I have the same problem too. I just took their connection this month. Everyday around 8:00 PM to 11:00 PM youtube will not stream it stutters even for 144p videos. Around this time internet disconnects three times have to reconnect it.All my corp meetings go into trash bin Have to rejoin my bluejeans meetings. Obviously there is a traffic route change and on that route youtube, microsoft,everything is being throttled.It comes back to original route after 11 PM. I just complained to them to disconnect mine.

Back to normal I guess. Let's see.

@Zaphod Hey can you do a speedtest.net to Softlayer, Singapore and let me know if you're getting full speeds? Or anywhere else for that matter.

@Jay I'm getting about 75 Mbps up and down to Singapore servers. Ping is in the late 30s. I get 90+ Mbps to local test servers. This is over WiFi.

@Zaphod Sorry, I thought you were online then. Can you check again please? Anytime between 5pm - 1 am. Speeds to servers outside India have been so bad the past week.

@Jay I am getting more than 80 Mbps to Singapore, Seoul and Tokyo but only 10 Mbps to Bangalore. Looks like the link between Bangalore and the international gateway at Chennai is messed up. I have no issues with YouTube or Netflix. Both stream in HD after that initial couple of seconds of buffering. I am sure the ACT NOC must be aware of the issue.

Thanks! So just Bangalore then. Such a shame since the network is usually flawless when it works. For the past few months the service has been crappy and has caused me to downgrade to a lower plan.

I'd appreciate a headsup from ACT when such things occur rather than them trying to blame it on each other or pretending that there is no disruption. The cc even had the audacity to suggest that as long as it's showing 100/100 to the ACT local server they can't be held responsible or that there is no issue with the network.

This is an interesting read :-

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