Buffering on fibre optic at 4 Mbps?

[stadleroux]

Are there any settings that can be changed on an Android TV box - Nexbox A95X - or the router providing the wifi - Huawei B315 - to minimise buffering? We've finally managed to get my mom's Vumatel fibre and Telkom data service activated, but now it's buffering just about as much as when she was still using ADSL! :wtf: She's been streaming filmontv to her computer for just under a year now and even after I'd set up her TV with the TV box she still preferred watching stuff on her computer because she found it easier to use and she would experience much less buffering there than on the TV. I would always try out the TV when I was here though, and some times would be lucky enough to watch a whole evening with one or two short buffering interruptions. In the past two evenings since the fibre optic service had been activated, I'm not sure if I've watched more than 10 minutes without some buffering, and what is more, we also see a lot more buffering on her computer, where the wifi doesn't even come into play! I used the MyBroadband Speed Test app this afternoon and it seemed pretty erratic, but the average download speed was just more than 4 Mbps.

I also have Vumatel 4 Mbps fibre optic at home, but VoxTelecom is my data service provider and I have almost no buffering at all of pretty much the same channels. I have a Minix Neo U1 TV box and some tiny nondescript router that I got from VoxTelecom. I know the Minix has double the storage space and memory of the Nexbox, but it's also a lot more expensive. Exactly because of the limited storage space of the Nexbox I haven't even used Kodi on it yet; must say I was hoping we'd be able to with the fibre optic connection, but now we can't even comfortably watch what we used to on ADSL!

 

[IguBu]

I know you have asked for tweaking settings etc, and the nah sayers will be on here telling us all how they do it - but in reality - a 4Mbps line and streaming - no ways to guarantee no bufferinf, it’s simply too slow- unless you force your streaming res to 360p or something, you will get buffering. Remember any device on the same network just checking for some security update, heck even a few whatsapp fotos that download while the stream loads will pull the 4Mbps flat... the fact that its on fibre vs adsl at the same download speed makes no difference - could be the “4Mbps” adsl was actually running at 5Mbps - most newer telkom exchanges with optimisation did that.. 4 ran at 5.2, 8 ran at 10, 10 ran at 12 etc. where with fibre you might be hard set to actual 4 now - almost 25% slower for downloads. The isp can make a difference especially when streaming international, try some demo or pre paid accounts to test- i use vox, and before crystalweb- both works much better for streaming - and of course stay away from
Uncapped packages- they are the worst for streaming...

If you have fibre, changes are you can up the speed... nothing to lose to try it for a month- (except a few rands) my recommendation if you want no buffering - 20Mbps at least - and ensure its a proper capped account that doesnt throttle streaming. Lots of choices but im a user of fatpipe from vox - its not expensive really - starts at 99 /month or so.

Currently waiting on fibre activation, but my 12.5Mbps adsl streams fine around 80% of the time..

Good luck!