ISP that shape twitch.tv

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vdda

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This is a question for any twitch.tv regulars. Does your ISP shape twitch.tv?

I was with Afrihost and was not able to watch it on any quality settings with an 2mb uncapped account. I moved over to Axxess with a 4mb capped account (supposedly nothing is shaped on uncapped) but I still cant watch streams on Medium settings without it turning into a slideshow (the download seems capped at about 1mbs).

Any suggestions as to witch ISP I should use?
 
Twitch is always a problem... I can stream 720p on most things on my 4meg line, Twitch I'm lucky if I get anything on lowest...
 
vdda said:
This is a question for any twitch.tv regulars. Does your ISP shape twitch.tv?

I was with Afrihost and was not able to watch it on any quality settings with an 2mb uncapped account. I moved over to Axxess with a 4mb capped account (supposedly nothing is shaped on uncapped) but I still cant watch streams on Medium settings without it turning into a slideshow (the download seems capped at about 1mbs).

Any suggestions as to witch ISP I should use?
Click to expand...

Afrihost and Axxess both use MTN.

Why not grab a free 1gig account from Web Africa to test?
 
Twitch have terrible upstream providers and in their FAQs literally tell people that they want ISPs to peer with them directly... kind of difficult from SA. They don't plan to increase their non-direct peering capacity (i.e. us) which will mean that the more people that use twitch from ISPs that don't peer directly, the worse it will get.

I'm unshaped on a 4meg line. Can 1080p youtubes. Cant mobile quality twitch :/
 
YMMV. Afrihost 4mb. Can 720p youtubes. Can 480p twitch.tv (and other live streams).
 
Thanks for the feedback gents (and the suggestion Chevron; I think I'll try that).
 
Some feedback.

As suggested I tried WebAfrica and was able to watch twitch.tv on Medium without any stuttering (I was so happy that I forgot to test it on High quality).

I decided to jump back to Axxess (just to make sure that it was not a fluke) and the stuttering started. Tried WA again (semi-OCD thing going on here) and it worked fine. Back on A again and can't even stream it on Low (it's in a state of buffering 80% of the time).

See the image below for my wifi usage during Medium quality (WebAfrica results on the left -- buffering and waiting without any problems -- and Axxess on the right):
Untitled.jpg

My speculation is that MTN is the problem since I had the same problem with Afrihost (and the Axxess support seems to have no knowledge about any shaping on twitch.tv).
 
vdda said:
Some feedback.

As suggested I tried WebAfrica and was able to watch twitch.tv on Medium without any stuttering (I was so happy that I forgot to test it on High quality).

I decided to jump back to Axxess (just to make sure that it was not a fluke) and the stuttering started. Tried WA again (semi-OCD thing going on here) and it worked fine. Back on A again and can't even stream it on Low (it's in a state of buffering 80% of the time).

See the image below for my wifi usage during Medium quality (WebAfrica results on the left -- buffering and waiting without any problems -- and Axxess on the right):
View attachment 105274

My speculation is that MTN is the problem since I had the same problem with Afrihost (and the Axxess support seems to have no knowledge about any shaping on twitch.tv).
Click to expand...

Nice graphs.

Looks I have confirmation going Web Africa Business will be a good idea.
 
Im on Afrihost with a 2 mb ADSL line and i can stream medium quality perfectly, since they fixed the capacity problem its been a lot better!
 
Frikkenator said:
Yea I don't think it's your ISP, much like everyone else I can stream everything in HD except twitch, their streaming is widely known to be one of the worst.
Click to expand...

Um no.

I stream Twitch in HD. I've said this many times before. Afrihost(and Axxess) aren't meant for streaming.

If you want to Stream get something IS based(Like Web Africa).
 
mogley1011 said:
Im on Afrihost with a 2 mb ADSL line and i can stream medium quality perfectly, since they fixed the capacity problem its been a lot better!
Click to expand...

How long you been working for Afrihost?

AFAIK they haven't fixed their capacity issues yet.
 
Chevron said:
How long you been working for Afrihost?

AFAIK they haven't fixed their capacity issues yet.
Click to expand...

Was with Afrihost for years and could never really enjoy Twitch (with my 10Mbps line). Over the last year I have tested streaming, specifically Twitch, on WA, CrystalWeb and Vox and they are all IS based ISP's and streaming worked perfectly on them (except about 3 or 4 times when there was congestion).

I am currently with VOX and have not had a single issue with any streaming!
 
I can stream medium on Vox fatpipe with a 10Mb/s line. I can sometimes get high, but then it freezes to buffer occasionally. Even at high quality, Twitch looks pretty bad though :(
 
roguemat said:
I can stream medium on Vox fatpipe with a 10Mb/s line. I can sometimes get high, but then it freezes to buffer occasionally. Even at high quality, Twitch looks pretty bad though :(
Click to expand...

Yeah High is not really High Quality especially with fast moving images. Source quality is the way to go. I should also say that when I'm watching Twitch on High or Source, there is very little else going on on my line. If the wife or daughter climbs onboard it buffers a little on High, but still tons better than Afrihost.
 
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