Supersport streaming problems? Multichoice says "change your ISP..."

DJ...

DJ...

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Following numerous complaints about Supersport's streaming service on their forums, they finally responded. And the response was, to paraphrase: "It's not our problem. It's your ISP"

Here's the statement from their site - http://forum.dstv.com/showthread.php?p=180824#post180824

You should consider changing your ISP as it seems like your the only one who's constantly experiencing this problem, 95% of the complaints on this thread are yours...

Our delivery of video streams (and the actual website itself) are done over a Content Delivery Network (CDN) provided by Level3. Level3 has partnerships with most major Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in South Africa and is one of the big 3 CDN providers worldwide. These partnerships allow us to distribute the load effectively to our user base. This means we basically provide one stream to the Level3 CDN and all users connect to their distribution servers and not directly to us.

The problem is that even though most ISPs are peered with the Level3 CDN there are some smaller ones that are not. What that means is that the route those ISPs use to connect to the CDN servers are not optimal and when load occurs they have a degraded level of service. This is not a degradation of our service but of their network.

Currently the biggest ISP not peered with Level3 is Afrihost and unfortunately until such time as they do peer with Level3 their customers will not be able to have the same video experience as the rest.

I hope that clarifies things for you
Click to expand...

Does this make sense? Does this also apply to capped accounts? I am using a capped account from Openweb, so not shaped, not throttled, and priority on the network.
 
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Let me guess: those with MWEB as an ISP have not problems whatsoever?
 
I would ask Afrihost to respond to the post and see what they have to say.
 
You should ask them why there aren't any issues with any other streaming sites, even international ones.
 
Internet Solutions is one of the largest Broadband providers in Africa.

They peer with most of the major networks on the continent.

A Capped account, like the one you are using receives priority on the network, and is completely unshaped and unthrottled. In fact, it is untouched by any shaping device, effectively leaving you with a clear route to the internet.

The only factor that could come into play here is the health of your line / Telkom exchange. However, if other streaming sites work well, then I doubt this is the case.

DJ... said:
Following numerous complaints about Supersport's streaming service on their forums, they finally responded. And the response was, to paraphrase: "It's not our problem. It's your ISP"

Here's the statement:



Does this make sense? Does this also apply to capped accounts? I am using a capped account from Openweb, so not shaped, not throttled, and priority on the network.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks MrBEEP. As expected, Supersport are simply trying to shift blame here...
 
Would be great if mybb does a follow on this using the replies from here... Have asked Afrihost for a statement.

DJ... said:
Following numerous complaints about Supersport's streaming service on their forums, they finally responded. And the response was, to paraphrase: "It's not our problem. It's your ISP"

Here's the statement:



Does this make sense? Does this also apply to capped accounts? I am using a capped account from Openweb, so not shaped, not throttled, and priority on the network.
Click to expand...
 
DJ... said:
Following numerous complaints about Supersport's streaming service on their forums, they finally responded. And the response was, to paraphrase: "It's not our problem. It's your ISP"

Here's the statement:



Does this make sense? Does this also apply to capped accounts? I am using a capped account from Openweb, so not shaped, not throttled, and priority on the network.
Click to expand...

Do you use any other streaming services? How is streaming in general? If it's only SS then they're clearly the problem... And others have also moaned about it, IIRC.
 
Necuno said:
Would be great if mybb does a follow on this using the replies from here... Have asked Afrihost for a statement.
Click to expand...

Already linked rpm to it all and requested a follow up story...

OrbitalDawn said:
Do you use any other streaming services? How is streaming in general? If it's only SS then they're clearly the problem... And others have also moaned about it, IIRC.
Click to expand...

The stream just died right now. I've got cricfree open in another tab. Clicked the stream and it plays perfectly. Go back to Supersport - still down. Back to cricfree - no problems...
 
DJ... said:
Thanks MrBEEP. As expected, Supersport are simply trying to shift blame here...
Click to expand...

DJ,

Where did you log complaints? I would like to do so as well. It's completely crap streaming from their site. Last night, while streaming I tested a Youtube video at 720p. It had no problem playing. The Supersport site kept on buffering though.
 
Yeah i cant stream from supersport either. Ive tried my adsl 4mb and also hspa+ mtn. Both suffer from stuttering. I load up ntv and stream, and guess what. NO ISSUES
 
Mweb launched the Free The Web campaign to encourage open-peering and thereon put up challenges with other limiting variables. Looking at this, it seems that Mweb is limiting packet movements within their own environment, so where is open-peering applicable to Mweb?

In their statement they clearly use Level3 nodes as a scapegoat, where is this node in mention hosted? Their node must still be able to communicate (over broadband) with their distribution network, who provides this IaaS to communicate to the outside under which agreement? Mweb also uses this opportunity to establish network degradation on those whom are their competition. Nice to point to AH btw…

Anyway, they must note that Level3 also “peers” with other CDN’s.

I believe the limitation is set by Mweb and nobody else.
 
That's just a bunch of horse crap really.
Tried to stream the Curling the other day and couldn't get 10 seconds without the stream buffering for an eternity. For hell of it i tried YT and could stream perfectly in 1080p while the SS stream was still buffering.
 
My experience the last 6 months or so was with TI and now AH for the last 3 weeks.

My streaming with SS using TI was mostly okay until a big game (rugby) was on then it would go south with frequent buffering or not able to log in for long periods.

I watched the cricket last week as well as the Bull vs Sharks game and it was mostly good with some light buffering (spinning circle for about 5 seconds every 10 minutes or so), during the rugby game. The cricket was smooth.

If you guys can recall, someone mentioned a while back that he was in the same building where the streaming occurred and he could not watch a game either?

Edit:
Also it is a bit stupid to claim it i your ISP, because 95% of the complaints come from you and your ISP is AH?

With regards to the cdn servers. I did a cdn dns server request 2 weeks ago for my website and it did improve my speed rating.
Not a boffin on it, so would not know if this would work.
 
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Does their Level3 partnership mean that the content is hosted internationally or locally?
 
They have now changed my DSTv forum settings to moderated, and no posts I make will be visible until a moderator has approved it...:mad:
 
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