Not a single video running 480p or higher will pre-load without me getting a buffering icon in the center of the screen. I have a ‘Network meter’ widget on my Windows 7 desktop, (for giggles) and I watch the traffic sputter up and down, I am able to right click on a youtube video and view the information, and see that transfer speeds are constantly bouncing 0 -> 2500Mbits, up and down, up and down.. sputter sputter sputter…

Ok so right about now you’re thinking, you didn’t configure your modem, your profile isn’t @ 6Mbit, or any other factors that would discount my idea that ATT is throttling Youtube (probly to push a 6Mbit user to U-Verse is my idea — 6Mbit is listed as unsatisfactory for `HD` video… ha!).

Here is what I discovered

I setup a proxy server on my 100Mbit dedicated server (caveat here is it is in a professional hosting center, in New Jersey). I setup my proxy connection in firefox to use my server. The beauty here is, that I saturate my 6Mbit pipe right away! I can view a 1080p video as soon as the page loads, I get no delay, I have YET to run into a buffer pause. I have good non throttled (guaranteed) bandwidth allocation at my hosting facility, so I’m just thinking of routing all my house traffic over VPN to my server.

I want to try this as I am really suspicious that I am having media throttled by ATT.

Has anyone else done these types of tests? What were your outcomes? I am very curious to know, as my experience is NIGHT and DAY!

I max out my youtube experience when I view via my proxy, but it is barely watchable without my proxy (traffic shaping from ATT?).

I will most likely make a video of the comparison if people are interested, I just wasn’t sure if digging more into this is worth my time.

Thanks for reading, curious on your feedback.

I posted this also on dslreports.com:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r26619828-Speed-Problem-Youtube-being-throttled-on-ATT-6Mbit-profiles-

I was always overly anal with these accusations (being an IT person and having some understanding of the underlying infrastructure), I would point out to friends and anyone that brought up the issue that in fact is was just an advertising / business tactic, that the business that supplied ADSL would say, Cable was slow due to ‘hogs’. While Cable would dispute the ADSL company by saying it wasn’t true, and that in fact the hogs were just as bad on the ADSL lines (which they attributed to ‘old telephone wires’ not having the support).

Anyway, jump forward many years and finally someone has written a great article about this ‘bandwidth hog’ myth:

You might recall that back in 2009, we mentioned a piece claiming that the “bandwidth hog,” a term used ceaselessly by industry executives to justify rate hikes, net neutrality infractions, and pretty much everything else — was a myth. The piece was penned by Yankee analyst Benoit Felten and Herman Wagter, who knows a little something about consumption — as he’s the man largely responsible for Amsterdam’s FTTH efforts. The problem wasn’t bandwidth hogs, argued Wagter, the problem was poorly designed networks built by people more interested in cutting corners than offering quality product.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/The-Bandwidth-Hog-is-a-Myth-117230

Enjoy, and leave a comment how you’ve encountered the bandwidth hog in your internet usage. Have you been hit with rate hikes due to ‘bandwidth hogs’?

I don’t know about you but isn’t standby mode advertised `up to` 200 hours? Maybe that `up to` really needs quotations as it might require shutting the phones capabilities off completely (airplane mode?). I can’t imagine why anyone would want a smart phone only to disable data, gps, wifi, etc; to get it to run for min 1-2 days without a recharge.

How to get your iPhone 4s working

Anyway, cutting the rant short, I have been trying different settings, back and forth since I got the phone, and I really got good results by disabling the Location Services for the Reminders (as I imagined they ping quite frequently to get the GPS bearing, as the reminders are location specific now). Recall that SIRI is capable of setting a reminded for “when I get home” or “when I get into the office”. Those are features, that one would imagine require constant GPS checking (after all checking every 15/20 minutes doesn’t make sense.. I could get home in under that time and then what? Later reminder.

Give it a try, see how it goes. I know I have my Apple ‘fast lane’ support call scheduled, as I can’t stomach a phone that only has battery life for ~6hrs or so with full features.

Case in point, one of the things that nobody seems to ask is ‘at what speed’ will that milage be reached? If I buy that Ford Focus 2011 model, how would I reach 40MPG? Would it be at a maximum speed of ~55MPH? Or something higher?

I recall being at Honda while my coworker was getting his oil change done on this car, and I asked one of the Sales Reps, “At what speed will this Civic achieve the advertised MPG rating?” and none of the 3 present were able to give me an answer. In the end without looking foolish one of the reps said “I get that milage when I do ~75MPH”, to which I kindly laughed and shuffled away to find my coworker.

This may be a moot request, but I would love to see real world examples from manufacturers. I think it is simply a fear of them looking bad due to a poor performing vehicle, imagine advertising and paying for an estimate from the EPA of ~40MPG and then running a real world test that people can witness and your car only does ~31MPG at best under speeds most common for commuters (~60-80MPG in Michigan at least).

Getting back to the topic, I would challenge a manufacturer like Tesla to do a cross continent drive, show people that “Yes, the time has come for electric to really be a reliable solution.” Have someone drive across and charge at night (~300MP Charge/day). Then show the cost of the electrical bill. I think it would be a positive (if it performs as advertised) mark for the company. In fact any company that touts its electric fleet should do this, I’m really tired of seeing these ‘amazing’ 0 emission vehicles, but then realizing that they are effectively tethered to a small area.

Anyway, challenge proposed… who will answer the call?

Ref: http://www.teslamotors.com/models

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Owners of the 2nd generation Apple TV on iOS 4.2.1 will soon be able to jailbreak their devices, untethered thanks to the upcoming GreenPois0n RC6. Joshua Hill of the Chronic Dev Team confirmed it earlier today. http://twitter.com/p0sixninja/status/34102372288438273

I’m not really about pitching stuff on my blog, but I was excited to find (on ebay of all things) Cowboom.com, a Best Buy ‘Outlet’ that sells referbs and used devices / laptops etc;

The great thing is they sell the Apple TV 2 for $79.99! Which is great, personally I could care less if the Apple TV was pre-opened or not, the model I got was brand spanking new looking, and I saved $20 bucks.

Anyway, my plan for my ATV2 is to hack it with XBMC and run my local network shows/movies off it. Saves my MacMini from being dedicated to just that effort, and for $80 bucks, hey its a no brainier. Plus Apple products have a tendency to keep their value well, so I’m sure if I get tired of this I can pawn it off on ebay for almost the same amount that I purchased it for.

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This is ultimately pretty cool, but very unusable as an every day piece.  I really like my watch for the simple fact that it is always reliable, I never have to worry about charging it, the battery dies once in a blue moon (every couple years), plus I don’t own a Nano, and if I did, this would not be the greatest way to listen to it, can you imagine a big white cord hanging off your wrist.

Running with one of these would be pointless too, just another thing to plug a nike connector onto, I would rather just settle for my already clunky Garmin 305 (which is another story all together).

However this still is a pretty cool idea, even if it isn’t for me. If you want to get in on this, they are doing a ‘pre-order’ means of getting this product to market, details @ Kickstarter.

Full story here:
http://gizmodo.com/5692738/the-ipod-nano-watches-to-rule-them-all-trust-me-here