Youtube being throttled on AT&T 6Mbit profiles? Seems like it to me…
I have been conistantly having buffering issues with Youtube using my standard home ADSL connection (6Mbit from ATT – ADSL).
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-