I’m having surprising results when streaming online video services using my N66U router. I’m somewhat comfortable with computers, but I’m not a networking expert. All values reported below are Mbps, not MB/s.
I have a CenturyLink 40/20 connection. The C2000A modem is in transparent bridge mode and the N66U does all of the routing. I have the 5Ghz channel disabled. I can verify my 40/20 connection using a wired computer on speedtest.net, uploading/downloading via Dropbox, and uploading/downloading via Google Drive. No problems there, everything looks good +/-10%.
First question:
When streaming video to a wired computer from Netflix, the bitrate is ~9.5Mbps. When streaming HD from YouTube the bitrate is ~12Mbps. These values are pulled from the router’s traffic monitor. I believe Netflix has a 25Mbps steaming tier, why is my steaming only ~9.5Mbps? Is this Netflix throttling, CenturyLink throttling, backbone congestion? Is there anything I can do to improve this and make better use of the 40/20 connection?
Second question:
When streaming video to a wireless device from Netflix or YouTube the bitrate is ~2.5Mbps. This was tested with nearly identical results using a Chromecast, phone, and laptop. I can transfer large files from my phone (wireless) to a computer (wired) directly at ~88Mbps, so the wifi does not seem to be the bottleneck. Running speedtest.net from any of these wireles devices shows roughly 22/20. If the wifi can transfer at 88Mbps, why does speedtest.net show a reduced internet speed, and why is the streaming video bitrate reduced to ~2.5Mbps over wireless?
Ideally I’d like to bump up the streaming bitrate to make better use of our 40/20 connection and make the wireless results more closely match the wired results. Is there something I can optimize in the router, or is this behavior to be expected?
Thanks in advance for any help,
--Jon
I have a CenturyLink 40/20 connection. The C2000A modem is in transparent bridge mode and the N66U does all of the routing. I have the 5Ghz channel disabled. I can verify my 40/20 connection using a wired computer on speedtest.net, uploading/downloading via Dropbox, and uploading/downloading via Google Drive. No problems there, everything looks good +/-10%.
First question:
When streaming video to a wired computer from Netflix, the bitrate is ~9.5Mbps. When streaming HD from YouTube the bitrate is ~12Mbps. These values are pulled from the router’s traffic monitor. I believe Netflix has a 25Mbps steaming tier, why is my steaming only ~9.5Mbps? Is this Netflix throttling, CenturyLink throttling, backbone congestion? Is there anything I can do to improve this and make better use of the 40/20 connection?
Second question:
When streaming video to a wireless device from Netflix or YouTube the bitrate is ~2.5Mbps. This was tested with nearly identical results using a Chromecast, phone, and laptop. I can transfer large files from my phone (wireless) to a computer (wired) directly at ~88Mbps, so the wifi does not seem to be the bottleneck. Running speedtest.net from any of these wireles devices shows roughly 22/20. If the wifi can transfer at 88Mbps, why does speedtest.net show a reduced internet speed, and why is the streaming video bitrate reduced to ~2.5Mbps over wireless?
Ideally I’d like to bump up the streaming bitrate to make better use of our 40/20 connection and make the wireless results more closely match the wired results. Is there something I can optimize in the router, or is this behavior to be expected?
Thanks in advance for any help,
--Jon
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