Categories: Connectivity and the Internet
I'm pretty sure no one can help me with this but I want it at least out there in case someone else runs into this.
My parents have a Slingbox AV I set up for them that I access mainly to help setting up their Replay TV for them. I'm tech support not only for their computers but their TVs as well :-)
Around December or so, I noticed a huge drop off in bandwidth trying to access their Slingbox. What used to be 400-500 kbps dropped to 75-115 kbps, got really choppy and essentially unusable. What was odd was if I used my Motorola Q to access the Slingbox, the data rate was back to normal.
On a whim I tried something that shouldn't have worked. I VPN'd into my work network and tried the Slingbox. Back to 500 kbps and everything works fine. Assuming that Time Warner - Columbus (my provider) would have no interest in blocking/restricting a download of that speed, it brings me to the conclusion that Comcast - Pittsburgh (my parent's provider) is monkeying with the upload..... but only to Time Warner. Knowing that Comcast is already spoofing packets concerns me, but I hadn't heard them doing it with any other traffic.
To make sure they hadn't singled out my IP address I changed that with no effect. And last night I had to get a new cable modem as they are phasing out my old one, and that also had no effect.
I haven't gone to a neighbor yet to see if I still have the same problems. I should do that next. But it just seems bizarre in the first place. Has anyone else experienced something like this? I don't think I have any recourse, my parents aren't going to change for this.
Thanks for letting me vent.
-Bret
There have been reports/complaints in the national news about Comcast doing some fiddling with upload speeds in order to "fairly accommodate all users". I believe that this is being challenged both in the courts and in congress, but have heard nothing recently. You might do a search on SlingCommunity for additional reports.
Floyd
I have been chasing this same problem with Insight in Columbus. The speed seems to be better in the morning but not half of what I can get on a comcast / comcast network. My sling is on comcast in Florida and I can remotely start a slingplayer machine on comcast in Colorado and I get 1000+. Within a minute I can start a machine in Columbus and get 0-200. I had great success with the sling until mid - late December. I thought something was wrong with the sling until I got the Colorado site up and running. This looks like comcast is the culprit. If there is any work around I would sure like to know it. Otherwise the sling is of very little use.
If it works fine in a Comcast to Comcast environment, then Comcast is not the issue. There's a lot of reasons why there could be issues. First of all, speeds on cable networks are not guaranteed. They may vary depending on the number of users that are all active on your local node. This has nothing to do with the shenanigans that Comcast is doing with delaying some traffic. To my knowledge, they have not touch Slingbox traffic yet. The only traffic they have messed with AFAIK, is bit torrent. But since they have messed with stuff, the assumption people automatically have is that Comcast is doing something when they have a problem. But if Comcast feels you are using too much bandwidth it doesn't matter if the traffic is entirely on their network or going to another network. In fact, having the traffic entirely on their network is worse!
There could be some bad routers, some bad traffic paths, your network in Columbus could have a problem, etc. It's hard to say.
Slinging with a Slingbox Pro, a Slingbox Solo and a Slingbox Classic. 3 Replay TV units, a Roku HD1000 Photobridge and a Roku M2000 Soundbridge, an AppleTV, a Vudu, and digital cable. www.na9d.net
Yesterday I was convinced it was not deliberate but a node on the line that was dropping huge amount of packets that for some reason hadn't been noticed. So I did a couple of traceroutes from Pittsburgh to Columbus home and Pittsburgh to Columbus work (which is Time-Warner Telecom btw). Unfortunately, the routes are identical up to the point they transfer from Comcast-Roadrunner or Comcast-TWTelecom. The traceroute did show alot of non returns though. Ex.
Comcast-RR
4 170 ms * 9 ms te-8-1-ur01.mckeesport.pa.pitt.comcast.net [68.6.100.102]
5 9 ms 228 ms * te-8-3-ar01.mckeesport.pa.pitt.comcast.net [68.6.100.45]
Comcast-TWT
4 * 8 ms 10 ms te-8-1-ur01.mckeesport.pa.pitt.comcast.net [68.86.100.102]
5 * 9 ms * te-8-3-ar01.mckeesport.pa.pitt.comcast.net [68.86.100.45]
Don't know if that is an issue. Only the Comcast-RR track had those high 170-228 type return numbers though.
Speedtests in various places from my parent's Comcast were all 3 Mbps down - 800 kbps up. Watched my parent's Slingbox at work yesterday, 775 kbps consistent. Tried to get to the Slingbox last night at home no VPN.... 65 kbps. And this is consistent, no matter what time of day it is.
And just one other piece of information for this not to make sense. I VNC'd into my parent's computer without going through my work VPN, and it was actually working pretty well, but I don't know if I'm at that 65 kbps threshold at that point.
Frustrating.
-Bret
I have been having this same problem between Comcast in Atlanta and Time Warner Road Runner in Colmbus, OH.
Until November-December 2007, Slingplayer on my laptop from Columbus/Time Warner/Road Runner to my Slingbox in Atlanta/Comcast ran great. Suddenly it became unwatchable. It starts at a maximum of maybe 120 kbps (way slower than it used to be), then quickly drops to 0-35 kbps, stutters and skips, then stops completely.
I pay an extra for faster up/down speeds on my Atlanta Comcast, so that's not the problem. Speed tests from both locations are great.
I can watch fine from other locations or from my cell phone (SlingPlayer Mobile), and it works great.
Remote desktop sessions (Windows Remote Desktop, pcAnywhere, VNC) between these sites have taken a nosedive. Same with video.
I'm convinced Time Warner and/or Comcast is intentionally breaking this. Of course, asking either of them about the problem is laughable.
Just wanted to throw my 2cents in that I am having the same exact issue. I have a SlingBox in Pittsburgh on a Comcast system. It worked great until last month... I have Insight/RoadRunner at home. Speedtests on both systems are fine. I can connect to the SlingBox from anywhere else except RoadRunner just fine.
The weird thing...I had my laptop at a friend's place in a different neighborhood a few months ago who also has Insight/RR and I was experiencing these issues, but I just wrote it off as a bad connection at his apartment, so it seems that RR may have implemented something against Comcast specifically, but only incoming. I also tried to change the ports, but that didn't seem to make a difference.
Recently I purchased a 2nd SlingBox that I set up here in Columbus. My friend in Pittsburgh where SlingBox#1 is located can connect to my SlingBox#2 here in Columbus just fine. I can also connect to my SlingBox#2 from work just fine (TimeWarner Business Class).
So my experience is:
Sling from Comcast to RR = doesn't work.
Sling from Comcast to Comcast or Other ISP's = seems to work fine.
Sling from RR to Comcast = works fine.
Sling from RR to RR or Other ISPs = works fine.
WTF??
It seems it might be specific to us in Columbus. Not something I expected, I thought it was more likely Comcast's fault. It's strange you didn't see any problems sooner though. It's been at least since December.
My parents are switching providers to Verizon FiOS. I'm done dealing with this problem, hopefully. 15Mbps down AND up! Now we'll see some sweet slinging :-)
-Bret
Yeah, I don't have the luxury of switching providers as it's at a friend's house. Maybe I can convince them to switch to FiOS when they move to their new house next month ;) I really only use that box to watch Pittsburgh Penguins hockey, luckily I've been able to find it on alternate sources via the 'Net for now. :)
I have added VPN capable routers to each end and it works at near full upload allowance. I can typically get 650 on my "700+" allowed upload speed. The VPN runs on a different port than the sling so my suspicion is that if I just used the VPN port # instead of the sling default 5001 it might work. I have not had a chance to try this though.
NA9D said: If it works fine in a Comcast to Comcast environment, then Comcast is not the issue. There's a lot of reasons why there could be issues. First of all, speeds on cable networks are not guaranteed. They may vary depending on the number of users that are all active on your local node. This has nothing to do with the shenanigans that Comcast is doing with delaying some traffic. To my knowledge, they have not touch Slingbox traffic yet. The only traffic they have messed with AFAIK, is bit torrent. But since they have messed with stuff, the assumption people automatically have is that Comcast is doing something when they have a problem. But if Comcast feels you are using too much bandwidth it doesn't matter if the traffic is entirely on their network or going to another network. In fact, having the traffic entirely on their network is worse! There could be some bad routers, some bad traffic paths, your network in Columbus could have a problem, etc. It's hard to say.Actually I'd point the finger at comcast. I had an issue back just before the comcast shenanigans became public. I couldn't get from comcast to my slingbox on RR. I had a friend check and RR -> RR worked and my brother on the other side of the earth worked as well.
As I understand it the network companies pay each other for traffic that travels TO another network so there would be an incentive to slow traffic TO other networks and make ones own network as fast as possible.
I may be having the same problem. I am in Texas on Timewarner trying to connect to a slingbox tuner at my parents' place in Pennsylvania (Comcast). My connection speed is fine, but when I try to connect to the slingbox I get speeds of under 100kbps. But I recently downloaded and installed Hotspot Shield, which creates a VPN, and now I get speeds in the high 600s and it works fine. If this isn't a comcast/timewarner issue, does anyone have any idea what the problem could be?
So..........
I got my parent's on Verizon with 15Mbps up and down. I've still got the same problem! And it's not just the Slingbox, I couldn't get anything done last night on my parent's new router from Verizon unless I went through my work's VPN or used the Hotspot Shield(speeds close to 900kps for the Slingbox with Hotspot btw). To me, that narrows this down to a Time Warner problem, perhaps a Time Warner Columbus problem, so I'm going to gather as much information as possible, remove my Linksys router to get it out of the equation, and try to get them to look at it. Because the last step is for me to get a new provider. I've done some more traceroutes from Pittsburgh to my home and I consistently get a drop or two here:
8 * * 35 ms gig0-3-0.mtgmoh1-rtr0.columbus.rr.com [24.95.81.213]
So that is where I'm going to have them look first.
I'll let you know.
Hi all.
So last Friday night I started doing my tests. If any of you are having this problem I suggest you try to do something similar for those techy enough.
I set up an FTP server in my network and exposed the port (21 I believe). I then remote controlled to my work and downloaded a 40 MB test file. Results below
ftp> mget Cl*.mkv
200 Switching to Binary mode.
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mk
v (41279968 bytes).
226 File send OK.
ftp: 41279968 bytes received in 665.95Seconds 61.99Kbytes/sec.
61.99 Kbytes or 619.9 kbps is close to my 750 kbps upload speed so all is normal.
I then did the opposite and uploaded the file right back.
ftp> mput Cl*.mkv
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Ok to send data.
226 File receive OK.
ftp: 41279968 bytes sent in 220.61Seconds 187.12Kbytes/sec.
Also very successful.
Now I did the exact same thing remotely at my parent's house.
ftp> mget Clerks*.mkv
200 Switching to Binary mode.
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mk
v (41279968 bytes).
226 File send OK.
ftp: 41279968 bytes received in 639.72Seconds 64.53Kbytes/sec.
All good. Now the final test to upload the file back to my house in Columbus, OH. I'll tell you right now I was never successful. I used ftp 4 times and it failed, but it didn't give me any speeds. So I used another program and this is what I got.
sending Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mkv as Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mkv (1 of 1)
TYPE I
200 Switching to Binary mode.
PORT 192,168,1,2,7,55
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
STOR Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mkv
150 Ok to send data.
! Send error: connection reset
Transmitted 1911808 bytes in 486.6 secs, (38.52 Kbps), transfer failed
! Receive error: Blocking call cancelled
It's going slower than a 56K modem and eventually dies. I think it's important to get something that can show a consistent stream because some traffic does make it, but it is not reliable.
I've notified Time Warner there is a problem and had difficulty even talking to someone technical enough to understand. I'll give them a week before I bother them again. In the meantime, I'm also going to contact Verizon Fios support. Might as well have them try to get at it from the other end. If you can duplicate these problems, that will also help us.
Also I was at an out-patient hospital for my daughter's tonsils. They had wireless and I just tried the Slingplayer to see what would happen. I had the same problems and it turns out they were using Road Runner's Business Class service. More proof.
-Bret
P.S. Just got off the phone with Verizon, very polite and concerned sounding. They said they will look into it in the next 24 hours. Wish they were my ISP.
Bret3d said:
Hi all.
So last Friday night I started doing my tests. If any of you are having this problem I suggest you try to do something similar for those techy enough.
I set up an FTP server in my network and exposed the port (21 I believe). I then remote controlled to my work and downloaded a 40 MB test file. Results below
ftp> mget Cl*.mkv
200 Switching to Binary mode.
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mk
v (41279968 bytes).
226 File send OK.
ftp: 41279968 bytes received in 665.95Seconds 61.99Kbytes/sec.
61.99 Kbytes or 619.9 kbps is close to my 750 kbps upload speed so all is normal.
I then did the opposite and uploaded the file right back.
ftp> mput Cl*.mkv
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Ok to send data.
226 File receive OK.
ftp: 41279968 bytes sent in 220.61Seconds 187.12Kbytes/sec.
Also very successful.
Now I did the exact same thing remotely at my parent's house.
ftp> mget Clerks*.mkv
200 Switching to Binary mode.
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mk
v (41279968 bytes).
226 File send OK.
ftp: 41279968 bytes received in 639.72Seconds 64.53Kbytes/sec.
All good. Now the final test to upload the file back to my house in Columbus, OH. I'll tell you right now I was never successful. I used ftp 4 times and it failed, but it didn't give me any speeds. So I used another program and this is what I got.
sending Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mkv as Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mkv (1 of 1)
TYPE I
200 Switching to Binary mode.
PORT 192,168,1,2,7,55
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
STOR Clerks.1994.720p.HDTV.Sample.x264.mkv
150 Ok to send data.
! Send error: connection reset
Transmitted 1911808 bytes in 486.6 secs, (38.52 Kbps), transfer failed
! Receive error: Blocking call cancelled
It's going slower than a 56K modem and eventually dies. I think it's important to get something that can show a consistent stream because some traffic does make it, but it is not reliable.
I've notified Time Warner there is a problem and had difficulty even talking to someone technical enough to understand. I'll give them a week before I bother them again. In the meantime, I'm also going to contact Verizon Fios support. Might as well have them try to get at it from the other end. If you can duplicate these problems, that will also help us.
Also I was at an out-patient hospital for my daughter's tonsils. They had wireless and I just tried the Slingplayer to see what would happen. I had the same problems and it turns out they were using Road Runner's Business Class service. More proof.
-Bret
The weird thing is we have Time Warner Business Class (RoadRunner Business) at work via a fiber connection and I can connect just fine, it's only at home on my Insight/RoadRunner Cable connection that I have the issues, so I wonder what kind of connection that hospital had...maybe just a Business version of the cable? Either way it's still very annoying.
That is odd. We have TW Telecom at work and also have no trouble. Does your resolved IP address at work look like this? rrcs-204-210-xxx-xxx.central.biz.rr.com Maybe it's on a different trunk.
Manticore1977 said:
The weird thing is we have Time Warner Business Class (RoadRunner Business) at work via a fiber connection and I can connect just fine, it's only at home on my Insight/RoadRunner Cable connection that I have the issues, so I wonder what kind of connection that hospital had...maybe just a Business version of the cable? Either way it's still very annoying.
Bret3d said:
That is odd. We have TW Telecom at work and also have no trouble. Does your resolved IP address at work look like this? rrcs-204-210-xxx-xxx.central.biz.rr.com Maybe it's on a different trunk.Manticore1977 said:The weird thing is we have Time Warner Business Class (RoadRunner Business) at work via a fiber connection and I can connect just fine, it's only at home on my Insight/RoadRunner Cable connection that I have the issues, so I wonder what kind of connection that hospital had...maybe just a Business version of the cable? Either way it's still very annoying.yeah that's the same IP format we have...and I'm sure they leave it wide open for business use...
Well, that's extra information I'll store in my head. Can you do a trace from your friend in Pittsburgh to here just to see if it's the same route? Do the same to your work. Maybe a pattern will emerge.
Time to take down the Rangers at MSG tonight.
-Bret
yeah, I'll check out the trace and see what happens... at least the rest of the Pens games are on National TV :)
I still haven't had this issue resolved but with hockey over I think it's time to revisit. Never got responses from TW or Fios but I didn't nag them either.
I installed on a laptop on my parent's machine the mini tester for speedtest.net (http://speedtest.net/mini.php) One thing I have discovered is this is based on conditions. At non-peak times (6AM - 12PM) I have results as high as 1000 kbps then as the day rolls on into evening this will drop to 300-500 and even lower than that (100-200). As you are watching the test you can see the data sputter on the GUI. I think it is the sputtering that makes the Slingplayer slow down to unusable speeds.
I had several co-workers run the test last Tuesday evening. The two friends and myself who are on Roadrunner got 346, 459, and 559 respectfully. My friend on Roadrunner business class got 1618. And his route is slightly different getting into Columbus.
Roadrunner traceroute to Columbus (Anita, Bret):
4 16 ms 19 ms 15 ms 130.81.17.199
*5 16 ms 17 ms 15 ms ge-6-1-5.pr0.dca10.tbone.rr.com [66.109.9.37]
6 32 ms 20 ms 18 ms ae-2-0.cr0.dca20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.164]
*7 24 ms 26 ms 62 ms 66.109.6.71
*8 37 ms * * gig0-3-0.mtgmoh1-rtr0.columbus.rr.com [24.95.81.213]
9 32 ms 161 ms 39 ms gig5-0-0.clmboh1-rtr2.columbus.rr.com [65.25.137.246]
Roadrunner traceroute to Columbus (Doug):
4 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms 130.81.17.199
5 15 ms 15 ms 15 ms 66.109.9.197
6 17 ms 17 ms 19 ms ae-2-0.cr0.dca20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.164]
7 23 ms 30 ms 27 ms 66.109.6.71
8 27 ms 27 ms 28 ms gig10-0-0.clmboh1-rtr1.columbus.rr.com [65.25.137.250]
Roadrunner Biz class traceroute:
4 14 ms 15 ms 14 ms 130.81.17.199
*5 16 ms 15 ms 17 ms ge-6-1-4.pr0.dca10.tbone.rr.com [66.109.9.33]
6 17 ms 19 ms 111 ms ae-2-0.cr0.dca20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.164]
*7 30 ms 30 ms 31 ms ae-3-0.cr0.nyc30.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.29]
*8 30 ms 32 ms 106 ms ae-0-0.cr0.nyc20.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.27]
*9 959 ms 57 ms 44 ms ae-3-0.cr0.chi30.tbone.rr.com [66.109.6.25]
*10 1032 ms * 50 ms 66.109.6.69
11 199 ms 45 ms 153 ms gig5-0-0.clmboh1-rtr2.columbus.rr.com [65.25.137.246]
I may be wrong, but it seems to me they are diverting business class data around the problem, deliberately or not.
-Bret
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