
Google Video Quality Report - dudus
http://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/
======
JohnTHaller
Now that it's fully legal for ISPs to throttle Netflix, Google, et al (thanks,
Verizon) and extort money from them in return for giving customers the
bandwidth they pay for, I think it's time for all the major players to track
performance on the networks and call out the throttlers with a message right
over the video stream on their website and in-app (Android, iOS, Xbox, etc).
SO, when you use TWC and are getting only 60k as are all your neighbors,
Google can pop a warning up on your screen that your connection is slow and
the support number for your provider. This will result in lots of angry
customers calling their providers about the issue, and get them to be angry at
the right people.

~~~
_mulder_
Just to play devils advocate here, but has anyone fully considered the impact
on ISPs that this massive increase in demand is having on them. Especially the
hated Cable companies who are seeing customers turn their backs on their own
TV products whilst shouting and demanding more and more bandwidth so they can
watch (and pay instead) NetFlix et al.

NetFlix and YouTube do not pay the ISPs anything. ISPs are not some cloud
based company selling software, they are a utility company with Billions of $$
of investment in physical cables spanning every street in every country. In
nearly every instance, the initial investment in this infrastructure was for a
completely different technology (telephone or TV) from a time way before
internet. The industry is now at a point where demand for bandwidth is simply
outpacing technological innovation and these networks can't take the strain.

Think about the work involved in doubling Broadband speeds over say 2-3 years,
in line with demand. In the past this involved installing some new equipment
in the central office or exchange. Then this wasn't enough so the equipment
had to be installed in the street, costly, especially as the number required
was so much higher. Now we're at the point where the copper Coax or phone-line
can't physically do the job anymore and it needs replacing, ideally with
Fibre. Imagine the work and cost involved in doing this task. It's a hugely
labour intensive task to dig up every street and there are many layers of red-
tape and bureaucracy that simply weren't there during the initial build out.
Once you've done that, you then need to buy vast amounts of brand new
equipment and back-office software to run these new systems, plus hire in a
load of new talent.

Now imagine doing this for every single home in the US or Europe (not just
Kansas). Now imagine doing this without increasing your prices. Now imagine
doing this whilst some key revenue streams are also being taken away from you.

Then think about the payback period on this investment... how long will all
that Fibre even be used before wireless speeds increase and half your customer
base decide they don't even want a fixed line anymore because they can get
1Gbps on their mobile? That 4K Video stream is still only 30mbps! 10 years
perhaps?

I'm not surprised the ISPs are fighting back, they're putting in all the money
and taking all of the risk for little to no reward.

Now... to speak my own mind. The sooner the old guard realise their time is up
and adapt to fit the new demand the better, for customers and for the ISPs.
Cable companies in particular have a very difficult time coming to terms with
the fact that they're now just a data pipe. People don't want to buy their TV
or their programming. People want internet and on the internet you can get
everything, including TV and Movies. ISPs need to start investing in their
networks even if it means we have to pay a bit more, because it won't come
cheap, and stop pretending they're still relevant. But throttling the guy
selling the better widget is just petty and benefits no-one.

~~~
arebop
Yeah, how much would it cost to lay new fiber and all the necessary equipment
to support 1Gbps/house? Less than
[[https://www.google.com/search?q=google+fiber+profitable](https://www.google.com/search?q=google+fiber+profitable)]
$70/month/house
[[https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/plans/](https://fiber.google.com/cities/kansascity/plans/)]
it turns out.

Now, admittedly wiring up all the suburbs and rural areas might cost more, but
the incumbent players are really not so beleaguered
[[http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=CMCSA+Income+Statement&annua...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=CMCSA+Income+Statement&annual)].

~~~
Someone
It's not (only) that 1Gbps to the home, it also that fat pipe per street, the
even fatter pipe per neighborhood, etc.

Especially the latter pipes need to get a lot fatter, the more people use that
1Gbps bandwidth.

Look at it this way: roads to houses haven't increased in bandwidth in the
past century or so, but investments in highways have. Why? People started
using 'their' bandwidth. They don't walk to work, but use a car that takes
more room, and also travel over larger distances.

------
earlz
Good. I swear youtube is throttled by Time Warner Cable for me. I stream
Netflix, Hulu, etc and never have problems with them. I can confirm that I'm
getting my speeds of 20MBit/s down, and yet almost every video on YouTube
buffers. If I use youtube-dl to download the video, I can confirm that my
actual connection speed is somewhere around 60KB/s. If I then use youtube-dl
on my VPS with the same video, I get somewhere between 2MB/s and 8MB/s.

~~~
jdminhbg
Are you by any chance using non-TWC DNS servers? I had this same frustrating
problem on Comcast, and it turned out that their CDN works by using DNS to
direct you to local servers; by using the Google 8.8.8.8 etc I wasn't getting
that.

Even still, though, I run into certain Youtube videos that absolutely refuse
to ever fully load -- it's always non-popular ones, and it's like they cache
miss and just never get surfaced for me to watch the whole way through.

~~~
w1ntermute
> it turned out that their CDN works by using DNS to direct you to local
> servers

Are these servers' IPs static? Can they be hardcoded in your hosts file?

~~~
philsnow
I use TomatoUSB on my home router, which includes dnsmasq (under Advanced /
DHCP/DNS, there's a textarea for "Dnsmasq custom configuration"). I have a
line in there:

    
    
        server=/netflix.com/75.75.75.75
    

which tells dnsmasq to use my ISP's dns (75.75.75.75) instead of my default
(8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4), only when resolving domains that look like netflix.com.

I don't actually know whether this is an anchored regex or what, maybe I'm
spuriously using my ISP's dns for foonetflix.combar.info, but I don't really
care.

All devices that use DHCP use the router (and thus the custom dnsmasq config)
for dns by default. It improved my ability to stream netflix at the time,
though I didn't measure it. TomatoUSB has neat-looking graphs, maybe I should
run a test.

 _Edit_ as to your question:

> Are these servers' IPs static? Can they be hardcoded in your hosts file?

I suspect they use AWS for at least some layer in between you and the bits you
want (if not the actual CDN, the server pool that generates the token that you
need to get the bits from the CDN), so I don't think there would be a set of
IP addresses to hard-code.

~~~
ANTSANTS
Kinda off-topic, but why do you use Google's DNS (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4)? Unless
I'm missing something, by doing so you are basically giving them a record of
every domain you access. I don't really trust my ISP either, but why share
that information with anyone else (especially a company with great interest in
data mining everyone)?

~~~
philsnow
Despite being a (bit of a) privacy enthusiast, I still use Google's DNS
servers, for a few reasons:

1\. I use chrome. If I didn't use Google DNS, they'd be able to track 90-99%
of my internet usage just by watching what domains I visit in chrome. The
remaining portion is e.g. irc, usenet, xmpp, ssh, etc, that doesn't go through
chrome. I could use firefox or opera or w3m or telnet or whatever, but I like
chrome.

2\. I became disinterested in using comcast's dns because of previous
internet-breaking shenanigans like [http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-
voices/domain-helper-se...](http://corporate.comcast.com/comcast-
voices/domain-helper-service-here-to-help-you) .

3\. I work at YouTube (owned by Google), so I get to see the internal
temperament and discussions regarding privacy, data safety, PII, and so on.
I'm comfortable letting Google have this data.

------
jeffzoom
Brighthouse (TWC subsidiary) throttles quite a few services these days,
Youtube being the biggest one. The throttling is so intense 24 hours a day
that Google's streaming algorithm (download a little, play a little, repeat)
can't continue downloading after the first initial burst. I can easily break
it by VPNing into Work or School.

They very recently started throttling Netflix. I have a 90mbps down
connection, and I can hit those speeds even at peak times.

ISPs are trying to strangle companies like Netflix into paying them for use of
their network...you know...because Netflix doesn't already pay for an internet
connection...they get free internet...because they're Netflix.

This is like the Mob walking into your laundromat and saying:

Mobster: "We own this whole block, and we want you to pay protection".

Laundromat Owner: "But we already pay rent, and protection!"

Mobster: "No, Clothing Protection. You're making a lot of money off dirty
clothes, dirty clothes that get cleaned in our building. We want a cut. It
would be a shame if someone left a sharpie in every washing machine wouldn't
it? Then no one would come to your laundromat."

Netflix: "What if we don't let anyone in who has a sharpie?"

Google: "What if I just tell everyone the Mob ruined their clothes?"

~~~
snorkel
Google is smart to Name and Shame the bad ISPs. I just think they should build
this into the Youtube player, whenever the buffering spinner lags for more
than 5 seconds have a a little message fade in that explains what the hold up
is.

~~~
skore
Interesting. Couldn't they just run a tracert and, through broad data
comparisons, prove quite elegantly what the holdups in the chain are?

------
chaz
Worth mentioning that Netflix has a similar effort:
[http://blog.netflix.com/2014/01/new-isp-performance-data-
for...](http://blog.netflix.com/2014/01/new-isp-performance-data-for-
december.html)
[http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/](http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/)

~~~
dudus
Great, but I can't see my country (Brazil) in there, even though Netflix
operates here.

~~~
fuqua
I can't get it to work in Washington, DC. I smell a conspiracy...

------
m_eiman
Google, please don't break my Back button. I actually try to use it once in a
while…

~~~
Fogest
There is nothing to go back on...

------
tnorthcutt
Anybody else see "Results from your location are not yet available." when you
hover over "Your Results"?

~~~
zevyoura
I have this as well, and I'm in Los Angeles, which seems like one of the
earlier markets they'd nail down. Can someone who does have results for their
area post a screenshot of what it looks like?

~~~
lkbm
Same in Austin, TX, where Google Fiber is coming next.

------
cjoh
Is it me, or is this website subtly paying homage to Sen. Ted Stevens' famous
"Series of Tubes" anti-net-neutrality speech.

~~~
wmf
People talked about Internet "pipes" for many years, but somehow Stevens was a
moron for saying "tubes".

~~~
cjoh
Stevens' whole quote:

"I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in
the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled
up with all these things going on the internet commercially...

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again,
the internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck.

It's a series of tubes.

And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled,
when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by
anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts
of material."

This doesn't strike me as someone who knows what they're talking about.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in
> the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday.

See, this is the funny part, not the "tubes". His staff sent him an internet?
Yeah, I can see why that might take a while to deliver.

~~~
anfedorov
I'm pretty sure he meant "email" and misspoke. The overall point that the
people regulating things often don't know as much about them as a specialist
would, but it seems rude to laugh at a small mistake like that.

~~~
furyg3
The point is that he is trying to convince people to regulate the internet.
His rhetoric includes nonsense analogies that he doesn't even get straight.
It's ridiculous.

Far better to simply say "I've consulted with experts so-and-so, and their
conclusion was [reads a quote from expert]"

~~~
cjoh
The underappreciated brilliance of this quote is that it's not clear what
regulated industry he doesn't understand from his quote. Is it the Internet?
Transportation? Waste removal? Plumbing?

------
cydonian_monk
Curious. For me the 30-240 seconds long ads YouTube shows are always 1080p (or
at very least high quality) and never choppy, yet streaming YouTube content
videos at the same resolution often results in terrible buffering issues. Are
the crappy ISP (ComCast) cahce servers only caching the non-ad videos? Does
YouTube serve these through an AdSense / non-YouTube source that bypasses the
cache? There are times it seems the only part of YouTube that works are the
ads.

~~~
bumbledraven
The ads are cached because the same ones are shown to so many people. Most
videos are served to any particular neighborhood much less frequently than
ads, and so are usually not in the edge cache.

~~~
cydonian_monk
Yes, which in my case is an indication of the system working properly. Leads
me to wonder if the issues I have with Comcast + YouTube are on the Comcast
side, the Google side, or are just the nature of the streaming-video beast.

------
flurpitude
Good step but in the absence of true competition between ISPs this does little
for the end user. I can discover that my connection is bad, and then what?

~~~
_greim_
Then you go out and vote. The absence of true competition is because the
average Joe isn't quite clued into the underlying problem of why things are
slow. I suspect this is Google's way of raising awareness.

~~~
ry0ohki
It's not that simple. Comcast/Time Warner are monopolies in their area because
we tax payers subsidized the laying of the lines. Verizon tried to expand FIOS
to compete and took huge losses. My wife works for a fiber company, and seeing
the numbers, it's basically impossible to make the investment worth it
unsubsidized at at a price competitive with Comcast.

~~~
_greim_
Agreed that fixing the root problem isn't simple. But citizens being pissed
off _en masse_ about their internet connectivity is a necessary precondition
to any real change, and Google certainly seems to be trying to fan those
flames.

------
baby
I didn't this happened elsewhere. Here in France it's a huge problem,
providers even talk about youtube in their ads to get people's attention. Free
is the most famous case in France because they constantly refuse to do their
jobs thinking that it's google's job to do (I don't know who's right but I
left them because of their problem with youtube). Few months ago (or was it a
year?) they upgraded their modem to block Google advertisement by default. A
pretty bold move.

------
jschmitz28
I was really hoping this was going to address the seeking problem. It seems
like whenever I want to seek, even backwards to already buffered content,
there's a 50/50 chance the video player will stop working entirely and force
me to do a refresh and lose my entire video buffer.

~~~
kd0amg
The past few times I've had this happen, refreshing the page just dropped me
right where I'd left off before trying to seek backwards.

------
hackmiester
I'm a netadm for my network (a /16) and "Results for [my] location are not
currently available". Any idea how I can alleviate this? I'm curious how we're
doing.

------
SethMurphy
This part was particularly interesting "We often deploy servers within your
ISP's network, vastly reducing the distance the video has to travel and
minimizing the chance for congestion."

~~~
JTon
Google Cache Servers. It also saves the ISP money by keeping popular traffic
within it's own network/reducing carrier interconnect bandwidth.

------
sergiotapia
I'm not totally buying this - why is it when I have this extension[1] enabled,
YouTube FLIES and works just as I remember it to work back in 2007?

[1] -
[https://github.com/YePpHa/YouTubeCenter](https://github.com/YePpHa/YouTubeCenter)

~~~
noxa
I haven't used this extension but my guess is that it's defeating the host
redirection that ISPs do to point you at their extremely shitty and
underprovisioned edge caches. Most ISPs run them to cache popular youtube
content and save on out of network bandwidth, however as with most things they
are terrible at it and extremely cheap. The solution I've been most happy with
is to run all traffic over VPN to an endpoint not under Comcast - keeps
everything nice and speedy, albeit with slightly more latency.

------
johndl
I'm unfamiliar with ISP scale networks - where is the actual bottleneck for
them? One of the large ISPs in the UK is Virgin, and they have their own fibre
network. They also throttle Youtube.

Is there only so much data that can go down a fibre line? Is it the routers
(I'm not sure if calling them routers is correct?) that lie between the main
backbone and the network connecting a street/apartment? Is it the hardware in
a handful of large data-centers?

~~~
tonfa
Usually it's the peering between google/youtube and the ISP that is the
bottleneck, internal ISP network and google CDN are usually fine there's just
an unwillingness to upgrade the connection between them (usually because
parties can't agree on terms, some ISP would like to be paid when peering).

------
mogelbumm
Quite often videos are buffering on my 80 Mbit connection at home - however
when I switch to tethering with my phones connection, there is no problem. I
always had the impression that providers try to cache or throttle Youtube
video downloads. So I really appreciate that Google is doing something about
it.

On a sidenote, the biggest german provider was trying to get money from
services like Youtube for delivering their content. This rating turns it
upside down :-)

~~~
TillE
Well, I'm on a resold Telekom VDSL connection, and so far all I see is
"Results from your location are not yet available."

I've had major problems with YouTube videos in the past (despite having a very
reliable 50Mbit down), but recently it's been fine.

------
geekam
I can't even work on my regular job or projects without seeing _at least_ 4%
packet loss, intermittently spread out across the day. Not only that, I
clearly see pings taking too long even with wired connection. Comcast has told
me they cannot do anything about it. They say that the 2 MacBooks and a couple
of iPads is a lot of traffic for the router+modem they have given me.

Not only this, I know that the moment I start Youtube or Amazon instant (I do
not have Netflix), the packet loss starts to go up or at least the ping return
times sometimes go up to 4000ms. This also happens when I RDP into my Windows
PC at work when I telework.

I have tried resetting the router, use it with other channels, use it with and
without all possibilities of encryption (WPA, WPA2 etc.) and I really cannot
think of doing anything anymore. The Comcast representation said they will
reimburse $30 bucks if I got my own router because the issue is not their
fault.

I am not sure how to approach this issue anymore. My apartment building does
not have Verizon FiOS or any other service. I have given up all hope.
Sometimes I feel like adding unlimited LTE/4G on my iPhone from T-mobile and
use that as the main Internet hub.

~~~
fpgeek
I'd absolutely try as much of your own equipment as possible. Comcast may well
be up to other tricks, but they also have no incentive to give you anything
other than a "good enough for most people" modem/router.

It can be surprising how much of a difference better networking gear can make.
I've seen a VoIP router throttle a 50 Mbps to 5 Mbps for no apparent reason
(over-aggressive QoS logic?). I've also seen issues with modems that don't
have the latest-and-greatest DOCSIS support (you'd think Comcast would notice
that sort of thing when you complained, but...).

I'd also avoid combined modem/wireless router boxes (which it sounds like you
have) like the plague. The bundled wireless is usually much worse than what
you can get separately. Plus wireless technology tends to move faster than
modem technology anyway.

------
bhartzer
There are still a lot of people in rural America that don't have internet
speeds above 2MB/s, and that should be our top priority.

~~~
MartinCron
I agree, let's move them to the city where the bandwidth is better.

------
bane
Probably very relevant for this discussion:
[http://mitchribar.com/2013/02/time-warner-cable-sucks-for-
yo...](http://mitchribar.com/2013/02/time-warner-cable-sucks-for-youtube-
twitchtv/)

I have FiOS and have the same problem and following these instructions
transformed my youtube experience.

------
weazl
> We pick the shortest, most direct route.

Eh, no. I'm sure they try but more often than not my YouTube is streaming from
Amsterdam according to
[http://redirector.c.youtube.com/report_mapping](http://redirector.c.youtube.com/report_mapping),
I live in Stockholm and have a 250 MBit connection. So instead of blazing fast
speeds I get buffering like I'm on a modem.

I've found no way of reporting this issue, my ISP did not know either. I
worked around the issue myself with hundreds of lines like this "74.125.163.38
r1---sn-5hn7ym76.googlevideo.com r1.sn-5hn7ym76.googlevideo.com" in my router
hosts file. This finally made videos buffer pretty much instantly.

------
__david__
I find it amusing that their big support button[1] ends up at an error
page[2], given the bad reputation of Google's consumer customer support.

[1] Rightmost, here:
[http://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/#a_faster_web](http://www.google.com/get/videoqualityreport/#a_faster_web)

[2]
[https://support.google.com/youtube/checklist/3480866?p=video...](https://support.google.com/youtube/checklist/3480866?p=video_checklist&rd=1)

~~~
bhassel
That link seems to only work if you are signed in to Google...

------
jmharvey
It seems like only a matter of time before Google starts informing people
where, along the pipe between the Youtube servers and their computer, their
traffic is being throttled.

------
mcgwiz
Not that I have the time to do this, but it would be ideal if something like
this existed for multiple services and was run by a third-party. Kind of like
[http://speakeasy.net/speedtest](http://speakeasy.net/speedtest) that speaks
the APIs of various streaming video publishers. If it's crowd-sourced and non-
profit, then it could be more credible and less subject to allegations of
impartiality by the ISPs themselves.

------
knodi
Who can one test throttling by an ISP because I think Comcast is throttling
youtube for the last 3 months. Its been very slow for me but my other
downloads are 7MBs.

------
omgitstom
It is sad that this has to exist. Net neutrality is pretty much in the trash
if companies like Google and Netflix have to issue reports like this.

------
cheerio
I've noticed a trick when watching long HD youtube videos that I need to pause
and re-wind several times. If I'm signed in to my web browser the video
quality is demoted to lower quality after a while of watching, pausing and re-
winding. To avoid this degradation of quality, I use a browser in incognito
mode, and the quality stays HD. Does anyone who why this occurs?

------
nraynaud
Interestingly, one of the early Nest investors is the CEO of an ISP who is in
a battle with youtube over network traffic.

------
lowlevel
I also experience 'buffering' or pausing/hanging videos almost any time I try
to watch a youtube video. The video ads of course work perfectly fine, so I
don't think I'm buying this 'it's your ISP' argument. For what it's worth, I'm
sitting on 100M up/down fibre...

~~~
sumedh
That is because the ads are cached since a lot of people are going to watch
that ad.

------
nForce
For Google to build their own fibre optic networks, that will be able to
accommodate a lot of the USA and Europe, what's the costs/difficulties?

I am aware they were trialling some sort of netwrok locally to CA, how
difficult/expensive is it to roll this out worldwide?

------
sentenza
YES! Deutsche Telekom needs a public shaming. They are the former state
monopolist in Germany and use their large customer base als bargaining chip,
refusing to peer at internet exchanges and so on.

Needless to say that YouTube loading speeds have been sub-par with that ISP.

------
huytoan_pc
Anybody knows why recently Youtube re-buffers every video when I hit replay?
It might make sense for long videos but for relative short videos (music
videos and the like), it's really frustrating.

~~~
gman99
It's because Youtube uses DASH[1] by default now. It's also the reason why it
never buffers more than a few seconds of video anymore.

I installed YoutubeCenter[2] and disabled DASH from the options and it seems
to work well every since.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Adaptive_Streaming_ove...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Adaptive_Streaming_over_HTTP)

[2]
[https://github.com/YePpHa/YouTubeCenter](https://github.com/YePpHa/YouTubeCenter)

~~~
Aloisius
Does DASH actually require you not to utilize the browser cache for some
reason? It seems to me that all you have to do is keep the request URLs around
that you previously requested and perhaps the byte range that you fetched if
you abort and the browser should be able to pull it straight from the cache.
No?

Of course you'd get the same quality as the previous play, but with a little
work you could splice in some higher quality segments if you wanted.

------
Pxtl
That's confusing. It listed the 9 ISP's in my area... and the local power
company. The power company's graph looked completely different from the ISP
graphs, of course.

------
squigs25
I get great streaming from netflix, and I find youtube frequently has trouble.
Maybe my ISP (Verizon FIOS) is throttling youtube and not netflix, but that
would be strange.

------
sneak
In other words, Google thinks a PR campaign and angry customers is cheaper for
the same bandwidth to edge networks than just paying the owners of those
networks.

~~~
ajross
Under the net neutrality paradigm, the entities "paying" for the last-network
bandwidth are the ISP customers, not the content providers. The content they
choose to receive has traditionally been expected to be treated "neutrally"
without requiring payment by the provider. This argument has been had, and in
virtually all cases our community has agreed (contra the positions of many
regulators it seems) that it's a good thing.

Have you flipped on net neutrality or are you just confused because Google is
the party harmed in this case?

------
canistr
What does the Y axis mean on these graphs?

------
anandg
Google Fibre will soon top the list.

Well played Google .. very well played.

------
Grue3
Youtube videos are terribly slow for everyone, regardless of ISP. Every other
video service works much more reliably than Youtube. It's your goddamn fault,
Google. Fix it.

------
sifarat
ha! they need not worry about my ISP. Because youtube is totally blocked for
more than year now. hehe.

------
ddorian43
How will they technically do it?

~~~
atonse
It's likely they'll just start doing analytics on the streaming speeds as we
go about streaming youtube videos. They'll extract the ISP from our IP.

That's how I'm guessing Netflix does it:
[http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa](http://ispspeedindex.netflix.com/usa)

------
pooky666
Im liking the series of tubes

------
nether
Regarding the graphics shown, so it's a series of youtubes...

------
tomphoolery
So basically...it's a series of tubes.

------
adrianscott
well played, Google.

------
Geee
Google, would you please stop making these pretty advertisements and actually
fix the problems? Thanks, Internet.

~~~
Geee
Wow, angry googlers strike again ;)

~~~
packetslave
or maybe you just have no clue about what "the problems" actually are, and who
needs to fix them.

------
eb0la
Telcos will have to invest in capacity where Google wants in order to get a
good rating. Since Google is a de-facto monopoly, I think we'll see an
Antitrust case soon.

~~~
atonse
If you look at the actual requirements they're talking about, they aren't that
crazy. Even for HD video, they're talking > 2.5Mbps. So for really good
quality, it's probably 5-6Mbps.

I have 85Mbps FiOS at home, and I still sometimes have issues streaming
Youtube videos.

If my ISP can't even guarantee 10% of what I'm paying for over a fiber optic
line, then yes, they need to be called out and publicly shamed.

~~~
ihsw
What about if youtube.com's CDNs are overloaded and slow? Will you blame your
ISP?

This is the problem with such ratings systems -- they're inherently one-sided.

~~~
atonse
I actually have much more faith in Google's capacity and CDN than I do in
Verizon's history of sleaze.

After all, Google doesn't have a conflict of interest, Verizon does. The
better Netflix and YouTube get, the closer I am to canceling my Verizon TV
service.

