I wonder if Rogers is screwing me

[dissentowner]

So starting yesterday afternoon all of the sudden my Rogers Hi Speed Internet would have times when it would stop working for like a minute or so, then start again. I have called my friends who have Rogers in the area and in London and they are experiencing the same thing. I am wondering if this is Rogers way of trying to stop people from watching illegal streams of UFC on Saturday and Wrestlemania tonight. What they did was screw me royally because I have NHL Gamecentre I purchased and I could not watch yesterday nor todays game because of the stream freezing up so many times it was unwatchable. It could be a tech problem that just happened to fall on a huge PPV weekend but I wonder.

[Rathji]

Without even reading the content of your post I am going to say yes.

Now with reading the content:

I don't think so.

If your modem is flapping, which it seems from your description it is, then it is probably a noise problem. This could be created by extremely excessive network traffic, but I doubt it. I really don't know enough about the modems themselves to make a definitive statement about what causes it.

Chances are if bandwidth use is crazy high in your area it would affect network performance. Even if Rogers uses some sort of QoS based on packet inspection the chances of them using it to throttle online video streaming specifically is rather low.

Like you said, it is a huge PPV weekend. PPV adds extra channels a provider needs to assign a rather large chunk of bandwidth for so they can ensure people can watch the show. It is reasonably possible that they have done something like this. I heard that Shaw's worst network performance days are ones with heavy traffic Sunday Ticket (or whatever the NFL package is called) schedules, so this might be a similar type thing.

Bottom line: Try power cycling your modem. Call Rogers and see if they can help you out. Chances are they can't though.

[BlackArcher101]

I can assure you they are not singling out the few people who stream PPV events online.

[CubicleGeek]

Originally Posted by Rathji

Like you said, it is a huge PPV weekend. PPV adds extra channels a provider needs to assign a rather large chunk of bandwidth for so they can ensure people can watch the show. It is reasonably possible that they have done something like this. I heard that Shaw's worst network performance days are ones with heavy traffic Sunday Ticket (or whatever the NFL package is called) schedules, so this might be a similar type thing.

Technically, those channels aren't added, they are always there. When there is nothing to show, there is nothing to show, but that range of spectrum is always in use and dedicated for those channels. Such is the nature of broadcast cable TV.

Any impact to internet service is coincidental in the sense that there are likely more people streaming the fight (legally or illegally) and more activity surrounding the fight (chatting, surfing for stats, posting on forums, etc).

[mykalberta]

Alot of online streams are torrent based, and they might have been resetting connections based on how torrenting works.

Has this happened before. UFC likely has something to do with it only because torrent use at that time was higher than normal so they started to throttle.

That would only make sense for torrents and not for your NHL package. I would call them up and threaten to switch to Bell if its isnt resolved. I would also send a letter to your MP claiming that Rogers network management caused you to miss your IPTV program that you legally paid for.

[dissentowner]

Well I don't know what the issue was but today it is back to normal, zero delays or problems at all.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Alot of online streams are torrent based, and they might have been resetting connections based on how torrenting works.

Has this happened before. UFC likely has something to do with it only because torrent use at that time was higher than normal so they started to throttle.

That would only make sense for torrents and not for your NHL package. I would call them up and threaten to switch to Bell if its isnt resolved. I would also send a letter to your MP claiming that Rogers network management caused you to miss your IPTV program that you legally paid for.

I know he'd just be threatening to switch, but just in case he gets it in his mind to do so, I'm pretty sure that Bell throttles. There was something in the news about it last summer, or maybe it was two summers ago.