After a long day at work, you might be getting ready to settle in for the night and watch the latest release on Netflix when that dreaded spinning circle appears to indicate buffering. And when it finally does load, it’s blurry.
If you know that your broadband package can comfortably handle streaming, why is watching one episode suddenly such a struggle? One possible explanation is throttling. It happens when a broadband provider deliberately limits the speed of a connection or certain types of traffic.
Bear in mind, though, that buffering alone doesn’t prove that throttling is the cause. A busy network, poor Wi-Fi or issues with the streaming service itself can all produce pretty much the same result. So, how can you confirm if it is indeed throttling?
Why Streaming Needs A Steady Connection
Streaming works by sending video to your device in small amounts. The device that you’re watching on – your TV, laptop or phone – will download these slightly ahead of the playback, keeping enough in reserve to cope with brief interruptions.
If the data arrives too slowly, the streaming app lowers the picture quality. And if that doesn’t help, the playback will stop while it waits for more. Cue the insufferable buffering sign.
For some context, Netflix recommends a stable connection of at least 5 Mbps for full HD and 15 Mbps for 4K – for one individual stream. If your household is watching different shows in several rooms, you’ll need additional capacity, especially if someone is downloading a large file or gaming simultaneously.
How Do Providers Slow Streaming Traffic?
Providers can impose limits in several different ways. It really depends on whether they’re restricting an entire connection or targeting particular traffic instead.
Capping The Whole Connection
The simplest method is a speed cap that is applied to the entire connection. When that cap takes effect, all streaming, downloads and any other online activities will share the reduced allowance.
This generally happens after a customer has reached a contractual data limit. The provider isn’t required to identify Netflix or any other streaming service specifically, everything will slow down together.
Identifying Streaming Traffic
If providers want to be more selective with throttling, they’ll start with identifying traffic. Network equipment can look at information such as the addresses data travels to and from and while it may seem intrusive, it doesn’t mean that a provider can automatically read encrypted video or see exactly what you’re watching.
Encryption does limit what’s visible, but some of the connection information does remain available. Once the traffic has been classified, equipment can apply a rule to it. So for example, a technically possible rule might restrict identified video traffic to a fixed rate while leaving other activities with more bandwidth.
Controlling How Quickly The Data Arrives
The actual slowing of the connection happens through things like traffic shaping and policing. While shaping holds data briefly in a queue and releases it at a controlled rate, policing can discard traffic that exceeds a set limit.
For the viewer, the mechanics behind it is largely invisible. The streaming app will see less usable bandwidth allocated to it and adjusts accordingly. A movie being watched in 4K can drop to a lower quality without alerting the viewer that throttling is taking place.
Why Does Network Traffic Need To Be Managed?
There are a couple of reasons why broadband providers need to manage traffic. Broadband networks typically share capacity between customers so if there was a major sporting event or even a software release, the demand can jump quite sharply. This is when providers will step in to stop temporary congestion that could make the services unusable.
Congestion and throttling aren’t interchangeable terms though. Congestion happens when demand exceeds the available capacity. On the other hand, throttling involves applying a deliberate restriction. They can occur at the same time, but if you find your network slowing down in the evenings during peak hours, it doesn’t necessarily mean that your provider has singled out streaming.
How You Can Investigate Buffering And Slow Streams
First things first, start close to home. If you have an Ethernet cable, connect your device to the router with it. Stop any large downloads that might be happening and try to load the programme again. If it works with no issues, the problem may be your Wi-Fi or other household traffic.
If that doesn’t make a difference, compare apps. If every platform is struggling, the connection may be the culprit. But if it’s only one app having some trouble, it could be an app-specific outage and not your broadband provider.
You can also run speed tests at different times over several days but be sure to test it over a period to achieve more conclusive results.
Can A VPN Help With Throttling?
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is used to send traffic through an encrypted tunnel and is one of the most secure ways to use the Internet – especially for streaming. The data inside the tunnel can’t be seen by any outsiders which includes your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the prying eyes of hackers or opportunists.
If you use a VPN to escape throttling, it can make individual services harder for the broadband provider to identify so in some cases of selective throttling, it may help.
However, VPNs also change the route that your traffic takes so having improved performance with a VPN isn’t really conclusive evidence. VPNs can also cause delays of their own and they won’t be able to remove a speed cap if its been applied to your entire connection.
