Is my bandwidth being throttled??

I typically can't see TV shows when they air on TV, so I'll watch them online instead. But there's always a problem with watching them. An hour long show is typically 45 minutes online, and every time I try to watch one it'll be fine with no buffering until about 2/3 - 3/4 of the way through when the show becomes jerky and unwatchable. I have to come back to it some time later and finish it, which is downright annoying since that's when a show typically is most intense.

So, is my cable internet provider possibly throttling my bandwidth because I'm using a lot by streaming a TV show? Many time their not even HD! I've also noticed this happen on my iPhone when watching a TV show through NBC.com for example. It'll perform great without any buffering for most of the show, but towards the end it takes forever to stream a few minutes even though I'm still on 3G with full bars. And that's with the show broken up into several video segments.

I could see other causes if it didn't have the exact same way every time, on my phone and on my computer. Anyone else have a problem with this? Could be possibly be anything else?

Who is the ISP?

Insight Cable

I have AT&T u-verse, and I have already gotten a courtesy letter stating that I am a heavy bandwidth user and they are going to start to throttle me back during peak hours if my usages does not slow down considerably...

fleurya said:

An hour long show is typically 45 minutes online, and every time I try to watch one it'll be fine with no buffering until about 2/3 - 3/4 of the way through when the show becomes jerky and unwatchable. [...] It'll perform great without any buffering for most of the show, but towards the end it takes forever to stream a few minutes even though I'm still on 3G with full bars. And that's with the show broken up into several video segments.

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So, you get this over your network connection and your 3G connection? This doesn't sound like it's limited to your ISP.

vansmith said:

So, you get this over your network connection and your 3G connection? This doesn't sound like it's limited to your ISP.

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That's why it's even more questionable to me. It's happening through 2 different devices on 2 different connection types. I would just think it is coincidence if it wasn't so consistent.

Are you in a rural area? Is it only the same sites that have this issue? It's possible that your geographical location may have something to do with it or, if it's the same site causing you problems (regardless of how you're streaming the content), it could very well be the site.

Watching TV over the internet is less than perfect. Some shows are just always slow. I use to try and catch Heroes when I missed an episode, but it was so popular that I would always have trouble watching it.

Try something like speedtest.net to see if there's any noticeable slow down in your connection itself.