For the past two or so months, I've noticed that videos on YouTube were unable to stream at anything above 240p, which is the minimum quality option available. Any higher and I face extensive buffering. The thing is, my connection is clocked at 6Mbps down and .5Mbps up, which is more than enough to play 480p and 720p quality videos. I thought perhaps this was a problem with my NIC, so I tried it on several different computers at my house and they all experience the buffering issues.
Here's what I gathered thus far:
- The slow transfer rate only occurs when streaming video on
YouTube.com. Other video sites work fine. - This problem is reproducible on multiple computers.
- Multiple measures of my internet connection (via Speedtest) and my router's status show that I have a good connection at 6Mbps with a good signal to noise ratio on the DSL line. With a latency of about 10-20ms from the nearest server here in Dallas.
- And perhaps this is the most perplexing part: using a VPN connection resolves the issue.
Could it be possible that my ISP (AT&T DSL) is somehow throttling access to YouTube?
Best Answer
Yes, Youtube is being throttled then. The only question is where and why - there are a number of possible reasons for this, including a provider between you and Youtube simply not having enough bandwidth, or your ISP could be taking deliberate steps to limit the speed of your connection to Youtube - which has been known to happen (in general, I have no firsthand knowledge of AT&T)
The problem is obviously not with your connection onto the Internet per-se, as a VPN "routes around" the blockage.
[ I note that it is conceivable that the problem is with the specific cluster/servers you are using on Youtube, although this is unlikely]