Netflix problems - Swisscom backbone overloaded

Hello everyone,

I’ve had the problem for months that I only get reduced picture quality on Netflix over the weekend. It’s usually not a problem during the week, sometimes it gets a bit stuck in the evenings, and it’s usually particularly bad on Sunday evenings.

It seems to me that the problem is most likely due to the lack of broadband capacity in the Swisscom backbone or the transit connections. The problem occurs regularly at typical times when more customers are on the Internet or watching TV.

The problem is neither with my house wiring nor with the house connection. I have three Netflix clients (WDTV Live, Sony Blu-Ray Player and a brand new Samsung UHD TV) and all of them show the problem. All clients are connected to the multimedia rack via Cat 7 cabling. As a test, I connected clients directly to the Swisscom modem (Centrino Grande) without any intermediate switches. The house connection itself also shows no problems, which the Swisscom hotline also confirmed. I have a 50 profile and at the same time I was able to determine an average bandwidth of 46-48mbps using measurements on hsi.bluewin.ch. There was no further load on the house connection at the same time, and all SCTV boxes were off.

This afternoon, for example, between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. I usually only received 384 SD or 480 SD instead of 1080 HD, rarely just 720 HD. The problem has been getting noticeably worse from week to week for months, and now I can hardly use Netflix on the weekends any more.

Is the problem known to Swisscom? Are you thinking about finally expanding the backbone/transit bandwidths appropriately? For me, Netflix is ​​more important than Swisscom TV. I know that this is a customer-to-customer forum, but I also know that there are Swisscom employees here who can place these messages in the correct place within the company. I spent almost an hour on the Swisscom hotline today… unfortunately they lack the expertise to even understand a problem like this. I had two employees on the phone, both of whom didn’t know the word “Netflix” (one answered: “You know, I’m not that computer savvy”… OMG…), and after explaining the problem they said: “ Um, so, you say your internet doesn’t work??!”. Well, as a customer you are a bit at your wits end.

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Can I confirm “ftth” on my Anschluss.

It sucks. The solution would be relatively simple.

[http://www.nzz.ch/nzzas/nzz-am-sonntag/machtkampf-um-den-verkehr-im-internet-1.18543510](http://www.nzz.ch/nzzas/nzz-am- sunday/power-struggle-over-traffic-on-the-internet-1.18543510)

I hope Swisscom OTT will soon be in its place in the timeline so that I can switch to a real provider like init 7 painlessly!

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Yes, it’s really tedious. Apparently Swisscom does not understand that its preventative tactics, even if it is just through passivity in the backbone expansion, will not ensure that customers then use Swisscom services instead of Netflix. I will then simply cancel my entire Vivo M and switch to another provider, because Swisscom doesn’t have anything that I can’t get from another provider for my needs.

That’s right, the Netflix caching servers should actually be in the interest of Swisscom. This would allow them to significantly reduce their costs for transit connections because all of their customers’ Netflix traffic remains within their own network. And it would enable consistently good Netflix video quality. And it wouldn’t cost Swisscom anything. You just have to want it.

Well, I’ll wait a few more weeks to see whether there is a reaction from Swisscom. If not, then I’m off…

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I don’t think it’s Swisscom’s fault because I occasionally have the same problem, but other services or downloads are always possible with the full bandwidth. If Swisscom’s systems were overloaded, this would definitely be felt in other areas too.

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@Anonymous wrote:
If the systems at Swisscom were overloaded, this would definitely be felt in other areas too.

No, not at all. Netflix has its own content delivery network (AS2906) that has an “Open Connect” policy. Any Internet service provider (here Swisscom) can connect to it or connect their backbone to it. The whole thing is called peering. Normally, Internet service providers have various peering contracts with various other networks. That wouldn’t cost Swisscom anything.

See: http://www.peeringdb.com/view.php?asn=2906

Here you can see very clearly which providers peer with Neflix:

http://bgp.he.net/AS2906#_peers

And yes: Swisscom is not there. Many other CH providers (Init7, Sunrise, and co, even schools are included) are connected.

If it fails, I assume it’s actually only on Netflix.

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@Anonymous

Well, the connections aren’t quite that simple. If you have an overload situation, you may have a certain number of package drops every few seconds, for example. If you simply download a file, you will notice practically nothing, i.e. you might have 17mbps instead of 20mbps. You won’t notice anything when you’re just surfing the Internet. An adaptive video stream reacts much more delicately, because it is not possible. It doesn’t make sense to retransmit the dropped packets. The video stream then reacts immediately by shutting down to a lower bandwidth profile and then no longer starts up because individual packets are constantly being dropped, which gives it the signal that it cannot use a higher profile.

According to the feedback I have from various colleagues at other Swiss providers, this problem does not seem to exist for Netflix at various other providers. So it can hardly be a general Netflix problem. I couldn’t even afford Netflix. As you could see from the NZZ article, Init7, for example, uses the free Netflix service and puts their servers in their own network. This benefits both Init7 and its customers. There is certainly a reason why Swisscom does not want to comment publicly on whether it has made use of this offer (which it certainly has not). In principle, this passivity alone proves that Swisscom is not interested in providing its paying customers with a good streaming service. They would rather deliberately leave the peering capacities at the limit, so that “regular” traffic is only marginally affected but such video streaming services have a noticeable loss of quality. How practical. What Swisscom has done with Zattoo also speaks volumes. It is clear that Swisscom is exploiting its power as a telecommunications provider beyond “net neutrality”. This will be no different in the case of Netflix.

But it is only a matter of time before Swisscom can no longer afford to offer a poor Netflix service. If widespread enough, the streaming quality of such services suddenly becomes a quality feature again and a reason for customers to decide which Internet provider to go to. I may be one of the first to turn my back on Swisscom because of its passivity towards Netflix. But I definitely won’t be the last.

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switch to a real provider?

Init 7 doesn’t have its own network, probably not a fiber connection that belongs to them, they just rent it everywhere. If you want, you can start your own provider all by yourself 😄

The problem is that companies like Init7 rent fiber optic connections and sell them to end customers and hope that the connections are not overcrowded. Normally, this overcrowding is not really a problem, as all customers rarely surf at the same time.

Imagine that as a provider you have a 10GBps connection available. Theoretically you can provide 10 × 1GBps. However, you sell 100× 1GBps and expect that not all of your customers will use 1GBps at the same time, so you save a lot of money since you (as a provider) only pay 10GBps. This works to a certain extent. But if too many users are active, you will eventually have a problem. Of course, you can shift the blame to Swisscom, as they also have to overuse lines. But this is completely normal because otherwise such a network would be unaffordable

When an overload does arise, companies like init7 go to the media with big crocodile tears and complain about Swisscom.

Unfortunately, Swisscom is the only large store that has a Swiss-wide fiber network. I think the SBB is right behind it. Sunrise also has its own backbone and probably Cablecom. The fine distribution to the customer then takes place again via the Swisscom connections, regardless of whether they are copper or glass. Things are a little different again at Cablecom.

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riddick, I’m afraid you’re comparing apples and oranges several times.

1. Overbooking has nothing to do with whether you have your own network or not. Overbooking is purely a business decision in order to be able to offer internet connections at acceptable prices, as you rightly say. Swisscom operates overbooking just like Init7 and every other ISP. Overbooking per se is not the problem when it comes to whether Netflix streams arrive in high quality or not. It’s the question of how you manage your overbooking. Providers like Init7 are clever when it comes to Netflix; they both peer with the Netflix Open Connect network and have Netflix content servers placed in their network. Both are free for Init7 and significantly reduce the load on the typical ISP bottlenecks, the transit connections to other networks. This benefits both Init7 as a provider and the Netflix customers on their network. Both could be done for Swisscom free of charge, so to speak, with one call, but Swisscom does neither, even though that would only be an advantage for it as an ISP. Swisscom deliberately does not do this because, as a TV provider, it tries in a dubious way to discriminate against a direct competitor with its double market power.

2. The overload regarding Netflix service does not occur in Swisscom’s own network, nor does it occur on the capacities booked by Init7 on the third-party network within Switzerland. I am convinced that Swisscom (and also Init7) has enough capacity to deal with this. The overbooking question is also irrelevant here. The bottleneck comes from the peering interfaces, as the Netflix traffic comes from outside the Swisscom network. There are various simple and even free measures to solve the problem on Swisscom’s part (see above). As I said, you obviously don’t do that. This is also reflected in the last place in the Netflix statistics, which nicely shows that Swisscom is the least interested in this of all the providers listed.

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But that doesn’t really have anything to do with this topic.

If you are THE largest broadband provider with the most customers, the most expensive offers and the highest federal participation in the country, you should also be able to deliver the corresponding capacities!

And since this is difficult these days, you can also integrate the CDN into your own network. After all, we also pay for such service. We’re not just paying for a hotline, which is becoming increasingly poorly trained and accessible!

Now a provider like init 7 is suddenly supposed to be worse just because it is small and not as fat and sluggish as Bluewin?

After all, init 7 has shaken up the market and can apparently offer excellent, inexpensive service on the networks of its cooperation partners. The price-performance ratio is right. Which is not true on the BBCS(F) network (51% federal participation!)! But how do I want to explain that in a forum where the service offered to 99% of customers is limited to displaying the speed test of their forced router?

Right, I better not explain and treat myself to a good song like this one:

Danger. Please watch the video before the holidays. The networks will definitely be overbooked again… 😉

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Hello everyone

I don’t use Netflix but I use other streaming services and it annoys me when the connection breaks down every now and then.

That’s why I researched for you and got the following information:

"Our IP interconnection capacities are more than sufficient to handle all traffic. Netflix itself confirmed in May 2015 that the situation in Switzerland is excellent (“In Switzerland it is very convenient for us. We are in contact with them Providers, no one is throttling us. We benefit from some of the fastest Internet connections we have encountered anywhere in the world.”; [http://bazonline.ch/digital/internet/Die-Sender-wollen-uns-draussen-halten/story/29229670](http://bazonline.ch/digital/internet/Die-Sender-wollen-uns- draussen-halten/story/29229670) This has not changed in the meantime. If you have problems with the connection quality, please contact our customer service."

Unfortunately I don’t have any further information about this.
You are probably familiar with the various ways to contact Swisscom (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, [contact page](http ://www.swisscom.ch/kontakt)).

Best regards
Samuel

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Hi @SamuelD

It’s nice that you researched this for us.

I am well aware of this article. Someone in the Superuserlounge wanted to make this article tasty…

Well, okay. The direct answer to the article is the NZZ article.

The BAZ article has a lot of text without saying anything concrete. In NO WORD does Reed Hastings make any specific reference to Swisscom. We have “some of the fastest internet connections in the world.” Yes, that is correct. We also have an init7 which hosts the Netflix servers in our own network. But what is certainly not among the fastest connections in the world are Swisscom’s IP peerings.

As of the end of 2014, 80% of Swisscom’s incoming traffic was contractually regulated. Providers such as Akamai, Teleboy, YouTube, Zattoo and many others pay Swisscom for the data (content) that runs over the Swisscom network.

As a paying customer, it’s kind of weird. Aren’t we already paying money for your network and aren’t these providers the ones that actually stimulate the need for an Internet (i.e. Swisscom)?

However. Apparently there are reasons why such OTT providers pay Swisscom (Wholesales) for the traffic.

The Baz article is not a lie either. Reed Hastings is right when he says that nothing is paid in Switzerland. There is no such contract between Netflix and Swisscom!

The fact is that the Netflix streams cannot be delivered to Swisscom customers at the appropriate times in the quality that would be available.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s 4K. If almost nothing works, it is almost always scaled to SD. Since I work and only watch Netflix at certain times, I am often affected by the problem during rush hours.

NB. I think very few people in this thread still feel like explaining these facts to the support channels again and again…

Thank you for your attention.

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A great example of why network neutrality belongs in the law - with hefty fines (and they shouldn’t end up in the federal treasury - a fund that helps communities build their own fiber optic networks would be a way to regulate the conflict of interest between the regulator and the majority owner).

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10 days later

I’ve currently been watching Jessica Jones somewhere between 480 and 720p for about an hour and a half. Very briefly 1080. What does that look like for you?

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At the moment everything is ok for me with Netflix, but it’s not really “prime time”.

I can only advise everyone: every single time you have problems because of limited Netflix quality, complain to Swisscom (hotline or contact form) and also complain to Netflix at the same time. Explain to Netflix that you are a Swisscom customer in Switzerland and that you regularly have problems. Only if enough customers complain regularly will anything change. Unfortunately, doing nothing or posting in the forum won’t change anything.

How easily Swisscom could solve the problem can be seen from all customers whose providers use the Init7 Netflix cache. It’s time for Swisscom to stop discriminating against its paying customers.

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I’ll now have a Moleskine ready in the living room and send the facts to Netflix in detail.

Here’s another funny video on this topic in general.

In the link is the first version (in German), which was presented in a more quirky way back then. But I prefer a guy like that 1,000 times more, with his heart on his tongue, than the licky speakers of the “former” monopolists, who always sugarcoat everything and say absolutely nothing.

https://media.ccc.de/v/denog7-2015-4-Buffering_Sucks#video

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Have you ever tried to redirect traffic manually to the init7 cache, e.g. via an entry in the hosts file? Don’t know if they accept connections from outside.

I reported the problem to Netflix in January. The support said the problem was known and they had forwarded it to Swisscom; Later things got a little better.

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