First, most Netflix content isn't served from AWS, but from their CDNs running on a variety of ISPs (lately, a lot of Cogent).
Second, the VPN trick doesn't really tell you anything except that the end point of the VPN has a better path to Netflix's CDNs than the route your ISP is using. Your ISP doesn't have to act overloaded routes to the content, which they want Netflix to pay to upgrade.
1) I don't think he meant that it was being served off of AWS, just that was his VPN example. Any in the US should do.
2) VPNs add latency and are still limited by the bandwidth of your connection. Given that Netflix has a decent CDN, in theory your VPN-box shouldn't have all that much better a path to a Netflix server than you do. So, assuming that the paths to netflix are mostly equal, a fast VPN-Netflix experience vs a crappy local connection one would imply the ISP is to blame (for whatever reason malicious or not).
The whole point is that Netflix's CDNs aren't "decent".
That is, they're probably "decent" (quite good, I'd even imagine), but the load is so high so as to cause traffic problems anyway. The question was "how can I tell if it's Netflix or if it's my ISP?" and the answer is, "You can't."
If they're actually overloaded, as opposed to there being peering failures to the consumer ISPs, why would there be a difference between VPN and not-VPN?
To answer both you and your sibling comment - there would be a difference in performance, depending on which CDN is delivered to you. I don't know of a way to request a specific CDN from Netflix, and if the one that's the closest to you is having perf issues, that doesn't mean the one closest to your VPN will have the same perf issues.
I was discussing paths to the CDN, not the performance of the CDN's servers themselves. If the servers are the bottleneck, and not the network, shouldn't performance be roughly the same (or worse over) the VPN verses the local connection?
On that note, can anyone recommend a home router that can easily route all traffic through a proxy server?
This appears to be the only reliable way to stream video during peak hours in my neighborhood, and I'm done with my ISP's suggestion that the problem would go away if only I'd reboot my modem again.
Not to get too in-depth with home network troubleshooting, but are you on a wireless network? Interference may be a cause.
I know it's fun to blame ISPs for all the problems under the sun, but it's actually rarer than one might think that the ISP itself is the cause of a home networking issue.
Wired. Also have tried going direct through the cable modem. ISP's techs can't resolve this after many calls and site visits. (Some techs say this is the expected behavior of the connection.)
While streaming in Firefox, reported speed rate jumps to expected (i.e. non-peak rate) when running through a proxy server outside my ISP's network. Speed drops instantly when the proxy setting is disabled. Flipping the proxy switch on/off literally changes my observed speed by ~10+ Mbps. This experiment has has been confirmed over weeks, different devices, etc.
So...I'm not blaming the ISP, but using a proxy server clearly works for me. So I'm going to do that so I quit wasting time trying to figure out why it doesn't work. I just need to be able to do it at the router level and not the computer level so it works for e.g. the Apple TV.
But, even your "diagnostic technique" is flawed, and doesn't necessarily point at the ISP. If we merely look at what you've said, all we know is that your connection to Netflix's local CDN provider is lower than required for optimal performance.
We can't say the ISP is in any way at fault here.
Try installing DD-WRT onto your router. It has features for things like this.
> We can't say the ISP is in any way at fault here.
FWIW though -- I'm not blaming my ISP, specifically because I don't have enough data and don't care enough about assigning blame to get it. It wouldn't matter anyway, I'm basically stuck with this ISP.
