[TriLUG] Is TWC throttling CDN traffic (youtube/amazonprime/netflix) ?

Aaron Joyner aaron at joyner.ws
Wed Mar 20 21:38:23 EDT 2013


To clarify, I have no insight into the inner workings of TWTC's
networks, nor about the specifics of those YouTube cache hostnames or
IPs, but I'll posit the following explanation, based on a firm belief
in Hanlon's razor:

If the natural route from TWTC to YouTube traverses the network path
TW->Foo->YouTubeCache1, you can imagine two things.  TW is likely to
have some conflicted incentives about upgrading their connection to
Foo, as it will have a follow-on effect on the bandwidth use in the
rest of their network.  They don't have to necessarily throttle
traffic to YouTube explicitly, it "just happens" implicitly if the the
link to Foo (and indirectly, YouTube) is under-provisioned.

If you deny traffic to Foo, and the YouTube client is smart enough to
find TW->Bar->YouTubeCache2, you might well get a markedly better
experience than the average TW customer, in particular at certain
times of day (eg. peak YouTube).  You might also find unexpected
problems, like Bar might be the network link that's the shortest path
to some other popular service (<insert amusing speculation here>), so
it gets swamped at some other time of day.

Aaron S. Joyner


On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 8:45 PM, Scott Miller <scottlinux at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's an example:
>
> o-o---preferred---sn-mv-p5qe---v17---lscache1.c.youtube.com
>
> Sometimes it's a 206.111.9.x like this:
>
> 206.111.9.12
>
> Other times a 173.194.58.x ip:
>
> $ host o-o---preferred---sn-mv-p5qe---v17---lscache1.c.youtube.com
> o-o---preferred---sn-mv-p5qe---v17---lscache1.c.youtube.com is an
> alias for o-o.preferred.sn-mv-p5qe.v17.lscache1.c.youtube.com.
> o-o.preferred.sn-mv-p5qe.v17.lscache1.c.youtube.com has address 173.194.58.212
> o-o.preferred.sn-mv-p5qe.v17.lscache1.c.youtube.com has IPv6 address
> 2404:6800:4008:2::d
>
>
> Here is that reddit thread:
>
> http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/13kmvd/have_time_warner_internet_but_can_barely_stream/c74vk39
>
>
> On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 1:48 PM, Aaron Joyner <aaron at joyner.ws> wrote:
>> For my curiosity, can someone with an example of a slow or poor
>> YouTube experience provide the actual IP that they're streaming video
>> from?  In particular, something more specific than a /16.
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 12:35 PM, Randy Barlow
>> <randy at electronsweatshop.com> wrote:
>>> On Wed, 20 Mar 2013 11:07:14 -0400
>>> Igor Partola <igor at igorpartola.com> wrote:
>>>> I have not been seeing any issues. Then again, I have been accessing
>>>> YouTube over IPv6 and I don't think TWC knows what that is :)
>>>
>>> I too use an HE tunnel, but somehow the YouTube videos seem to be using
>>> a hostname that doesn't have an AAAA record, and so my video traffic is
>>> going to one of the sad throttling servers.
>>>
>>> I've done an anecdotal polling of my friends who use HE, and most of
>>> them do not have this happen to them, but one other friend does.
>>>
>>> I've also tried blocking various IP ranges to no avail.
>>>
>>> --
>>> R
>>> --
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