On Fri, 2006-08-25 at 15:00 -0500, Mike Pfaiffer wrote:
You may also want to look at streaming video and VNC type connections. The streaming video may be the key. Look at some stuff from YouTube on both Shaw and MTS. This way you can isolate it. If you can use the same machine on both, so much the better because they can't claim it's your machine. Since it's video you can talk in language they understand. "The video freezes and drops frames. You say I'm getting all the packets. Maybe they aren't arriving in the correct order or they aren't arriving at a consistant speed. MTS doesn't have this problem and they are slower than you." Since video is Shaws core business, this is something they need to pay attention to.
Thanks for the suggestion Mike but I don't think streaming video will be the answer for a few of reasons;
1) The Video from those sites is buffered purposely to accommodate dropped or out of order packets. So in effect, even though the video is "streaming" its not real-time.
2) I'm pretty sure they are using TCP for this type of buffered video and the TCP stack will also accommodate for out of sequence packets.
3) Download is fine on Shaw, its upload that is the issue. The video you are referring to is download only.
What I'm trying to determine is if this is just a problem between us and Shaw or if its Shaw system-wide. Because of the issues with gaming I'm leaning toward a Shaw system-wide problem.
Just hoping someone else can verify.
John