Trouble streaming Women's Conference

[russellhltn]

Just to add another story for a "datapoint". This past weekend, our stake center's internet connection went down the dumpster. It's done that before. Calling the ISP provider suggested the levels were a bit off. I messed with the cabling (cable modem), redoing the connections in a outside box. That seemed to bring the levels up a bit and get things functioning, but there was still an issue. The cable guy came out and did some work on the outside. He indicated the levels were good, but suggested the signal to noise ratio wasn't. And that the modem needed to be replaced. I'll be getting that on Saturday.

But here's the takeaway - it's not just about bandwidth. Lost packets can be a far bigger issue. It also seems that modems do go bad. The one at church Is a little over 3 years old. I've had a DSL modem at home replaced when my DSL started acting up. So you may be suffering from a old modem. Marginal situations can appear at inopportune times, and are more likely to appear when you're streaming a 90-120 minute video than a short clip.

[Mikerowaved]

Just to add another story for a "datapoint"...

Good info. Until I switched to fiber, I relied for decades on cable for Internet at my home. One time when my data speeds were "spotty" (mostly on, but sometimes not), a service guy came out, and after observing what was happening, and doing some line measurements at different points, he replaced one F-connector out near the street and fixed the problem. So yes, there are many points of failure besides the modem that can make service unreliable.

It also seems that modems do go bad.

I've never seen them gradually "go bad", but if it needs rebooting every so often (or reboots itself) to stay at peak speeds, then I guess that would qualify. Also, if the modem is provided by the cable company and it's an older DOCSIS 1 or 2 version, then I would certainly ask to have it replaced with at least a DOCSIS 3.0.

[farwest]

So if you have a 4 Mbps service and we are pushing 15 Mbps service what are your thoughts on with this would not stream?

Thanks,
Whitt

[farwest]

So the question why won't a 15 Mbps service stream it? Provider showing everything good on his side.

Thanks

[russellhltn]

We've provided a number of reasons. The first being that you need to turn off the WiFi. Secondly, you could still be having ISP problems. Not all problems show up in bandwidth measurements. But try it without the WiFi and see how it goes.

[lajackson]

Whether 4 meg or 15 meg, make sure to turn off the WiFi. We have a meetinghouse in our stake with 25 Mbps of service. When the members walk in to sacrament meeting on Sunday, a speedtest shows that only 8 or 9 Mbps remains out of the 25. That means that our congregation of around 180-200 uses up 16 or 17 Mbps of the bandwidth before they even start playing with their devices. Most of them don't even realize it is happening, but they are getting Gospel Library updates and updates to every other program they have on their devices if they have not been near a WiFi zone recently.

So turn off the meetinghouse WiFi when you want to stream a broadcast.

And just because the provider says everything is good on his side doesn't mean it is good on your side, so make sure you are actually getting the service they are promising.

Then make sure you have a laptop with enough memory and horsepower to stream the feed. My personal laptop has an uncanny knack of knowing when I am streaming something important and deciding then and there that the latest Windows update is more critical, or the automatic file backup starts to spin, or any number of other things that frustrate me. If your laptop is maxing out its memory or CPU capacity, or gets busy doing other things in the background, your broadcast will not stream nicely.

I think those are the biggest challenges.

[farwest]

Thanks for all the help we really appreciate it.

Whitt