Why does my internet connection feel slow and jumpy, even when my internet speed is high?
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<p>Of the 8.2 million homes and businesses active on Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) in July 2021, 77% are now <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.nbnco.com.au/corporate-information/about-nbn-co/updates/dashboard-july-2021" target="_blank">reported</a> to be on a broadband plan that delivers speeds of at least 50 megabits per second (Mbps).</p>
<p>This is plenty to accommodate a typical household’s needs for video streaming (Netflix high-definition resolution, for instance, uses about 3Mbps and ultra-high definition about 12Mbps), video conferencing (2-3Mbps), gaming (less than 1Mbps) and general web browsing.</p>
<p>So why do we still experience video freeze, game lag spikes, and teleconference stutters?</p>
<p>The problem is not speed, but other factors such as latency and loss, which are unrelated to speed.</p>
<p>For more than three decades we have been conditioned to think of broadband in terms of Mbps.</p>
<p>This made sense when we had dial-up internet, over which web pages took many seconds to load, and when DSL lines could not support more than one video stream at a time.</p>
<p>But once speeds approach 100Mbps and beyond, studies from the <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.broadband-forum.org/an-economic-argument-for-moving-away-from-mbps" target="_blank">Broadband Forum</a> and others show that further increases are largely imperceptible to users.</p>
<p>Yet Australian consumers fear being caught short on broadband speed.</p>
<p>More than half a million Australians moved to plans delivering <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/record-number-of-australians-move-to-very-high-speed-nbn-plans" target="_blank">more than 250Mbps</a> in the March 2021 quarter.</p>
<p>Indeed, we have collectively bought about 410 terabits per second (Tbps) on our speed plans, while actual usage peaks at 23Tbps.</p>
<p>This suggests we collectively use less than 6% of the speed we pay for!<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/cybersecurity-war-online/" target="_blank"></a></p>
<p>In contrast to our need for speed, our online time has grown tremendously.</p>
<p>According to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), the average Australian household <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Internet%20Activity%20Report%20%28December%202020%29.pdf" target="_blank">consumed 355 gigabytes of data in December 2020</a>, a 59% increase on the year before.</p>
<p>Our internet usage is like a marathon runner gradually adding more and more miles to their training distances, rather than a sprinter reaching higher and higher top speeds.</p>
<p>It therefore makes little sense to judge our multi-hour marathon of video streaming, gaming and teleconferencing by running a connection speed test which is a 5-10 second sprint.</p>
<h2>What do we really need from broadband?</h2>
<p>So what do we need from our broadband for a good streaming, gaming or conferencing experience?</p>
<p>A connection that offers low and relatively constant <em>latency</em> (the time taken to move data packets from the server to your house) and <em>loss</em> (the proportion of data packets that are lost in transit).</p>
<p>These factors in turn depend on how well your internet service provider (ISP) has engineered and tuned its network.</p>
<p>To reduce latency, your ISP can deploy local caches that store a copy of the videos you want to watch, and local game servers to host your favourite e-sport titles, thereby reducing the need for long-haul transport.</p>
<p>They can also provide good routing paths to servers, thereby avoiding poor-quality or congested links.</p>
<p>To manage loss, ISPs “shape” their traffic by temporarily holding packets in buffers to smooth out transient load spikes.</p>
<p>But there’s a natural trade-off here: too much smoothing holds packets back, leading to latency spikes that cause missed gunshots in games and stutters in conferences.</p>
<p>Too little smoothing, on the other hand, causes buffers to overflow and packets to be lost, which puts the brakes on downloads.</p>
<p>ISPs therefore have to tune their network to balance performance across the various applications.</p>
<p>But with the ACCC’s <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/internet-landline-services/broadband-performance-data" target="_blank">Measuring Broadband Australia (MBA) Program</a> predominantly focused on speed-testing, and with a 1% margin separating the top three ISPs all keen to claim the top spot, we are inadvertently incentivising ISPs to optimise their network for speed, rather than for other factors.</p>
<p>This is a detrimental outcome for users, because we don’t really have quite the need for speed we think we do.</p>
<h2>How can we do better?</h2>
<p>An alternative approach is possible.</p>
<p>With advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, it is now becoming possible to analyse network traffic streams to assess users’ experience in an application-aware manner.</p>
<p>For example, AI engines trained on the pattern of video “chunk” fetches of <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://www2.ee.unsw.edu.au/%7Evijay/pubs/conf/19tma.pdf" target="_blank">on-demand streams</a> such as Netflix, and <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="http://www2.ee.unsw.edu.au/%7Evijay/pubs/conf/21iwqos.pdf" target="_blank">live streams</a> such as Twitch, can infer whether they are playing at the best available resolution and without freeze.</p>
<p>Similarly, AI engines can <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.ausnog.net/sites/default/files/ausnog-2019/presentations/2.1_Vijay_Sivaraman_AusNOG2019.pdf" target="_blank">analyse traffic</a> throughout the various stages of games such as CounterStrike, Call of Duty or Dota2 to track issues such as lag spikes.</p>
<p>And they can detect videoconferencing stutters and dropouts by analysing traffic on Zoom, Teams, and other platforms.</p>
<p>Australia has made significant public investment into a national broadband infrastructure that is now well equipped to provide more-than-adequate speed to citizens, as long as it runs as efficiently as possible.</p>
<p><em>Image credit: Shutterstock</em></p>
<p><em>This article was originally published on <a rel="noopener" href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/computing/why-does-my-internet-connection-feel-slow-and-jumpy-even-when-my-internet-speed-is-high/" target="_blank">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by The Conversation.</em></p>
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