[no1special]

How can you say that if you don't know what the OP's internet connection is like?

Because streaming, in and of itself, is not a bottleneck, relative to physical media. One's internet connection may be a bottleneck, but in today's age, the vast majority of people have access to fast enough internet that it's not an issue.

 

[2ms]

My internet speed test gives me about 60Mb for a supposedly 100Mb service, so looks like ai should be fine. Lot of key advice here. Thanks a lot guys.

 

[ianiam]

My internet speed test gives me about 60Mb for a supposedly 100Mb service, so looks like ai should be fine. Lot of key advice here. Thanks a lot guys.

Could be your router. I upgraded to mesh router (M9+) and now able to get full 200Mbs speed on all my devices.

 

[no1special]

When I've had speed issues over WiFi, it was mostly due to being on a crowded channel on the 2.4 GHz band. Rebooting the router or manually switching channels can help, but what really helped is when I upgraded to 5 GHz router (more channels, less crowding). But the device must support the band. Roku Premiere is 2.4 GHz only. Gotta go with the Streaming Stick plus or higher with Roku to get 5 GHz. I believe all current Fire TV streamers have 5 GHz capability. Not sure about other streamers.

Also, if you have an older modem with low number of downstream channels, that may limit your speed as well.

 

[Tfid]

Because streaming, in and of itself, is not a bottleneck, relative to physical media. One's internet connection may be a bottleneck, but in today's age, the vast majority of people have access to fast enough internet that it's not an issue.

I don't agree with either of these statements.

 

[no1special]

I don't agree with either of these statements.

That's okay. You don't have to. But these are the facts:

Notwithstanding this progress, the Report finds that approximately 19 million Americans—6 percent of the population—still lack access to fixed broadband service at threshold speeds.

SOURCE: FCC Eighth Broadband Progress Report

Broadband is defined at least 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream.

Hence, my statement that the vast majority of US population has access to fast enough internet to stream without issues is true.

 

[harsh]

SOURCE: FCC Eighth Broadband Progress Report

This report is more than eight years old and speaks to what must be done to reach the goal.

That's not the same as having most or even some of those 19 million Americans set up with Broadband Internet access today.

 

[no1special]

This report is more than eight years old and speaks to what must be done to reach the goal.

That's not the same as having most or even some of those 19 million Americans set up with Broadband Internet access today.

You're right, the report is old, which I missed, but the quote is accurate in that only 6% of the population did not have access to broadband at that time. But broadband was defined using lower speeds back then. So....

Perhaps this is a better and more recent reference. According to this report from FCC, 99.6% of the US population has access to 1 or more fixed broadband providers as of December 2019.

FCC Fixed Broadband Deployment

This application provides a visualization of the residential fixed broadband deployment data collected on FCC Form 477. Facilities-based providers of broadband service report Form 477 data in June and December each year. Providers report fixed-broadband deployment data at the census block level...

broadbandmap.fcc.gov

 

[harsh]

The 2019 survey says that my state, Oregon, was 100% covered. I know that that was not true in 2019 and probably isn't today. When they use the term "available", I wonder if that means regardless of cost.

 

[no1special]

The 2019 survey says that my state, Oregon, was 100% covered. I know that that was not true in 2019 and probably isn't today. When they use the term "available", I wonder if that means regardless of cost.

It would appear cost is not a factor in that FCC report. But if I filter the results to show only DSL, Cable, and Fiber, the national rate drops to 92.69% of US population with access to 1 or more providers. For Oregon, it's 91.72%. Still, a vast majority of the population.

 

[groove93]

I have a few coworkers who can only get 6Mb internet. AT&T can't upgrade their speed. This is rural Georgia. At the same time, I was able to upgrade to 105Mb Speed a few days ago, I live about 30 minutes from them, but again, in Rural Georgia. Economic Status is irrelevent.

Not everyone has the capability of accessing Broadband internet, and in many cases, the prices are ridiculously high if the option to upgrade was available.

 

[harsh]

For Oregon, it's 91.72%. Still, a vast majority of the population.

And probably still not true in terms of affordable broadband.

 

[Otto Pylot]

I too live in Oregon and internet is expensive (cost vs speed) even for those of us who can afford it. Once you leave the major metropolitan areas, speeds go down but the costs don't go down accordingly. Even at 8%, there are vast areas of Oregon that are rural with folks who want to enjoy streaming/gaming like the rest of us do but can't because of slower speeds, fluctuating speeds, etc. in addition to the cost. And there are areas that are serviced by only one provider so one is stuck with slow speeds and high costs if they want internet service.

 

[JDLIVE]

Sorry...typo.

 

[Tfid]

Because streaming, in and of itself, is not a bottleneck, relative to physical media. One's internet connection may be a bottleneck, but in today's age, the vast majority of people have access to fast enough internet that it's not an issue.

If you mean rich, white, urban people, then I might agree.

More than 9 million children lack internet access at home for online learning

Millions of students have no internet while sheltering at home. USAFacts looks at the data on students with technological barriers to remote learning.

usafacts.org

 

[no1special]

The article posted above refers to households with children and children ages 3-18 and access to ANY internet. We were dicussing fixed (home) broadband internet for purposes of streaming. Even so, both studies show that the vast majority have internet access. Quotes from that article:

From the study based on households with children:

The numbers are similar for internet access. Seventy-three percent of households with children always had access to internet for online learning and 17% had access most of the time. An additional 7%, accounting for 3.7 million households, had internet available sometimes, rarely, or never.

So 90%+ of US households with children have access to internet always or most of the time.

From the study based on children ages 3-18:

Reasons for not having home internet vary. Most families surveyed by NCES reported that they simply don’t need it. These families may choose to setup home internet during this pandemic. However, 34% reported not having internet because they were unable to afford it, 4% because they did not have a home computer, and 4% because an internet connection was not available in their area.

 

[no1special]

We've gone from streaming being a bottleneck, which it isn't, to internet access being a bottleneck, which it isn't for the vast majority of people who are able to stream, to how affordable internet access is, to what percentage of households with children have ANY internet access (vast majority do). Sorry for being partly responsible for derailing the thread, but the OP has stated that internet speed is not a bottleneck for him, since he confirmed he get 60 Mbps down. And I've shown that the vast majority of US population has access to fixed broadband. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.

 

[eherberg]

Good Lord -- the FCC broadband availability report being used as 'fact' again ...

Just for fun (and also because that FCC number is absolutely unbelievable for anybody who lives in rural areas) - I started looking into the FCC details of wired broadband access for my county. It appears that the FCC 'process' is for providers twice-a-year to report the availability to the FCC which then uses that info for that calculation. Whether what's reported is true or not is apparently decided on the honor system -- and who is more honorable than media companies?

So for my county in a rural area, the total county population is 7091 according to latest 2015 numbers. That number includes 7 towns ranging in population from 1300 in the largest to about 140 in the smallest. The remaining area outside of those 7 is true rural homes and farms.

According to the FCC data - we have 100% wired broadband availability in my county -- with 0% not having access.

Living here - I can tell you that is absolute BS. The only way that this number is accurate is if the provider is only counting the towns that service is provided to - ignoring the 50% of the population that lives outside of those communities. Or ... even worse ... they're assuming that 'technically' if each rural resident wanted to spend the thousands to have line laid from the existing coverage to their homes ... well then they can say 'Hey, Look -- we have 100% coverage -- theoretically .."

Given that I'm sure my provider isn't the only one stretching the truth (the more jaded would say out-right lying) - I wonder if a better means of measuring broadband access would be a geographical analysis rather than a population one? In my situation - the real number is 50% which is a lot different than 100%.

Of course - even better would be not depending on providers to supply this info without a means of validating its authenticity.

 

[Stephen Hopkins]

To the original topic... I find image quality from a 4K/HDR stream to be difficult (though not impossible) to distinguish from the same UHD disc on an ISF calibrated projector at ~127" 2.35:1. That said, I've found plenty of examples of sound quality being extremely hampered on the streaming versions, mostly in the low-end and LFE. I still stream ~80% of my content, but the 20% I really care about, I fall back to UHD or even regular BD disc (especially from studios that include the Atmos track on regular BD) for improved sound quality.