TVs & players

[Bewildered_Bob]

My Roku Ultra streaming device appears to have excellent wireless connectivity to the router but Spectrum ISP may be cause of <1 MPS download speed (according to system networking specs display). How can I determine if ONLY Spectrum is failing to produce acceptable streaming viewing ?  Thanx.

Bewildered Bob

ps: also Roku considers 5 MPS as "good" for some unknown reason since minimum of 15 seems to provide adequate viewing. Roku accurately describes <1 MPS as "poor" even 'tho UNACCEPTABLE would be correct.

[Strega2]

5Mbps is what Netflix recommends for HD streaming. I like to see more like 8Mbps for a glitch-free experience. In the past, I have streamed at 1Mbps as have others on the forum. It's acceptable if it's all you have or there's a show you can only get that way.  Largely static scenes can look reasonably decent.  (But when I was young, I used to watch Over The Air TV from hundreds of miles away so I could get up to 5 channels so perhaps I developed low standards.)

If I understand your question, you would probably have to try another ISP, for example a hotspot on your phone, if you think Spectrum is a problem.  But many phone hotspots are quite limited.

[JWS9518]

@Bewildered_Bob I would start with doing an Ookla speed test and see what your upload/download speed is through your network.

[Bewildered_Bob]

THANX - GREAT SUGGESTION !!  Current download speed is 22.6 MPS. Hopefully there will be little or no degradation.

Bewildered Bob

[jontalk]

@Bewildered_Bob  Out of curiosity, I'm wondering what type of connection you're paying for since 22 mbps is like the ancient 'dial ups' of yesteryear. I'm in CA where Xfinity has the cable monopoly and get nearly 500 mbps for $35/month.

Be advised that the servers that calculate Roku speeds aren't reliable. If you're using WiFi I suggest you install WiFi Analyzer for Android or something similar if you own an iPhone. Open the app and take note of how many others use the same channel/band, then log into the router, disable 'auto' from channel selection and choose one with less congestion

[Strega2]

You're getting your units confused. Dial-up peaked at around 1/1000th of that speed - around 25Kbps. And I used to think that was pretty good speed since I had started at 110bps (which is 0.1Kbps or  0.0001Mbps.)

[JWS9518]

@Bewildered_Bob 

That is a pretty low download speed for Spectrum.  Even their slowest speeds (Spectrum assist) are 50 Mbps which you should be getting roughly 75 to 80 percent of that guaranteed.  Typical internet packages from Spectrum are 100 to 200 Mbps with 500 and 600 now common for their packages.  Check to see what internet plan you have to see what speeds you should be getting.  They guarantee 80 percent of that speed, whatever package you are signed up for.  I would also contact Spectrum to have them do a test on your line to see if noise or the signals are messed up creating issues.  I had something similar a couple years ago, where the signal noise created issues and it turned out it was a broken pin on Spectrum's port that controlled the network in the area that caused intermittent issues. 

[JWS9518]

It is also possible that the modem needs to be updated or replaced or changed to one that handles the latest protocols and speed.