Posted: 11th Jun, 2010 By: MarkJ

UK ISP Be Broadband has launched a new '
Campaign to Banish Buffering' just hours before the
Fifa 2010 Worldcup gets underway. Buffering is a method used to cache the first few seconds or minutes of an internet video stream before displaying it to the user, which in theory should result in a smoother playing experience on slower connections.
Unfortunately this method can also cause annoyingly long waiting times before the video itself begins to play, a factor that can be further antagonised when an ISP employs aggressive
Traffic Management measures to limit streaming performance (e.g. BT).
Naturally BE's "
campaign" is really just a clever bit of publicity / marketing spin to say they're faster than most providers, which is usually true (except for Virgin Media of course). However you would be forgiven for thinking that some of the figures they use had been plucked right out the sky.
The BE Blog Said:For example, the average UK broadband speed is 3.6mbps, but streaming video needs an average of 9mbps of bandwidth to avoid buffering. When you factor in network management people are going to get a poor experience. Streaming will be is at its slowest during peak hours – especially between 5 and 6 pm on a Sunday evening, just when some of the major World Cup matches will be taking place and when some ISPs will be keeping a careful eye on who is doing what online.
We also know that the average encoding rate for video streams is about 2000Kbps. That means one person watching a 90 minute football match would transfer roughly 1.4GB of data. For high definition video streams, the average encoding bitrate is around 3200Kbps and one user would transfer about 2.25GB of data.
Many of the cheaper broadband deals have download limits of 10GB, 5GB or even 2GB - that’s quite a lot of your monthly usage allowance gone if you are planning to watch a few World Cup matches over iPlayer, meaning that your connection will slow right down just as the tournament is reaching the important Quarter and Semi Final stages.
Firstly most video streams certainly do not "
need" an average 9Mbps to avoid buffering. In fact this often depends more on the video codec, video server (website hosting the stream) and video quality but certainly no general assumption could be made.
Most medium quality Standard Definition (SD) video streams require anything from 1-2Mbps (e.g. BBC iPlayer) and in our practical experience the vast majority will begin to play instantly with a 3-4Mbps connection. Lower quality videos would obviously require less speed, it is all highly variable and there is no clear standard.
BE has of course said that it does not use "
traffic shaping" and that any customers who join them will "
never be 'buffering about' ever again". This is perhaps a bit misleading since anybody living too far from their local exchange would still experience a lower top-speed and thus might have problems with buffering; not even BE can overcome the laws of ADSL2+ physics.