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NBA League Pass Streaming keeps on buffering on NBN50

jmgl
Level 2

I've been streaming NBA League Pass --> https://watch.nba.com for the past few weeks without any issues. However, today it keeps on buffering and is completely unwatchable. I've tested other streaming sites and can watch 4k Youtube videos and HD Netflix videos without any issues.

 

I've also tested my mobile data and NBA League Pass --> https://watch.nba.com works perfectly fine.

 

Could you please advise if TPG is throttling NBA League Pass CDN (Content Delivery Network)?

 

Any sort of assistance would be greatly appreciated.

8 REPLIES 8
peter_k
Moderator

Welcome to TPG Community,

Could you PM (Private message) me your customer ID, username, service address or mobile number so I can check the status here.

 

To learn how to send a private message, click here.  


Regards,
Peter

jmgl
Level 2

PM Sent @peter_k 

peter_k
Moderator

Hi

 

TPG does not throttle any particular application or Website.

If you were able to stream 4K Youtube or Netflix at the same time you were having the issues you know that the Network was delivering good speeds.

I know you tested via a Mobile service but there must have been some congestion somewhere regarding the NBA Website.

Can you confirm if it has returned to normal now?

 

Regards,

Peter

 

6673778
Level 2

I have exactly the same problem with leaguepass. All other streaming services work fine and the speed test says 50Mb down 18Mb up

When i set the quality in the League pass video to Auto it will default to 240p if I change it to 640p it will work and almost never buffer. 720 and 720HD just never work. The problem really came to a head last week when i was the only person at home with the only computer and i turned foxtel off. It still buffered.

So in Sydney the watch.nba.com server is

 

jon$ nslookup watch.nba.com
Server: 192.168.10.1
Address: 192.168.10.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
watch.nba.com canonical name = watchnba.neulion.net.
watchnba.neulion.net canonical name = neulion.nba.com.edgekey.net.
neulion.nba.com.edgekey.net canonical name = e11280.dscg.akamaiedge.net.
Name: e11280.dscg.akamaiedge.net
Address: 23.49.230.43

 

If you do a geolocation on that ipaddress it is housed within the TPG network. Akamai is a product that aids a Content delivery network by cacheing content closer to the consumer so we all don't contact the Neulion server site in Canada or New York or wherever it is. This Akamai server will be different in each country ie in Germany it is Name: e11280.dscg.akamaiedge.net
Address: 104.109.89.200

 

So I raised support calls with all three NBAleaguepass/neulion, Akamai (i just rang them), TPG and lo and behold it was fixed.

 

The reason why I knew to do this is when KAYO were setting up in Australia they had constant issues with Akamai servers causing buffering problems. They now also have an akamia server with in the TPG network.

 

Neulion was setup by Nancy Li, Charles Wangs wife and Russ Artz who were the original founders of Computer Associates. CA used to buy up software companies near the end of their lives and do wrap and rolls on the maintenance revenue for the dwindling customer base so it doesn't surprise me that Neulion have created a less than optimal solution.

Nasirsobhani
Level 2
Hey

I really am not tech savvy and this made very little sense but I am desperate to fix my league pass issue

I steam it via chrome cast on all 3 tvs in my house and work place and they all struggle

If you can explain who you called and what to say I’d appreciate it

I live in Geelong Victoria if that makes a difference?

Cheers
DrMeers
Level 2

@6673778 I'm having the same issue, and have the same 23.49.230.43 IP address for watch.nba.com -- do I need to raise support calls with all three parties? Do you know which one fixed the issue?

stojo01
Level 2

The fixes for this were multiple.

1. After complaining to TPG i got upgraded to a 200Megabit connection which I have kept at $84 a month

2. I changed the default router that TPG provided to a Netgear AX5400 with 2.4ghz wireless

3. I eliminated the netgear hub in our lounge that wasn't a true 100 megabit just 10 megabit and just did everything via wireless.

4. We watch NBA league pass via an Amazon Firestick wirelessly.

The TPG upgrade did not make much difference but we kept it because of Covid lockdown and the number of family members working from home increased.

Changing the router out made a big difference because now instead of multiple routers and hubs we just rely on the 2.4ghz wireless. I downloaded and trialed a product called inSSIDer which showed that the default router wireless had very good throughput because they combined channels but that it dropped regularly. Whether that was because of interference with other routers daisychained in our very large house or other neighbours on the same channel, I don't know. Other Neighbours near me use netgear orbi and they rave about how good it is even some families share between parents and grandparents and only pay for one NBN connection. The only issue with the netgear router is that I had to speak to my wifes employers IT department in the UK about upgrading the wireless firmware on her HP laptop, they needed Admin access to do that.

The Amazon firestick is awesome but I tweak it a bit. I get all the standard apps abc,sbs,7,9,10,Disney,Netflix and NBA league pass* I install "Downloader" and wolf launcher as well as Aurora. With Aurora I can browse google play store apps for android devices that way I can load Binge and Kayo as well. I have to impersonate a specific amazon compatible android operating system in the aurora menu to do that also aurora is very hard to use from a navigation point of view. We have a Samsung TV and there is no league pass app for their Tizen TV operating system.     

Now we have no more probelms with buffering but NBA League Pass itself is no longer the product it was in Australia. This season we have had odd games where there was no home commentary or the commentary was only in Spanish or Portuguese. It all came to a head during the allstar weekend when the Rising star games were locked out and the main game was only in Spanish and Portuguese. I found that by using an older version 10.2 of the NBA league pass app on the firestick I could watch everything ok but the newest version 10.4 would not work. Fun and games. We have been league pass subscribers for 3 years and it was really good for the first two years when Neulion was in control but this season has been **e so we probably won't renew. It's like the nba.com domain which redirects to sporting news in Australia and you have to click through the link on that page or setup a html header to change your Forwarded-For ip address or have a US VPN to get to the real NBA webpage even then sometimes you get a 502 bad gateway error.

The AUS market is just too small for NBA and they just subcontract it out to someone who tailors the content for Australians by presenting articles and video highlights focusing on Australian players or teams with a lot of Australians. The team I follow doesn't have any Aussies playing and I think you'll find that with 30% of Australians having been born overseas and half of us having at least one parent born overseas there is no particular bias in viewership to only want to watch Aussies. Having said that Giddey is Good and at 20 is set for a long career and I also like to watch the occasional Patty Mills or Joe Ingles highlights but I can find that for myself.

 

Hope that helps 

 

 

stojo01
Level 2

Forgot to say we are on a fibre/coax NBN connection so getting rid of foxtel could have helped, we had to have a telstra power booster on the coax to get it to work with the iq2 box we had.

Also I'm pretty sure that the buffering we were getting was down to akamai cacheing back in 2020 when we had this problem and I'm pretty sure that the guys who stream nba now have fixed that or are using some other method for cacheing.

The fact that we get Spanish, English and Portuguese indicates they might generate content for Phillipines, East Timor and Aus/NZ and cache it or host it close to all three markets.

The NBA is a complex thing broadcastwise with nationally televised games locked out of streaming within the USA and lots of people trying to get around that using VPNs etc in other countries like Aus where we get the full league pass.