Ridiculously slow transfer speeds from GB's content server!

You know that new host that was supposedly going to provide better connections and transfer speeds for all the media content of Giant Bomb? It sucks, its the same host (akamai) that the PSN uses for its content delivery and we all know how everyone thinks of it's transfer speeds.

Ever since rolling over to the new host, I've had nothing but problems with video downloads and having a reliable download speed, but now I can't even download a 90MB mp3 in a reasonable time! I SHOULD NOT have to wait 30 minutes for a podcast to download, currently I'm getting 30KB/s on downloading the newest podcast! What is this 2001?!

These connection issues are not a problem that is isolated to my home internet connection, on my college's Internet2 (only 2-3 hops to giant bomb's host provider) network connection I rarely seen download speeds above 2MB/s while I was getting 5MB/s+ when GB was hosted off the AWS servers!

Update: I've done some tests over my college network, still getting only 1.3-2.0 MBp/s at most...

tracert:

Tracing route to a1189.g2.akamai.net [205.213.110.24]

over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 10.2.255.253

2 1 ms 1 ms <1 ms 198.150.66.1

3 6 ms 2 ms 2 ms r-greenbay-hub-ge-1-0-0-679.wiscnet.net [140.189.140.89]

4 5 ms 5 ms 5 ms r-uwmadison-isp-xe-8-1-0-3983.wiscnet.net [140.189.8.65]

5 6 ms 5 ms 6 ms 205.213.110.24

Trace complete.

SWITCH TO A DIFFERENT NETWORK HOST, Akamai is a joke compared to other content distributors!

Right this second I am sitting at Starbucks on a crappy acer $300 netbook. after reading this post a second ago, I downloaded the kingdom rush trailer. It down loaded in about a minuet and a half.

I got about 1mb/s. Thats about what i get at home.

I have been having issues with HD video over the past couple of days, this might be the cause...

I used to feel awesome when I could get my goGator download client to tell me that it would take 12 hours to download a 300meg demo of a game I might not even like. Man.

Same, I'm unable to stream HD content without continual buffering. On a 20Mb connection in the UK, getting a 9Mb download on speedtest with a US based server.

How long have you been experiencing these buffering issues? Noticed anything fullscreened on site would have continuous buffering issues for about 1-2 weeks now.

Yeah probably about that timeframe. Anything live from Twitch is fine to stream so I'm guessing it's a Giant Bomb issue. Being in Europe probably doesn't help though.

Lots of buffering recently here as well.

I usually watch progressive videos, and they've been loading extremely slow the last couple of days. Takes several minutes(up to ten) just to load a minute or two of the video. And that's not even on HD.

Same here. Right now I can't stream anything without buffering from hell, and download speeds are around 170 KB/s

You people are all crazy, I only have problems when im playing Sim City, or some other high networking game, and even then I get great speeds until I start downloading something else, at like half a meg a second.

Same here, although it's not THAT bad. I'm pulling like 10mbits/s. I used to be able to max out my connection at 3 times that.

Ditto. I've seem to be getting a 30kb/s to around 120mb/s when downloading videos from GB. This means I can't watching anything on GB unless it's Youtube (or just wait like 16hours to download a HD video). I'm have an 100mbps connection and I'm also located in Singapore if it matters. I shouldn't have such terrible download speeds.

I download stuff from GB as fast as my internet let's me. And without any spikes (as far as I'm aware).

Update: Nothing has changed.

Since the site changeover, video streaming just pretty much doesn't work for me. It's *so* slow. If I manage to get past the video to start, it stops to buffer every ten seconds or so. Cancelled my premium membership as the site is more-or-less broken for me. Don't know if its a problem my end or not, but I didn't ever have one problem with the old site.

I only noticed my speed getting lower when I download a lot of content from GB. Like when I was downloading most of the p4 endurance run my wait time eventually got to a hour or more for a file that was about the same size.

Mine had been working fine since the changeover (it was almost unusable before that) until a couple of days ago. Now, I can't stream videos without constant buffering (like every 7 seconds or so). I tried downloading one instead and was getting really low download speeds. Did a speedtest and I'm getting 12M down.

Ever since the switch my speeds aren't so much slower as they are incredibly uneven. One day I might download 5MB/s and the next day it might be a whopping 50KB/s.

Im having problems with hd streams for last few weeks, but i can still stream progressive high decently, but dowload speeds have gotten worse and worse and are now down to 105KB/s so downloading even medium version of Wensdayshow for example takes me 2h.

I'm rocking embarrassingly slow internet (I live in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico), and I've been having issues watching any video content compared to the old site. Luckily I renewed my sub and just download stuff, but sometimes I just want to watch a vid while I'm grabbing a munch.

I have also been having some problems while watching HD videos. It's a bit on and off though, so sometimes I don't get any buffering issues. But alot of the times It's really stuttery while watching HD.

I'm in Denmark on a 10 Mbps connection.

It's awful. The connection speed is highly unstable. Switch to whatever Twitch is using.

Anyone know any workarounds?

This is a real bummer, I always download subscriber only content because it doesn't stream well to Australia.

Right now I am getting 560 Kbps :(

Mine too. Progressive and streaming settings can both be unwatchable for me so I have to download.

It's near impossible for me to watch any content on GB after the change. I always use youtube and twitch now if the option is there.

I'm hitting 2 Mbps now like usual, must have been an international link issue ~ although I saw no reports.

Same here. Downloading premium content seems to be practically impossible and I'm forced to use Youtube for their other content. This problem isn't universal to all users--what's the deal? I live in Texas.

I used to have this problem with the old servers. The new ones are great for me.

Does the Bombcast download from the GB servers (if I'm, for example using an iPhone podcast app to download it)? Because the Bombcast (specifically the Bombcast) is very slow downloading for me. I'll queue up all my podcast downloads in the morning and they'll all come down fast through my 18mbps Internet until the queue gets to the Bombcast. It takes maybe 30/40 minutes to download it. As with the video player problems, I don't have this issue with any other podcast that I download.

It's very inconsistent. I started two 1.3 GB downloads just seconds apart, at about 5:30pm. It finished downloading the first at 6:04pm, and the second is still downloading at 7:48pm (1.2 GB downloaded, saying it will take another 50 minutes for the remainder).

100 mbit here, videos often stop downloading after 5 minutes and then they just won't go any further. But the site itself loads fast.

EDIT: Location Sweden

I've already posted in this thread, but that was about a month ago, and there's still no change. I can very rarely watch content without there being buffering, and it's been like that ever since even before the launch of the new site.

Is anything being done about it?

Same here, since the new site went up the content delivery speed is crap for me, watching via normal streaming is night impossible, it stops to buffer every 10 second or so... progressive is better since I can just let it sit to buffer for like 20 minutes before watching... HTML5 works kinda ok sometimes.

Before the new site it worked flawlessly

Of course I'm only considering the HD feeds.

I'm guessing they probably changed their CDN? or at least their CDN contract perhaps?

I'm in Brazil.

I have the same issue. Even SD videos need constant buffering on progressive and streaming is the same. Sometimes it will get to a couple of minutes and then just stop, it won't play any more no matter how long I leave it. It's been happening for about 4 weeks or so, I'm not sure. It's definitely not on my end because I can watch videos on other sites fine. I'm Ireland.

Same issue here. Extremely inconsistent loading times on videos. It's especially troublesome on the premium videos where watching through youtube is not an option.

See if this helps: http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/bug-reporting-33/a-fix-for-crappy-downloads-speeds-from-giant-bomb-1433284/#0