My Long-Term Streaming Issue: Full Timeline, All Details, and Why This Matters So Much to Me

[muusicman]

Hi everyone. I’m posting this because I’ve been dealing with a long-term streaming issue that has followed me across multiple ISPs, multiple routers, multiple houses, and multiple devices. I’ve been working with Microsoft Copilot (AI) for a long time to help me organize everything and make sense of it. Some people say AI is great for networking issues, others say it’s not — but Copilot has helped me piece together the timeline and eliminate false leads so I can present the clearest picture possible.

Before I get into the technical details, there’s something important I want people to understand so the urgency makes sense.

---

Personal Context (Why This Matters So Much)

I am not a networking expert — not even close. I have less than zero technical knowledge about networking. I’m disabled and paralyzed from the waist down, and my health is not great. The internet is my window to the world. It’s how I stay connected, how I communicate, how I stay sane. I’m not looking for pity — I just want people to understand why this matters so much to me.

When the internet stalls, it’s not just an inconvenience. It genuinely affects my ability to function day to day. That’s why I invested in a router that’s considered “a beast” — the ASUS GT‑BE98 Pro — because I wanted the best possible chance at a stable, perfect connection. I just want things to work the way they’re supposed to.

With that said, here is the full, detailed timeline.

---

1. My ISP History (Three Completely Different Technologies)

CenturyLink DSL (years ago)

• Copper phone line
• High latency
• Low speeds
• Frequent buffering
• Streaming stalls were common

SpaceX Starlink (Day‑1 customer)

• I signed up the first day it was available
• I had the very first Starlink kit:• Round Dishy (Gen 1, motorized)
• Black‑and‑white PoE power supply
• Tall white router with a single LED

• The LED would go white sometimes, but red a LOT
• Red meant “No Signal Received” — extremely common in early Starlink
• Drops were constant
• Even when Starlink was “working,” I still had occasional buffering

Co‑Mo Connect Fiber (current)

• 1 Gbps symmetrical
• ONT + my own router
• Speedtests are consistently:• 930–940 Mbps
• 4–5 ms ping
• 0.07 ms jitter
• No packet loss

• Router logs show:• No WAN drops
• No DHCP failures
• No kernel errors
• No reboots

• Apple TV is wired
• Still get occasional buffering on streaming apps

The key point:
The same type of occasional buffering has followed me across DSL → Starlink → Fiber, which are three completely different technologies.

---

2. My Router History

Orbi RBR850 (original router)

• I thought it was failing
• I replaced it
• Gave it to my mom
• It works kinda rotten for her too
• She still gets occasional buffering too and lots of clients that she has connected, (twice as many as me.) I have like 11 across wired and WiFi and with her router and clients she’s got issues with some of them not recognizing or disconnecting frequently. 

ASUS GT‑BE98 Pro (my current router — “the beast”)

• Brand new
• Extremely powerful
• Wired Apple TV
• Perfect logs (I think… all the dates are jumbled due to me doing full ONT/Router power cycles… I truly don’t know what I’m looking at when looking at the logs
• Perfect WAN stability (again i refer you to the log reading confusion)
• Still get occasional buffering

The buffering did NOT follow the router.

---

3. My Mom’s Setup (Important Clue)

My mom lives half a block away in a very small town.

She has:

• Same ISP (Co‑Mo Fiber)
• Same speed package
• Same Apple TV 4K model (ordered by reordering my own purchase)
• Same Orbi router model I used to have
• Same DNS (Automatic from ONT)
• Same apps

And she also gets occasional buffering, but not always at the same time as me.

This is a huge clue because it means:

• It’s not my router
• It’s not my wiring
• It’s not my ONT
• It’s not my house
• It’s not my power
• It’s not my Apple TV
• It’s not my LAN

The behavior exists even when I’m not involved.

---

4. The Green Cabinets (Fiber Distribution Points)

Both my house and my mom’s house have a green fiber cabinet nearby.

These cabinets:

• are not per-house
• serve multiple homes
• contain splitters
• feed different PON ports
• do NOT guarantee identical routing

Even though we live close, we are not guaranteed to hit the same:

• splitter
• PON port
• aggregation router
• CDN node
• peering route

This explains why we don’t always buffer at the same time.

---

5. Apple TV Details

We both have:

• Apple TV 4K
• Same model
• Same firmware
• Same apps
• Same settings
• Same ISP
• Same speed package
• Same DNS

But streaming apps:

• assign CDN nodes per device
• request segments independently
• adapt bitrate independently
• switch servers independently

So even identical Apple TVs can behave differently.

---

6. DNS Myth (Important to Mention)

People have told me:

“Use a faster DNS and your buffering will go away.”

But:

• My mom and I both use Automatic DNS from the ONT
• That means we use the same DNS
• Yet we still buffer at different times
• DNS only resolves the hostname once
• DNS does NOT control:• CDN assignment
• routing
• segment delivery
• buffering
• bitrate

So DNS is not the cause.

---

7. The Outlet Detail

Every modem/ONT I’ve ever had has been plugged into the same outlet in my house.

But:

• No modem has ever lost power
• No ONT has ever rebooted
• No router has ever rebooted
• Logs show no power loss
• Starlink’s red light was network-related, not power-related
• My mom’s house shows the same behavior on a different outlet

So the outlet is not the cause.

---

8. What Copilot (AI) Has Helped Me Piece Together

I’ve been talking to Microsoft Copilot about this for a long time.
Some people say AI is great for networking, others say it’s not — but Copilot has helped me:  (being that I know nothing about any of this stuff. I don’t know whether to trust it or not so that’s why I’m asking you all professionals!)

• organize the timeline
• eliminate false leads
• compare behaviors across ISPs
• understand what logs mean
• understand what DNS does and doesn’t do
• understand how CDNs and routing work
• understand why my mom and I don’t always buffer at the same time

Together we’ve ruled out:

• Router
• ONT
• DNS
• Wiring
• Power
• Apple TV
• My house
• My mom’s house
• My ISP
• My LAN
• My WAN stability
• My logs
• My speed
• My jitter
• My packet loss

The only thing that has stayed consistent across:

• DSL
• Starlink
• Fiber
• Orbi
• ASUS
• My house
• My mom’s house
• Wired Apple TV
• Wi‑Fi devices

…is the streaming apps, the CDN nodes, and the routing outside my home.

---

9. My Actual Question for the Community

Given everything above:

• Is this just normal streaming/CDN behavior?
• Is there anything else I should test?
• Is there anything I can do to improve consistency?
• Is there something I’m missing?

I’m not trying to blame my ISP or my equipment — I just want to understand why this has followed me across three ISPs, two routers, two houses, and multiple devices.

Any insight would be appreciated.
Thank you for reading this extremely long post. I wanted to give every detail possible so you can help me figure this out.

i’m sorry that this post is so massive, but I didn’t wanna leave anything out if I could avoid it.  And again, as stated. Except for the actual air that I breathe, stable and “perfect“ Internet, connectivity is absolutely just as important to me. I hope that doesn’t sound trivial.

thanks for so much for hanging in there and reading all of this. I truly hope someone will have an answer. I’m willing to alter any setting on the router that I need. I can always reset it. I guess if I have to.

PS. The only Wi-Fi device I truly care about is my iPhone. My current iPhone is the iPhone 11 Pro Max. It supports WiFi 6 802.11ax offering faster, more efficient wireless with 2x2 MIMO, dual-band (2.4/5GHz) support, and compatibility with older standards (a/b/g/n/ac). Key specs include Gigabit-class LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, UWB, NFC, and cellular/Wi-Fi calling.  Just thought I might add that in case there are specific settings within the router that might make my iPhone Wi-Fi operate better as well.  One day I will upgrade to a Wi-Fi seven device, but I’m not ready to go that route just yet. Too much money!

[jzchen]

Well, you aren't the only one using Ai to help with computer/networking issues.  My son was given a subscription to ChatGPT while studying at CalState LA, and continues to pay for the subscription now that he has graduated.

I can admit that it has helped him beat me to the solution in the last occasion, which was a less than 1 Mbps upload speed on a PC at his work.  When he first started working last June he started working on a crazy Lambda Workstation running Ubuntu, and the first thing I talked him through was trying to update 22.04 to 24.04, unfortunately bricking the $10k build, that was just sitting in storage because nobody wanted to use it.  We were trying to restore it and he showed ChatGPT the boot screen, which told him which F key went to BIOS, and it beat me to that....

Just remember that it isn't perfect, similar to how our advice is not.  Sometimes we can tell you it is definitely wrong, and it may be.

A couple of comments/remarks.  Sharing that image of where you have the router is helpful.  Also sharing your ISP.  Because before this I guessed your ISP once, but then forgot.  (You didn't mask completely the name in a Speedtest).  This helps us help, because now I can see what your router is dealing with, and also can search for common concerns with your specific ISP.

Let's start with router placement.  Against the wall is not ideal.  I understand you are disabled from long before, but moving it outwards, away from the wall may help.  Also simply moving it higher to about level with what looks like a window may help.  Signal may be bouncing off the wall.  There is also what looks like a huge subwoofer right nearby.  Inside those are magnets, which could be causing a problem.  I can see it says WiFi so hopefully not, but any device that has that in the middle between it and the router can have signal issues.

I actually have experience with two fiber ISPs, AT&T is here at my parents' home whom we've lived with since we got married (my wife and I now that my son is in San Francisco working), and Frontier at a house my wife bought).  I would say your Co-Mo is similar as I have my old GT-AXE11000 connected directly to the ONT there, while I have to use the AT&T provided BGW320-500 here.

[jzchen]

My first experience with fiber was at the other house, with Frontier.  Not knowing any better, I simply had the installer put the ONT as near the entry point into the house would be.  Here when we upgraded from Cable Modem due to no price difference, I had asked the installer to run fiber to as best central location in the home here.  (Which is helpful because this house is at least twice the size as the other)....

The bottom line, since that location is next to a window, I can guess your ONT is nearby and it is not centrally located in the home.  It may be that you can get a technician to come out, relocate the ONT to a (much) more central location, then move the router there.

EDIT-  Simply ask Copilot whether it is better to place a router next to an exterior wall of your home or interior wall, and see what it says.  I'm confident it can explain to you....

[muusicman]

Believe me, if moving it was an option I’d do it. It’s not. I live with my 92 year old grandma. If she says no to another hole in the floor aka entry point than that’s that unfortunately. I’m hoping for a different solution if possible. I just want great streaming. I’ve run ping tests to every address I can. All with wonderful results. So im not sure the placement is bad. Especially on wired devices. Which is what I’m focused on. I use WiFi for mainly just my phone. Speeds are great already on it. Especially if I hold the phone in the air. You’ve seen my speedtest results from my phone, right? Idle ping 9 loaded ping is all over the place. It’s really solid though on my wired PC. 945+/939. I get definitely more consistent numbers like that now with the new router vs my Netgear  Orbi I had.  Still, streaming issues just flared up again today out of no where on my wired Apple TV 4K with a 1 g Ethernet port which I have going from the device to my router directly. I have it in the 2.5 port. I know it’s more but have been told it’s fine since the Apple TV caps anyway. 

[jzchen]

How about up 1 ft and away maybe a couple of inches away from the wall?  Wired devices should not be affected....

[muusicman]

i’m currently watching an on-demand stream and I am pinging my default gateway. I hope that’s the correct thing to Ping for checking to see if my ISP is the issue. Anyway, pretty much I’m getting 1 ms and 2 ms but every so often it goes haywire with 17 ms and 30 ms. I know that’s not not high and I have not had any buffering yet but who knows when or if it might happen. These numbers jumping like this concerns me.

[jzchen]

I never speed test while also streaming something online, but my ping here with AT&T is almost always 2.xx ms.  In the other house with Frontier ping is higher, but they offer higher speeds I guess because there is demand, (up to 7 Gbps).  It seems like traffic conditions with neighbors also loading may be causing these spikes....

[ROGn821r4hzr09n]

What you have described is an IP server issue and it is wholly a provider issue more likely at the server level but still possibly at the fiber distribution. This is also why you are seeing such extremely high latency. You need to hound your provider until they repair the problem.

There are a few other things for improvement such as jzchen has mentioned concerning router placement but the crux of this problem is your provider.

[muusicman]

I’ve mentioned the issues to my ISP. We went over every single issue. He did a whole panned of tests and even pulled everything off my ONT and rebuilt everything. I know there’s a name for it. Can’t think of it. 

[ROGn821r4hzr09n]

Keep after them. You Need their higher level tech department. The problem is on their end. I've seen this numerous times over the years and they will never admit to a problem. Often you'll see such problems reoccurring after providers change their service tier levels. The tech that came out only made sure the mechanical side was to spec. He has no control past that point.