Originally Posted by
narvik
I do not, no.
Maybe I am not as critical to outages; maybe I have far more issues with the service providers itself than the VPN; maybe I am just so glad that we're nowhere near where we were back in 2008 that a little drop of internet service here and there just doesn't bother me the slightest?
Also, I don't do anything live, stream, nor Zoom/Team.
I use a VPN almost 100% of the time, and don't have the VPN fail every 20-30 minutes. It goes for MUCH longer than that.
(Typing this through A on United over the Pacific.....)
I'm curious what endpoints and which protocol you're using I'm typically on Stealth but rotate between Santa Clara, Los Angeles, and maybe a couple other US west coast locations, plus Japan and HK. But everything I tried was having outages. And once I did experience an outage, I wasn't able to reconnect to the same endpoint for about 10-20 minutes. But after 10-20 minutes, I could reconnect (although I typically would move on to another endpoint). Constantly having to rotate endpoints manually like this is annoying and they actually need to do this automatically, where the client connects to multiple endpoints and funnels data through all of them, and if one goes down, the other pick up the slack, kind of like an airplane with multiple engines. Except this plane should be able to install a new engine in flight and keep going (connect to yet another endpoint) without any interruption in service or intervention by the end user.
Originally Posted by
moondog
I know about, and respect, your live streaming needs, but most of us don't have such high bars, so these are uncharted waters. The HK SIM route is probably a better bet for you than A (iirc it let you down last time), especially since you do most of your streaming outside (i.e. have a good 5G connection). Please keep us posted. We will certainly help you optimize your strategy to the best of our abilities.
ETA: For the sake of STS's mission, can any of you guys comment on which specific HK SIMs are best? There are three sub-components to this question: a) Unicom, Telecom, Mobile; b) amount of throttling; c) indoor connectivity.
The only HK SIMs I've used are connected to Mobile, and they work fine for my needs (low bar, as previously mentioned)...and, you definitely want Mobile if you're traveling in third tier cities. However, Unicom has far more advanced network tech. I haven't used Telecom in quite a while, but some of my friends (also with low bars) are happy with it. WRT indoor connectivity, Mobile definitely wins (v Unicom), but you need to be in a pretty bad location for Unicom to seriously let you down.
Back on topic, if you were in HK, and wanted a SIM that would allow you to do fast, interactive, unbroken live streams in SH, what SIM would you choose?
Yeah, that's a very good question. To complicate the matter even more, the Quality-of-service Class Identifier (QCI) associated with a SIM card varies according to the service plan, at least in the US. For example, AT&T has most of its consumer plans on QCI-8. For customers whose unlimited plans throttle after reaching a specific usage threshold, the throttling is implemented by moving them to QCI-9 once the threshold is reached (higher QCI numbers mean lower priority). AT&T Turbo moves you from QCI-8 to QCI-7; I have this add-on and it absolutely does make a difference especially when you are live streaming. There was a guy at Anaheim's Disneyland who had a plan that put him on QCI-9 and he had frequent video freezes; QCI-8 is mostly usable although when I was sitting on the train next to someone who was on a QCI-8 plan and we both went in the Primeval World tunnel between Tomorrowland and Main Street, her video froze while mine continued uninterrupted. QCI-6 seems to be reserved for business traffic on the Business Unlimited Elite plan, plus some "lower level" FirstNet (first responder) users like medical doctors, and QCI-5 is FirstNet for people like police, fire, etc. Lower QCI values are reserved for signaling traffic, voice calls, etc.
But I have no idea what the general data QCI levels are for:
1. CMHK SIM in HK
2. CMHK SIM in the Mainland
3. CSL SIM in HK
4. CSL SIM in the Mainland
5. AT&T SIM in either place
6. Unicom HK SIM in HK (which is a MVNO)
7. Unicom HK SIM in the Mainland
Most carriers put roamers at QCI-9 by default, but they don't have to. And given that China Mobile is the same conglomerate, would they give their own roamers a better data priority? Would postpaid be better? Would a mainland postpaid account be better? All questions I just don't have the answers to. QCI levels are also relative; the absolute numbers don't really mean much but it depends on where the carrier has put everyone else in comparison to you. And to make matters even more complicated, AT&T implements QCI-6 for its Business Unlimited Elite plan with business traffic inside the tower, so even if you root your phone and have it show the transmitted QCI level, it will show QCI-7 instead of QCI-6. But once your business traffic hits the tower, it gets sent ahead of everyone else's except for FirstNet. General non business traffic remains at QCI-7, same as AT&T Turbo. But yeah, the problem is I don't have anywhere near this level of insight to what's going on with the carriers in the PRC and in HK.