Twitch working with Time Warner Cable to improve service

Twitch, the live-video network for gamers, has said it is currently working with US-based ISP Time Warner Cable to improve service to the site. At the same time, Time Warner Cable is assuring customers that they "don't throttle traffic."

Over the last six months, Internet users from around the United States have been increasingly speaking out claiming that Time Warner Cable, among other ISPs, have been slowing down their connections to streaming video services YouTube and Twitch.tv. This has prompted several Internet users to block certain IPs in an attempt to improve their experience.

This has prompted Time Warner Cable to publish a blog post defending their service, and to try and give reasoning behind the slow load times. "Occasionally, Internet users experience a lagging video game or a stuttering YouTube video," the post states.

"We do our best to minimize buffering and other slowdowns at Time Warner Cable, but this is normal for broadband users at any Internet service provider, at least some of the time. The reasons, as we'll explain below, have to do with the way the Internet works. A small subset of our customers, however, seem to think we are intentionally degrading their service."

"Our standard response has been a simple, 'We don't throttle traffic.' That's because we don't," Time Warner Cable firmly states, outlining different aspects on how video is transmitted on the Internet.

In a blog post on the official Twitch site, the company states that they have sat down with Time Warner Cable to improve connectivity. "Since that time we've heard from many TWC customers that the quality of Twitch video service has vastly improved," the post says. "This is a testament to your resolve and persistence, and TWC's willingness to sit down with us to find a solution."

The update comes a month after Twitch CEO Emmett Shear's Reddit AMA, where questions were asked directly related to Time Warner Cable. "We can't force them to peer with us anymore than you can," Shear said. "It doesn't help US to have bad service in any way."

There hasn't yet been a consensus if talks between Twitch and Time Warner Cable have resulted in increased speeds for users. Frustration with Time Warner Cable from users hasn't come just in the form of watching videos.

Popular YouTube personality and TWC-customer John "Totalbiscuit" Bain had his StarCraft II tournament, ShoutCraft, disrupted multiple times last month due a shaky connection.

"Watching or making YouTube videos or livestreams about videogames is getting more and more popular every day and some of those videos are getting views that rival cable networks in terms of popularity," Bain told GameSpot about the current state of content consumption for gaming-related media.

"This is not going away anytime soon and one could almost say, considering that TWC also serves cable television, that there is a conflict of interest going on. Consumers who wish to view the latest cutting edge media are struggling to do so because TWC is not in fact providing the best possible service it could."

"Time Warner has for the last few months been utterly dreadful for me whose job it is to create online media. Ridiculous buffering across the board, massive packet loss to Twitch ingest servers and laggy stream viewing is not the kind of thing you should be experiencing on a 50/5 connection."

"What's the point in speed if you don't have the reliability to back it up?"

Twitch and Time Warner Cable both declined additional comment to GameSpot.